New York in the 70s- Page 4

[newintown]

Posted: 6/23/11 at 4:48pm

I can't speak for the others, but I never sucked a token or jumped a turnstile in my life. Maybe I should have...

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 6/23/11 at 10:08pm

This is a fascinating thread.

I'm curious to know about the attitudes of the 70s as well as the transformation/geography of Times Square...what was it like to be gay in NYC back then? I know the city is a liberal and open-minded place, but society sure was different back then in a lot of ways. Could you feel comfortable walking around with a partner? Were there the same proliferation of gay bars?

I know about the Stonewall riots, but to be honest I'm not up to speed on what happened next...forgive my ignorance.

Updated On: 6/23/11 at 10:08 PM

[charlesjguiteau]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 12:14am

Wow, Jay, you're question is gonna open the floodgates that could veer this thread way off-topic, but here goes.

I was only 20 in the mid-70's so a lot of the real gay scene was still more myth than reality for me. But there sure were tons of gay bars, all sorted carefully by neighborhood and clientele. Upper West Side had a smattering of what I thought were yuppy bars. The East 50's clubs were known for fancier gentlemen and rentboys. But Christopher Street and vicinity was the nexus of bar-life: some disco dance spaces, some leather/western, some full-on darkrooms, some cozy neighborhood cocktail bars. I'd say the West Village was the only place most New York gays would have been comfortable holding hands on the street. But weekends there the party filled the sidewalks all the way down to the piers.

And ah, the piers. All the ruined warehouses along the Hudson with rotted plank decks and vast iron spaces above (picture Eugene Lee's set for Sweeney Todd with giant holes in the floor). Full-disclosure: I never saw the piers at night when the scene was so rampant. It was terrifying enough to climb around those spaces in the daylight. But grab a book like Numbers or City of Night by John Rechy, and you'll know exactly what the world was like for one segment of New York's gay guys.

For those of us who were a lot LESS adventuresome, there were the baths, which were sweet and campy and fun. (Check out a script for The Ritz to get the vibe.) A typical Saturday for me and my friends in Hartford would be to drive down for a matinee and evening show on Broadway, and finish off the night at a bathhouse, in the way that straights could party at places like Plato's Retreat. Someone else on this board will have to tell you what Studio 54 was like in the 70's. I never got past the velvet rope till the mid-80's when the place was filled with nobody's just like me. For the same reason I missed the gay mega-clubs like The Saint and The Limelight. Others will have to tell you what they were like.

I also remember that to live as an out gay guy in New York then was still a distinctly political choice. We poured over the New York Native, and protested Anita Bryant's hate campaign, and mourned Harvey Milk's death as if our lives depended on it. And we'd go back to the Shubert Theater as often as we could afford, to listen to Paul's monologue in A Chorus Line and cry for a gay existence that we had all managed to escape.

[Bettyboy72]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 1:36am

WOW-I love hearing stage door stories like PalJoey's. I mean can you imagine having an actual moment with a star. People are piranhas now and they will stop even if they don't know who the actor is if they see someone else getting an autograph.

Also the insanity of the cameras, cameraphones and videocams makes actors run for the hills. Its such an invasion of privacy.

I always considered stage dooring to be for a quiet moment between an actor and an audience member who just viewed their show to exchange pleasantries. No filming, no pictures. Just a signed Playbill and a lovely memory.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 3:35am

I used to love to go to Beefsteak Charlies ("You're gonna get spoiled") before the show. All the beer wine of sangria you can drink came with the meal. Only being snockered helped me get through some of the shows I saw back then.

Then there was Ma Bells, in Shubert Alley and the bins of old theater programs in the shops in the area after the show (and of course, dumpster diving for all the programs to shows I didn't see that night. I must have 100 playbills for shows I never attended.

Good times.

Oh, and I got right into the middle of a huge fight with about half-a-dozen guys punching the crap out of each other and, other than a slight jostle, the ignorred me as fist raced past my face.

And then there was the time I brought my new girlfriend to New York for the very first time and we checked into the St. Moritz, on Central Park South and as we walked out of the hotel for the first time, she got mugged by an enormous guy in a tracksuit.

