New York once offered a smorgasbord of sex establishments: clubs, baths and parties. They would come and go (much like their patrons) and they reflected the nature of gay life in successive eras, a civilization gone with the wind....

We will differentiate sex clubs, as regular spaces with regular, recurring hours, from sex parties, special events that may or may not occur regularly and often relocate. We can’t address the sex club scene of the disco era, which was before our time and our arrival in Gotham, but we are firsthand experts on what that world offered starting in the mid ‘80s.

Many of the clubs were multi-purpose, hosting a variety of crowds depending on the day (or very late night) of the week. Most often, the combination seems to have been straight or mixed BDSM or leather events alternating with sex nights for gay men.

Before the time period we address here, of course, the clubs centered in the Meatpacking district were famous (or infamous), with leather-clad studs meandering across 14th Street and the surrounding blocks.

Some of those were still operating in the ‘80s, most notably J’s Hangout and the adjacent Hellfire Club. Both clubs were in the subterranean level of the same building, on the borderling between Chelsea and the Village, downstairs from a gay bar faced with floor-to-ceiling windows (which at that time was bold architecture for a gay establishment). There was also, at one point, a gay sex club called the Attic or Wally's Attic on one of the upper floors. The edifice was called the Little Triangle building, configured like the famous Flatiron, though far more modest in style and way more immodest in terms of the activities inside.

The two clubs began hosting jack-off events, AIDS having reared its ugly head. At one or the other, the event was christened Manhole. The responsible management of these events is notable in an era when the city government was demonizing commercial sex establishments as the cause of HIV infection. A membership card was required for entry, and there was a selective policy, which meant a hot crowd. When a new arrival showed up without being accompanied by a member, he faced a mild inquisition, not to mention a once-over to determine if he was suitable for admission. The best answer to “Where did you hear about us?” was “A guy at the gym told me.”

Once inside, clothes were checked, cocks were jacked, and loads were spilled. Occasionally there would be furtive cocksucking, but at this point in time, most attendees were there because of the emphasis on safe fun. At one point, J’s apparently was the site of regular parties for the NY version of San Francisco’s Blow Buddies.

By the ‘90s, both J’s and the Hellfire Club were still operating and somewhat more lax about approved activities.

And in the ‘90s, what was, to us, the best sex club in New York had opened. Also with a discretionary door policy, Prism was routinely wall-to-wall with the most amazing-looking and testosterone-soaked men in New York, as well as tourists from across the U.S. At least at the beginning, membership cards were issued to those passing muster, and the best way to be invited in for your first time was to arrive with a member.

Prism was a warren of rooms with various booths and platforms, as well as a centrally-placed gynecological exam table; its stirrups were put to good use by men wanting to be gangbanged, and to have an audience while doing it. By midnight, the place would be packed with two floors worth of thrusting, pumping, spurting men.

The club did face some problems with the city, but at first this was for flouting fire department regulations. On one memorable evening, the owner fled, locking the door behind him; fire inspectors stood outside the doors reminding patrons of a recent bath house fire until someone inside opened the door.

Perhaps the space was reconfigured to comply, as it remained open until the repressive Giuliani regime targeted sex businesses as being inconsistent with the “quality of life” they had promised Rudy’s voter base, a combination of bigots and yuppies who hated gays, nightlife, noise and fun.

Above: Sex gestapo Rudy Giuliani, caught on tape in the Borat movie, drinking and allegedly masturbating in a hotel room with a girl he was told was 15 years old.

Lou Maletta was a legend in New York. His public access cable shows, under the umbrella of the Gay Cable Network, included Men in Films, which highlighted and promoted porn videos, but also Gay U.S.A, an hour of news and features anchored by activists Andy Humm and Ann Northrop. This indispensable broadcast covered people and events ignored by the other local news stations, and had a particular focus on HIV/AIDS when mainstream media veered back and forth between misinformation and hysteria. Maletta’s voice over for Calvin Klein’s infamous 1995 “kiddie porn” ads was overdubbed as he apparently sounded too salacious when conversing with the models.

