He took them because he just loved drag queens and club kids, Glam said. From 1948 to 1966, Palladium was home to the best suited, most unbelievably cool people in the world. Centro Fly eventually shut down and was replaced by the unfortunate Duvet, which itself was just ordered closed. So, while Flashs stock as a local legend never fell off, its been a minute since it paid such high market dividends. I don't know what he was doing with the photos other than meticulously putting them in boxes. His day job was as a bookkeeper. Rare images of NYC nightclubs from the 1980s and '90s - amNewYork Each night was an out-and-out Bacchanal, with Cab Calloway, Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others soundtracking the vice emporium with songs like "Reefer Blues," "Kicking the Gong Around" (20's slang for using opium), and "Kokey Joe.. Club USA had a big blue circular slide that went from the balcony to the dancefloor, so if you felt the rhythm just up, jump in and get down. So I was shocked when I got that call a few days later, asking if I wanted to play the opening slot at their new party the coming Friday. He basically just went out to clubs or whatever types of events we were going to and took photos. Paradise Garage, Keith Haring, Birthday Party for DJ Larry Levan. Bars & Nightlife - NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project A reaction to the giant, airplane hangar-esque discos that had permeated the city during the 1970s, Nells was a Jazz, Reggae and Hip-Hop dance club with a capacity of just 250. It was going to be hard to go back to playing my other bumble-fuck gigs after having this taste of the high life. The bar was famous for having 61 flavors of martinis and a delicious cosmopolitan, which seem so horribly lame now but were actually headline grabbing at the time. Bungalow 8 After the success of Lot 61, Amy Sacco opened her second venue on a desolate West Chelsea street in 2001 in a dilapidated warehouse and garage on West 27th Street. A Visual Storytelling by Lucas Compan. I asked some (famous) friends to write about these iconic pieces of art and the music and nightlife scenes they representincluding Mark Ronson, Moby, Nelson George, Frankie Inglese, Patrick Moxey and Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite. Mayor Rudy Giuliani had declared war on dance clubs, the days of the Club Kids were in their final throes and the reign of Peter Gatien and clubs like Tunnel were winding down. The clubs brought people together, and I would delight in all the love and passion I saw throughout the club scene. They had the very best DJs (Stretch Armstrong, DJ Jules, DJ Enuff, DJ Hiro, Frankie Inglese) and the most beautiful array people (models, rap stars, ballers, art kids, skaters, drug dealers, etc.). .css-o05pt{display:block;font-family:Didot,Didot-fallback,Georgia,Times,serif;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:0rem;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;text-shadow:0 0 0 #000,0 0 0.01em transparent;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-o05pt:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.18581rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.25rem;margin-top:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-o05pt{line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-top:0rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.39461rem;line-height:1.2;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}The Best Restaurants for Brunch in NYC, The Best Last-Minute Weekend Getaways from NYC, 100+ Things to See and Do in New York City, 15 New York City Pools To Lounge By This Summer, Eat Chic: The 10 Best Manhattan Speakeasies, The Best Staycation Hotels in New York City. Spa also sold 16 different types of bottled water, another of those trends that must have been so original at the time but now seem just plain silly. Its a simple royal blue, glossy card adorned with an image of a 70s era Barry White. Part of HuffPost Entertainment. Later, with early Photoshop, Id find an image and my man Richie would work on it on a computer which wed rent by the hour, and then wed take the design to a print shop. Of all these places only SOBs has survived into this new era, a place where I met one my most beloved girlfriends and saw Kanye West for the first time, reasons enough I hope it can survive this new, more buttoned down NYC. Golden Years: New York Nightlife In The '50s. Or it could be as playful and eye-catching as Warhols pop art, flipping the script on some iconic image hoping to seize your attention as you walked by the window of a hip Soho boutique. And if that wasnt enough of a draw, every Wednesday night, the club hosted a contest, from pie-eating and singing challenges, to best legs competitions between its famous dancers and attractive clubgoers. In 1995, Di Biasio gave Glam four boxes of his photos to store in his closet. The venue shut down in 2001, and is now a showroom for Duxiana, a company that makes luxury beds. A new documentary, Do You Own The Dancefloor?, talks to . For one, he was older than most of the people out at the clubs, and with his salt-and-pepper hair, he looked it. Studio 54 took its disco very seriously, Le Clique was all about the Moulin Rouge. By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Those flyers were so much more than just paper and cardboard. All rights reserved. "The Night Time is the Right Time" was the title of a published discussion between art writer Edit DeAk and curator Diego Cortez . Dec 31, 2021 - New York City 1980s and 1990s night club underground scene - sound factory / limelight / nell's / tunnel / danceteria / carmelita's / M.K. Southpaw was a Park Slope, Brooklyn, venue that hosted a wide range of bands from Cat Power and TV on the Radio to Electric Six and Sharon Jones through much of the 2000s. Below weve excerpted some choice images, words and memories to recapture an essential cultural moment. Full of California style decor and Hollywood Glamour this nightclub soon became the NYC playground for the A-List including Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and more. Koko Da Doll, who was featured in "Kokomo City," a documentary about four Black transgender sex workers that won awards at the Sundance Film Festival this year, was fatally . In the Limelight: the Visual Ecstasy of Nyc Nightlife in The '90s The venue shut down nearly a decade ago after the building's owner, New York University, raised rent, and now the building has NYU classrooms. The long shuttered 21st Street lounge was named after a long defunct store in Milan and had a mod design, offering both food and dancing to a house music loving crowd. Theyre so emblematic of that time no computers, totally DIY. Everyone was a star, and everyone could be a star. It's been said that New . The MisShapes had everything you could want in a gala costumes, tourists, tight pants, and Leigh Lezark, Princess Coldstare herself. Fresh out