Hmmmmmm, maybe not-so-good-times.....

Updated On: 6/25/11 at 03:35 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 6:48am

Great post, Charles. Thanks for the memories.

[Dawn Davenport]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 8:41am

My favorite "scary 70s NY memory" was the one time my sister and I went to the movies on 42nd Street (the OLD 42nd Street---before Disney came a' callin')

We saw a double-feature of "Monty Python & The Holy Grail" and "Putney Swope". I was probably 18, my sister 16 and there was a pretty scary vibe in the theatre. At the moment when someone threw their beer bottle from the balcony and it sailed over our heads and crashed into the movie screen, I thought to myself "Maybe I shouldn't have brought my little sister here." Heh.

We never saw a movie on 42nd Street together again. Though years later we did see "The Pajama Game" with Harry Connick Jr. and Kellie O'Hara in one of the nicely renovated theatres there (and had a MAJOR celeb sighting that that show too---Hillary and Chelsea Clinton!)

I'm not sorry that the city has been made safer, but I wish it hadn't been at the cost of so much of it's CHARACTER. I don't want Manhattan to look like everywhere else

I'm not having a go at the tourists (anywhere I go outside NYC I'm a tourist too), it's that RENT IS TOO DAMN HIGH for unique people and places to flourish here.

[songanddanceman2]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 9:42am

Newintown - i very rarely agree with anything you say but

"It would be virtually impossible for a Charles Ludlam to come of age today, forming a troupe, finding a theatre, writing and producing his own bizarre and brilliantly entertaining shows for a couple hundred dollars, and receiving attention from the Times. A new Circle Rep would be equally impossible."

That i totally agee with, i had the same converstaion with Charles Busch and he said the same thing

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 10:15am

I think what's missing today are the interesting character types. Just walking around town you could pass so many different types.

You would go into Chock Full Of Nuts and a fifty something woman would come over to the counter and she would say "Whater youz have?" and she would be tapping her pencil on her pad. She'd place the order then she'd walk over and continue her conversation with the other waitress.

You would walk into Woolworth's and there would be older ladies behind the counter. You knew they weren't making much as their clothes were very plain, but they were always very polite and courteous, always paid attention to what they were doing.

Woolworth's had their lunch counter with the fascinating machine that spurted grapeade.

You could walk into the more residential areas around the East Side and see hundreds of Ethel Mertz or Alice Kramden types. They were sweeping their stoops, their hair done up in a rag, wearing housedress and slippers.

And you could still go to the theater and see matinee ladies wearing tailored outfits, some with furs, wearing jewelry.

The men along Madison Avenue and Park Avenue were always wearing suits, carrying briefcases. By the 1970s, men had ditched their hats, were wearing wide ties. While the older men were still wearing their three piece suits, some of the younger men had started wearing the leisure suits.

[Jane2]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 10:29am

My experience re the gay male lifestyle in the 70's. This was the most fabulous decade of my life. Our scene was disco disco disco, drugs, gay bars, drugs, the PInes, drugs. I had the most fun of my life and don't regret it. I lived in the west village on Christopher St. and my apt. was gay dudes central for about 8 years.

In town, some of the clubs we went to were Studio, the Flamingo, the Palladium, Area, the Mudd Club, the Pyramid, the Cock ring, the Anvil, the Monster, etc. We'd take drugs (mesculin, ecstacy, quaaludes, acid, pot, coke). and go out around midnight, dance without stopping until about 5, come home, go to sleep.

At the Pines, it was-have dinner, go to sleep, wake up around 2am, take drugs, go out dancing, come home about 6 and jump in the pool, go to sleep.

At this point, there wasn't AIDS to worry about so everyone was pretty carefree. Hence, the great popularity of the meatrack. Some of the fun was trying on every single outfit we had in the house until it looked like we didn't try to put an outfit together. Sometimes we had to turn around and go back to the house because someone didn't like their outfit after all!