Burly bear Maletta was notorious for strutting down the streets of Greenwich Village in chaps, a thong and his trademark cowboy hat. He also, at one point in the ‘90s, turned his studio into a sex club when it was between broadcasts. It was never clear how much of the equipment was already there as part of his personal activities, but it was certainly well-furnished with slings and platforms, and, when it was operating, a nice crowd of hot guys. His establishment was shuttered when the city went after him, not (officially at least) for operating a sex club, but for having an apartment set up inside the space, which was zoned only as a commercial building.

Above: Lou Maletta, more fully clothed than he usually was on the street. Right: A 20-year old model, looking younger, talking to an offscreen Lou. Far right: Acitivists Andy Humm and Ann Northrop, anchors of Gay USA

There were a variety of other, shorter-lived, sex clubs, some operating only on a single night of the week or on weekends, generally downtown. The names and the details tend to blend together, though some of the participants and activities are forever etched in the memory. These were generally upstairs spaces with no identifying information downstairs, advertised in the gay nightlife publications and by word of mouth.

Bath houses have a long, beloved history in gay New York. Some started decades before the sexual revolution as centers for hygiene and relaxation for poor and working-class people, but became, as one might have predicted, meeting places for pre-Stonewall gay men. Others opened more recently, intended specifically as commercial sex establishments.

Most gay men are familiar with the legends of the Continental Baths and the St. Mark’s Baths.

The former was in the basement of the Ansonia, a residential hotel on the Upper West Side, now a luxury co-op (though there are remaining rent-controlled tenants whose beautiful but affordable apartments are their reward for holding on through the Taxi Driver years when no one wanted to be there). Of course, it lives in legend as the birthplace of the Divine Miss M.

The latter, in the East Village, is perhaps the most famous gay bath house in New York history. While its demise preceded our time in New York, its history has been widely proclaimed. On weekends, there would be a line of horny men down the sidewalk, waiting for a room or a locker. The now-collectible poster was created by legendary fantasy illustrator Boris Vallejo. The owner was Bruce Mailman, and the bathhouse business was apparently very, very good to him. He lived in a luxurious triplex apartment on Lafayette Avenue in Soho that was reputed to include a rooftop pool. It was decorated with an assortment of art (Warhol, Haring) and fetish equipment, including a spiked leather hood in a glass display box. There always seemed to be a motley crew of employees and/or friends there, who apparently inherited the rights to Mailman’s Saint at Large parties (more on those later).

The St. Mark’s Baths became the number one target of both government and activists as the AIDS crisis exploded, and was eventually shuttered and then turned into a hotel. This followed years of harassment by the IRS, which had successfully targeted Studio 54. But, according to Mailman, they were never able to close him down because “I always pay my taxes,” despite having a cash business.

The Everard Baths was a 100-year-old establishment that morphed into a gay club patronized by Rudolf Nureyev, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and other notables. Following a fatal fire in 1977, the establishment was rebuilt, but was closed in 1986 by closet case mayor Ed Koch, who targeted sex businesses for closure as the solution to preventing AIDS.

The Wall Street Sauna catered to closeted financial industry employees, getting off before taking the train back to their wives in the suburbs.

Further uptown was the Mt. Morris Baths, in Harlem, which served Black patrons and those in search of the BBC. Like the Continental Baths, it was located in the basement of an apartment building, and it began as a traditional bath house before changing mores saw it become a meeting place for gay men looking for love in all the right places. Until the 1960s, it was the only bath house allowing African-American members. Although it survived the AIDS-related government crackdowns, it was closed in 2003 because of structural issues.

And then there were two…

Throughout the ‘80s, after the closure of the Continental, the Club and the St. Marks, there was the East Side Club. Located upstairs in an office building on East 56th Street, at one time this bath house was reliably packed with hot, horny men. So hot! So horny! Crowded late night on weekends and through Sunday afternoon, there was often a wait for rooms, and nonstop cruising through the hallways and public areas, with small towels barely obscuring stiff cocks and hungry asses. While often the porn theatres and booth stores were primarily about sucking cock, the East Side Club was the place to go to FUCK.

