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| 515 West 18 Street, former site of The Roxy |
Yesterday, I went
on a walking tour called Gay Bars That Are Gone, organized by Michael Ryan and
Kyle Supley as part of Jane Jacobs Walks1.
We started out at
The Roxy2, a huge former disco on West 18 Street. I recounted my
story of how once I had gone to see Chaka Khan perform there and she invited
some man up on stage to sing with her. That was brave enough of him! But this
man had the audacity to criticize Ms. Khan’s singing, to which she replied, “I
have perfect pitch, bitch!” (OK, she didn’t actually say “bitch.”) That was the
end of him!
There were other
shows I saw at Roxy, in addition to going to their regular John Blair Saturday
nights, which were probably the preeminent gay dance party of the ’90s. I saw
Malcolm McLaren there when the venue was booked by an English woman named Ruza
Blue, who promoted hip hop nights there. I saw New Order in concert there when
it was called 1018. And I was supposed to see Dee-Lite there when they were at
the peak of their popularity (after “Groove Is in the Heart” was released), but
they never showed up. Roxy was never really my scene, though, because it
catered to what were then known as “Chelsea boys” (i.e., gay men who worked out
and generally lived in Chelsea). In fact, Supley even mentioned that Blair had
a rating system to determine who got in the door.
I was not
surprised.
Then we moved on
to The Anvil. Now that was my joint!
Although I was
too young and naïve to even know what was going on in the catacomb-like
backroom, I was there for New Wave nights every Tuesday (deejayed by Bill
Bahlman), which featured performances by a lip-synch artist named Bernard
Zette, who later appeared in the film Last Exit to Brooklyn. My former neighbor, actress/comedian/playwright
Nora Burns, told about how she was prevented from getting in at a nearby disco
called Alex in Wonderland by the doorman and later wound up appearing in a play
with him.
On the way to our
next stop, we paused around the corner from Little West 12th Street
to talk about the notorious Mineshaft. This was a club that was known for its
wild sexual exploits and its strict dress code, which was as follows:
Cycle leather & Western gear, levis
Jocks, action ready wear, uniforms,
T shirts, plaid shirts, just plain shirts,
Club overlays, patches, & sweat.
NO COLOGNES or PERFUMES
NO SUITS, TIES, DRESS PANTS
NO RUGBY SHIRTS, DESIGNER SWEATERS, or TUXEDOS
NO DISCO DRAG or DRESSES
Jocks, action ready wear, uniforms,
T shirts, plaid shirts, just plain shirts,
Club overlays, patches, & sweat.
NO COLOGNES or PERFUMES
NO SUITS, TIES, DRESS PANTS
NO RUGBY SHIRTS, DESIGNER SWEATERS, or TUXEDOS
NO DISCO DRAG or DRESSES
also
NO HEAVY OUTTER [sic] WEAR IS TO BE WORN IN PLAYGROUND
Apparently, such
celebrities as Mick Jagger and Elton John were refused entry for not dressing
the part.
I only went there
once when I was very young and ran out screaming like a frightened schoolgirl (OK, I
exaggerate slightly) when some gentleman tried to pick me up and, shaking his
hand, I realized it was covered with the same lube that was covering his bare
buttocks.
The next stop was
Florent, the much-missed French bistro owned by the eccentric Florent Malloret.
(There’s an excellent documentary about him called Florent: Queen of the
Meat Market3). In addition to
their reasonable menu, Florent was probably most famous for its Bastille Day
street fair, where the owner would sometimes dress up in drag as Marie
Antoinette. They were also known for being very accepting of HIV-positive
people at a time when that was a very rare thing. (Florent himself was openly
HIV-positive at a time when that was also very rare and would keep a running count of his T-cells on the menu.)
There was also a famous nude photograph of HIV-positive people which appeared
on the cover of Poz magazine, which was taken in his restaurant.4
Then we continued
to Jackson Square (passing the former site of the notorious Hellfire5
and J’s Hangout6 on the way) to talk about a lesbian bar called
Sea Colony7, which I’d never heard of. (Perhaps I can be forgiven for that, since they were open in the '50s and '60s and I'm not a lesbian.)
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| Me talking about watching the season finale of "Dynasty" (where the entire cast gets shot) at Uncle Charlie's. |
On to Uncle
Charlie’s8, where I talked about the night I watched the season
finale of “Dynasty” (in which everyone was shot). Uncle Charlie’s was a chain
of gay bars (the other branches were in Midtown, the Upper East Side and the
Village). They had a reputation as a “stand and model” (or “S&M” as it was
jokingly abbreviated) bar and the customers were generally young and preppy
Izod-wearing All-American Boy types (as in the clothing store that used to be
on Christopher Street). It was also the site of the first anti-gay terrorist
attack in the United States, and the owner was allegedly involved in a murder.
After Splash
opened in Chelsea in the early ’90s, all the preppies migrated to Chelsea,
which marked the beginning of Chelsea’s reign as the preeminent gay
neighborhood of that decade.
Next stop was The
Ninth Circle. I was never a big customer there, but apparently it was a very
cool place (according to Burns, it had a great jukebox). I know that it’s
featured heavily in Brad Gooch’s memoir Smash Cut (it’s where he met his lover, film director Howard Brookner), and it’s
where Edward Albee allegedly got the idea for the title of his play Who’s
Afraid of Virginia Wolf.
Further down West
10th Street was the Snake Pit. This bar was a contemporary of the
original Stonewall bar, and its history was equally marked by violence. In March
1970, for example, after a police raid, a terrified young Argentine jumped out
of a second-floor window and impaled himself on a 14-inch spike while
attempting to escape from police custody.9
Walking down
Grove Street, we passed what used to be a veritable “piano bar row” of Marie’s
Crisis, the original Duplex (later Rose’s Turn) and the Five Oaks. The only one
remaining is Marie’s Crisis.
Finally, we
stopped in Christopher Street Park10 (now a National Historic
Landmark along with the Stonewall) to talk about the Duchess, another lesbian
bar which apparently had a lot of fighting outside (again, according to Burns),
before adjourning to Julius (another landmark11, and New York’s
oldest gay bar) for drinks and dancing.
2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxy_NYC
3 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1378667/
8
http://lostwomynsspace.blogspot.com/2011/06/sea-colony.html
10
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/julius-bar-gay-rights-landmark-named-historic-site-article-1.2575251
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