my freshman year at Vassar College, Id only been DJing about a year but I was already getting decent gigs that summer house parties, hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. The classic version of The Velvet Underground played some of their last shows there, and the venue hosted early New York gigs by Patti Smith, Aerosmith, and Bruce Springsteen. Then, people came here from all over the world on pilgrimages, said Lawrence. There were other ways to have fun and let one's inner child out. Nowadays, the notion of a DJ running the gamut from dub to hip-hop to disco/house to techno to African sounds, playing to a large crowd that takes it all in, is less norm than its own peculiar lane. From the days of all-night jazz jams and hangover cures at the Plaza, the club scene in New York has undergone evolutions of pop, disco, punk, rock, trance, EDM and anything else that provides a sufficiently loud musical backdrop for sex, scandal, and the occasional bout of mayhem. But CBGBs was not for the faint of heart, fights and substance-fueled violence were a regular occurrence, including Dee-Dee Ramone who reportedly had frequent jealous battles with his groupie girlfriend (picture broken beer bottle threats and smashed windshields). E. Jean Carroll was 'out talking to people' Long before this fraught moment in the media's glare, Carroll was a journalistic luminary, known for her Ask E. Jean advice column, and for being a . We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. One of the biggest turning points in my life was getting that job. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. And audiences that were hard to pinpoint too more Caucasian and younger than at Flash, but hardly monochromatic, ready for a long haul, and, to echo Dynells self-assessment, determined to be active participants rather than tourists. On my nights off, I went to parties like Giant Step & Soul Kitchen. / copacabana. New York City nightlife has always been pivotal within pop culture. Lotus was meant to be a place for everyone, dancing dining, conversation and wildness, and as the Meatpacking District developed, the space was a raging success. 20 Best Lounges And Nightclubs In NYC For Dancing - Secret NYC Roxy had a swing high above the dancefloor where couples would relive those playground days of their youth while drinking an adult beverage. That party, nicknamed the Loft, basically launched global DJ and club culture; and in presenting its details, Lawrence suddenly had a career documenting the founding corner of contemporary dance music. 06/27/16. It feels like times have changed. Something went wrong. Below, we look at twenty-nine engrossing images of the underground rave scene as it grew throughout the 1990s: Ravers often wore multi-colored plastic bracelets known as "kandi," which often featured the words "peace love unity respect." Those who wore them were referred to as "kandi kids." MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly, became the . Ive put my brain through some wear and tear over the years and honestly have a hard time remembering names of places I played last week, but I will never forget the name and address of that party: Nut n Honey at Tilt, 179 Varick Street (corner of King Street, for extra credit). As the discussions of long-gone clubs gave way to movement on living, breathing dancefloors, the weight and spotlight of the citys history could be felt everywhere, in the crowd and in the DJ booth. Crossing genres: a dancer at the Mudd Club in 1979. he timing and location of the nights entertainment . For one, he was older than most of the people out at the clubs, and with his salt-and-pepper hair, he looked it. However, JFK reportedly preferred the quieter Champagne Room, a private dining area in the back of the club. At House of Yes, one of this tales endless postscripts played out as real-time legend. In their place, smaller clubs like Tunnel opened in Chelsea, and that's when Glam said the club kidsyoung, outlandishly dressed people who partied several times a weekemerged. Worlds apart from the venues I was playing, these were the holy grail of hip New York. Sweating and pulsing to the beat simultaneously with thousands of other people. The famous flocked there to rock (Bruce Springsteen famously played there in 1972), work (Debbie Harry waitressed there), hang out (Tom Waits and William Burroughs were regulars), and well, one time Jim Morrison apparently couldnt make it to the restroom, so he urinated in a wine bottle all night and then handed it to his waitress. In 2014, Mr. Lagerfeld unveiled "Bag Boy Karlito," a limited-edition bag charm made in his image from mink, fox and goat. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Coney Island High (15 St. Mark's Place) Coney Island High, located on 15 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, was the most popular punk venue in New York through much of the '90s. When you look at a great club flyer, theres a beauty in the economy of the design. Even LL Cool J worked the elevators. These photos, from the early '80s into the late '90s, give . I'm a night owl and find the vice side of New York to be much more to my liking. I would walk the streets of the Lower East Side for hours to find spaces like olive oil warehouses, Polish war veterans homes, El Salvadorian refugee centers; different places where we could throw the parties. A glorious time when people went to clubs pretty much strictly to enjoy the music, and whether rap, soul, disco, dancehall, house, boogie, R&B, the music was incredible! This is a list of notable current and former nightclubs in New York City. The Roxy - Awesome Photos From 1990s Mega NYC Skate Club Billing itself as part disco, part circus theatre, it features DIY dcor, psychedelic projections, dressed-for-cabaret employees and an audience always ready to let loose. Reading Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor as a clubber in the city is to reflect not only on whats been lost over the past three decades, but on how the sounds, events and characters at the center of Lawrences story still influence NYCs nightlife. Nells was the epitome of the exclusivity-obsessed 1980s, that not even the rich and famous could get into. Were seeing that difficult period shifting into something more engaged and hospitable. Truly, the most amazing collection of people came to Milky Way whether it was Keith Haring, or John Kennedy Jr. & Darryl Hannah slumming it or whether it was the Jungle Brothers or Russell and Lyor and Fab Five Freddy. The Paradise Garage is one of the most famous and influential dance clubs of all time, and was an epicenter for LGBT culture in the late '70s and early '80s, and the home base of legendary DJ Larry Levan. Historic Bars of New York City | NYCgo If you enjoyed reading this, please click the below. This is a list of notable current and former nightclubs in New York City. 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