No, I'm not a gay man but I lived the lifestyle 24/7 with my gay male friends. The decade represented carefree fun. Life has become so much less carefree and fun since then. So, in hindsight, that was the best time of my life.

[Kad]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 10:30am

I have to say that, although far too young to have experienced the NYC of the 70s or 80s, there are still undeniably those characters and places in the city. They've been pushed out of the midtown area, for the most part, but they're here.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 11:36am

I remember the first day of school getting off the downtown train and when I venture out into the street the very first thing I came face-to-face with was not another human being, but this:

[uncageg]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 11:38am

I remember that poster.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 1:13pm

I got off one stop down from my school. I was next to the Nederlander Theater and little ole me with my school back pack had to make my way all the way back up to 49th Street between 8th and 9th Avenue. The things I saw! This was circa 1982 so you can imagine walking on 8th Avenue during that time!

Updated On: 6/24/11 at 01:13 PM

[sondheimfan2]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 1:28pm

I can't comment on the gay scene as I didn't come out until later in life (my 40s), but I saw many shows in the 80s.

I was always a little anxious to leave the theater and walk back to the Port Authority at 11:00 pm. Hookers, panhandlers, and muggers...oh my.

Contrast that with one night last year when I missed the last bus home and spent the entire night in Times Square - felt safe all the whole night.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/24/11 at 9:56pm

Born and raised in Manhattann (Inwood)....memories of old New York:
After elementary school graduation, a group of around 20 11-12 year olds jump on the A train and get off at 125th Harlem and go to the Apollo theater...It was a scary and exciting time for a bunch of white jewish kids with a token black friend to be exploring Harlem circa 1966. Harlem was not pretty then.

A few years later I had my Sweet Sixteen party at The Ginza, a discoteque complete with go go dancers in cages. I only just found out that this place was one of the hot gay clubs in NYC at the time. I think it was on Madison and 56th.

[AADA81]

Posted: 6/25/11 at 4:47am

I lived in NYC in the late 70s / early 80s. It was messier and more dangerous than now, but a lot of the character and quirkiness has been blanded out, especially in Times Square, by corporate America. Time Square looks like a theme park and the multiple skyscrapers that now overwhelm it make it seem like a cavern. Back then, you still had a lot of the stores and restaurants from New York's halcion days (Horn and Hardarts, HoJos), the vestiges of the great movie palaces were still there and you could get an orchestra seat for "Sweeney Todd" on a Friday evening for $16.00 (we did...it was fabulous).

That said, 42nd Street back in the day was a disgusting pig-sty and the hookers, drug dealers and panhandlers were everywhere. I remember hearing "Do you want a date?" coming from countless doorways in that area as I walked through doing my job (a messenger). You just had to know where to walk and when. Still, this was before crack impacted the city and gangs were only beginning to be the problem they became for a while later on. It got very bad in the 80s and early 90s.

What I miss is the character New York had then. Now it seems corporate and Vegas-sy in the worst ways. I still love the theatre district and go there all the time, but the romance of the big city isn't the same anymore.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 6/25/11 at 6:47am

It's the smell.

I've smelled Cairo, Bombay, Singapore and Hong Kong.

New York was totally different back then. Pretzel and diesel oil, sweat and terror made for a heady mix as you walked down into the subway.

[Idiot]

Posted: 6/25/11 at 3:24pm

"I remember hearing "Do you want a date?" coming from countless doorways in that area as I walked through doing my job (a messenger)."

But AADA81, did you? Did you want a date? I mean, it's a legitimate question.



As a 16 year old on a trip from NC to NYC with my family I once made a covert appointment with a gay male hooker in the Village to have my 'first experience'. But since it happened in the early 80's, I can't tell the rest of the story in this thread.

[Pammylicious]

Posted: 6/25/11 at 6:01pm

One more very prevalent thing was The Son of Sam killing. As a young woman going out in the evenings I was so afraid. One killing happened 10 blocks from my house, several others in my borough (Queens)

[Jon]

Posted: 6/25/11 at 9:34pm

In the late 70's, I learned that if you put on a white shirt in the morning and walked around Manhattan all day, by night you were wearing a gray shirt.