Seeing that they had a good thing going, but that the gay demographic was beginning to migrate to Chelsea, the same management opened the West Side Club, again upstairs in an office building, this time on West 20th Street. Even more packed than the East Side Club, with an even hotter crowd of locals and tourists, there was usually a line snaking into the stairwell, waiting for up to an hour on weekend nights—and even longer on Gay Pride night, with a throng of horny men who had spent the day cruising the sidewalks and now needed to get off.

One of the owners, David Moyal, was an entrepreneur with stakes in restaurants, salons and a gym—so many businesses, in fact, that he started Next magazine to promote them. He found that publishing his own magazine was less expensive than buying ads in HX for all of his properties, though the latter was the better publication. Next did, however, outlive HX, for a variety of reasons that would require an entire website to detail. Another of the owners also had a stake in several nightclubs and was once witnessed dispatching an employee to the West Side Club. He returned with a brown paper bag full of the cash the owner needed to pay some of the employees and contractors on opening night of Heaven, a nightclub in Chelsea.

Apparently both the East Side and West Side Clubs were still open until recently, the former patronized more by an older, less appealing crowd, the latter by hotter guys, though they were often under the influence of whatever substances spurred them to prowl a sauna at 3:00 AM. The joint website for both baths (featuring photos of professional models who clearly don’t resemble most of the patrons) states that the West Side Club is now “permanently closed,” but invites us to experience the East Side Club, open since 1976. Even in their heyday, both clubs paled in comparison to bath houses in the Ft. Lauderdale or Chicago, and routinely ran out of hot water, with the maintenance and amenities decreasing as the prices increased.

No one was ever sure how they managed to stay open when the city specifically targeted bath houses for both health and “quality of life” issues. Maybe some of those bags of cash were cunningly distributed….

In addition to the full-time sex establishments like clubs and bath houses, porno theatres and video stores, strip clubs and back rooms, there have also been a number of sex parties in multiple venues, from nightclubs to hotel rooms to private homes.

Our own party, Trouble, the inspiration for this website, is discussed at length on its own page.

A few other notable events…

The Dionysus Party was hosted by two men in their duplex apartment on West 58th Street. We often wondered what the neighbors thought about the dozens and dozens of men arriving en masse, as the door was only open for an hour. To be invited, generally one was recommended to the hosts by a regular attendee. They maintained a mailing list, and invitations were issued monthly, though to a limited number of people, rotating through the list, as there was a maximum capacity. The furniture was covered with blankets and the bed was off limits, with the bedroom full of plastic bags full of checked clothes. Snacks were provided and the hosts were charming. And the men were amazing, with a discretionary admission policy and a “donation” at the door.

One might see any of three New York City Ballet principal dancers (all beautiful blond bottoms) or two Broadway stars (one a double Tony winner and both first-rate cocksuckers). One of them seemed to lubricate his throat with cum on a regular basis, perhaps helping him hit the high notes for which he was famous. Other guests were stars of another ilk, within the confines of the party, for their sexual appetites, the size of their cocks, or their advanced orgy skills.

Unfortunately, the hosts made the same mistake so many sex party proprietors make, raising their admission price and increasing the frequency of their events. Greed is a double kiss of death. An admission that is too pricey discourages the younger crowd, for whom the difference between $10 and $25 can be significant, especially in an expensive city. And if the guests know they have only one chance in a month (and that’s if they are in that month’s rotation) they will make a point of attending. If they know that, missing the party this week, they can always show up the next, this has the effect of reducing the number of guests for any given event. So, ultimately, with a higher price but a smaller crowd, not only has the host diminished the quality of the party, but he is ultimately making the same amount of money for more frequent work.

And, as in the case of Dionysus, eventually killing his own event.

Another party, with ever-changing names (Manhunter, Handsome NYC, Hard Drive) but the same promoter, who styles himself as Hunteur, is a regular event at Paddles, a BDSM club that turns over its Chelsea space periodically for this gay sex party. This one has been going on for years and, in the beginning, was fantastic, with a crowd of hot guys filling the multiple areas of two floors of fun. One could count on several hot encounters in an evening, often bareback, with guys from New York and elsewhere.

But, eventually foregoing a discretionary door policy, the host alienated the hot guys by welcoming “all body types, all ages,” an admirable policy for life in general, but the kiss of death in terms of attracting the kind of men who will ultimately make a sex party a magnet for a large crowd. Over the years, this party has now become a mecca for overweight men, usually well over 50, with almost none of the virile, young patrons found there in the past.

The promoter sends out regular email “newsletters” announcing the dates of the parties, and apparently is able to sell ad space in the emails. He’s a very nice man, and a charming host, but one wishes he had maintained a higher standard for the party and perhaps it would be better-attended.

Carter was quite well-known for hosting occasional parties, often at the Pennsylvania Hotel in the West 30s. Reputedly he was a doctor, and certainly not in the same league physically as the men he selected to be his guests. He also attended but never participated in his own events, which were essentially large-scale orgies in hotel suites. The crowd was superlative, some of the hottest guys in town. One could email or call with a request to be included, and generally a photo was required.

Apparently, the parties were an outgrowth of what was essentially a match-making service. In the ‘90s, before Grindr and Manhunt, a horny man could place a call to Carter, who apparently maintained some kind of database, and would arrange sex dates. The only recompense he required was a phone call the following day detailing all the smutty activities facilitated by the dirty Dolly Levy.

His greatest success was a weekend during the 1994 Gay Games and the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, when beautiful men from around the world converged on New York, many staying in the same hotel where Carter arranged an event, telling the management he was hosting a bachelor party. Well, there were many bachelors there and it was definitely a party—full of honeymoon activities on every surface of this two-bedroom suite. On each of the four beds there were at least two couples fucking side by side, with cocksuckers on their knees in front of two sofas. One spectacular but shy guest took his partners into the large closet, each emerging with a smile on his face and a tale to tell the host.

Party guests at Paddles, and the Pennsylvania Hotel, site of Carter's most succesful orgy.

In addition to these full-out sex parties, there were other events that were officially presented as nightclub parties, planned by club promoters, with bars and music. In reality, they were sordid sextravaganzas complete with clothes check, and set up for fornicational fun.

Marc Berkley, the publisher of H/X and a long-time promoter for clubs like Tunnel and USA (which usually featured back rooms or other opportunities for sex), also organized events, generally at a space on the Lower East Side, with a crowd of slutty men going full out, while hardcore, hardon go-go studs interacted with the guests from their perch on the bar.

Daniel Nardicio established his career as a promoter with hot, sleazy evenings that were, in fact, total sex parties. The best and most regular took place at a restaurant called China One, also on the Lower East Side. After entering, guests could check their clothes in the dining area, then proceed downstairs. Presumably this area was intended for events and banquets; certainly for these parties it was a real feast, as a very hot crowd of almost naked men slurped and screwed all night. There were sofas full of men fucking, and most spectacularly, an opium bed that became an orgy of uninhibited action. The go-go boys were the biggest sluts of all, getting sucked by guests and servicing each other. Porn stars like Rick Gonzales, Spike, Carlos Morales and Pete Ross were employed to entertain, and certainly did. Sometimes porn producer Owen Hawk was a co-promoter, booking the talent-- and giving blowjobs himself.

Nardicio hosted similar events in other spaces, the most memorable of which featured a partition outfitted with a gloryhole, behind which a young man had been engaged to service guests, emerging at one point to boast that he had already sucked two dozen cocks. And Nardicio’s go-go boys were always user-friendly.