Espececially in August.

And the smells...

Posted: 6/30/11 at 6:08pm

Jay-Lerner, while (largely) fictional, I'd really recommend reading Holleran's late 70s gay novel Dancer from the Dance. It gives a fairly vivid view of the gay party lifestyle back then, at least one I assume to be accurate (if exagerated).

"Yes, there have always been visitors to the city, but to back up the statement that mass tourism didn't begin until post-WWII, here's a bit of info:

"...the city created the first agency to promote tourism, the New York City Convention and Visitors Bureau in 1935. By 1945 (end of WWII), the Circle Line boats began their sightseeing excursions.

A decade later (1955), tourism had become a major industry and officials actively marketed its image, eventually birthing slogans like "Fun City," "Big Apple," and "I LOVE NY." "

Of course that's all true, but it should be pointed out that tourism aimed at the middle class didn't really start anywhere--at least in the UK and N America, until around that time. But that doesn't make your point any less relevent.

I hate to say it but some of the nightmare stories about NY in the 70s posted here don't sound far removed from what one encounters in parts of downtown Vancouver today. Of course East Hastings area (which the government famously tried to cover up for the Olympics) is apparently one of the very worst areas in North America, period, you literally turn a corner and suddenly in daytime people are smoking crack in every other doorway, etc. I lived there for a while right after I graduated high school--it was cheap and convenient) but I remember one friend taught me that at night it was better to walk in the middle of the road, between the lanes, then on the sidewalk if you didn't want to be threatened.

When I went to San Francisco a month back, my friend who has never lived in a bigger city got quite worried because the guidebooks all warned that where we were staying was notorious for drugs, prostitutes and the homeless, and not recommended. (It was the Tenderloin)--but I felt perfectly safe there, unlike I have in parts of dowtown Vancouver--sure you saw people at night shooting up in the doorways, etc (but not in the day...) but no one ever bugged us.

[spike3]

Posted: 7/1/11 at 8:45am

Needle Park was the street name for the park on 72nd and Broadway, by the subway station. You can see it in the Al Pacino film,The Panic in Needle Park. I lived up there on 73rd and Columbus at that time

[spike3]

Posted: 7/1/11 at 9:07am

New York in the 70s. Columbus Ave was just about all mom and pop stores, Charivari came in at the late 70s, corner of 72 and Columbus. Two popular gay bars on Columbus between 73rd and 75th. We (boys and girls) would go and drink beer and play PacMan all afternoon. The Nickel bar, an all black gay bar was on 72nd bet Columbus and Amsterdam.
One never went above 96th in those days, too dangerous. Amsterdam Ave was a dump. Columbus Ave was just coming out of its slump.
The unemployment office, "Club 90" was Bway and 90th I believe. After your show closed you went up there weekly to stand in line, see your friends, and sign for your check.
The two main rehearsal studios were Showcase Studios,8th and 56th, (rehearsed my 1st NY show there),and Broadway Arts around the corner on Broadway. All that Jazz was filmed at one of those studios. Minskoff Studios were just starting if I recall.
In the late 70s I was doing a show at the Felt Forum,(the theatre at MSG)and dating someone in Peter Pan. My show was over 1st so I would go and meet him at the Lunt. From there we would go to Charlies on 45th, or the Ice Palace on 57th. There was also a place you could roller disco!
For awhile, because of crime they switched curtain time from 8:30 to 7:30, then they settled on 8PM.
Yeah it was dangerous, but it was also exciting.
The Rivoli Theatre, the Criterion, Loews State 1 and 2, the Penthouse, Cinerama and Orleans theatres were all up and running the big roadshow movie musicals. And Radio City still had a movie and stage show.
One other thing, it was of course much cheaper then, you could survive on your unemployment, pay rent, go out, and live. Good times!
Updated On: 7/1/11 at 09:07 AM

[Jane2]

Posted: 7/1/11 at 9:32am

Actually, "needle park" was the former name of what now is Bryant Park. It's behind the main branch of the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue. It's a really nice park now, but used to be populated by drug sellers and users. It wasn't a safe place.