Underground musician, oddball porn star and party promoter Dean Johnson presented a series of parties, complete with performers who started the evening as go-go boys before doing full-out sex shows. At one of these, local porn stud Rick Gonzales (always reliably user-friendly as a go-go whore) fucked another performer who swallowed loads from the audience before Rick pulled his huge cock out and unloaded in the bottom’s throat, too. Guests would suck and fuck in the party space, dark corners, bathrooms, even the stairwells.

These activities were business as usual at the Cock and its spin-off the Hole, in the East Village. Many gay bars and clubs, like the Lure, the Toolbox, Rush and Urge, had popular backrooms and busy restrooms, but the Cock featured explicit go-go performers as well as an orgiastic audience, indulging in full-out sex right next to posters forbidding sexual activity on the premises. On busy nights, both these bars had additional space downstairs, which made no pretense of being bar or dance club, as was done upstairs. The Hole eventually closed and the Cock was relocated several times, each new space as grungy as the last and all of them targeted by both Giuliani’s anti-nightlife storm troopers and NIMBY community boards. To date, it is still operating as one of the last of the bars like those of the glory days of sexual free-for-all in New York City.

Of course, there were many and frequent smaller, private parties, intimate groups and orgies in private homes and hotel rooms.

And then there was....

How does one begin to categorize the Saint? Was it a disco, a bar, a sex club? The answer is generally “all of the above.”

Founded by the same Bruce Mailman who owned the St. Mark’s Baths, the Saint started as a private club for a group of health-conscious men. The bar served no hard liquor, only beer, and there was always fresh fruit in bowls. Of course, one assumes these same gym bunnies were often wrecked on an assortment of controlled substances, but that is mere speculation based on the era and the milieu. While a membership was required for entry, anyone with an out-of-state driver’s license was welcomed (well, at least if he had the right look).

The space was legendary. Built as a theatre on Second Avenue and 6th Street, it had been the Filmore East rock venue during the ‘60s. The first floor was a series of bars and seating areas, upholstered in the gray industrial carpet that was the rage in the early ‘80s. Floors two and three had been converted into a double-height dance floor with a spectacular domed cyclorama above, much like a planetarium. According to a lighting designer friend, there were several million dollars’ worth of lighting equipment creating the ambience and effects.

But the real special effects were found on the fourth floor, where the tiered theatre seating had been modified into long, carpet-upholstered platforms. The most exciting décor was the patrons-- pants down, shirts off, indulging in a wall-to-wall orgy of slurping and thrusting, pairs, threesomes, groups, voyeurs and exhibitionists alike, no holes barred.

The biggest nights for the Saint were Halloween, New Year’s Eve, the White Party and, of course, the infamous Black Party. The latter was perhaps the most famous and the first of the events that became known as “circuit parties,” attracting men from all over the world for a weekend of sex, drugs and dancing. Oh, and sexual performances. The Black Party always featured tableaux of perverted activities as well as a stage show featuring dozens of hardcore strippers and famous porn stars doing what made them famous. Fucking was the mildest of those performances, which could involve snakes, trapezes, bathtubs, traffic cones, and the occasional dessert.

One year, a hot little twink spread his ass onstage for bananas used as butt plugs, followed by chocolate sauce, Reddi-Whip and an entire bottle of maraschino cherries. He returned the following year, saying the other performers “can do anything they want to me as long as it doesn’t involve food.”

Eventually the Saint ceased operations as a regular club (the dome allegedly remains intact in a New Jersey warehouse), and Mailman promoted only the four circuit events, apparently to great success. When he announced that the space would be closing, the final events hosted several thousand men (the place was huge), there for one last blowout and one last blowjob.

Thereafter, the so-called Saint-at-Large events moved from venue to venue, most of them far too small to accommodate the crowd until Mailman’s heirs settled on Roseland, a cavernous former ballroom in the midtown theatre district. The photographer Weegee would have had a field day on Sunday afternoon as the party wound down and men barely dressed in leather slutwear exited into the glaring sunlight, only to come face-to-face with the blue-haired ladies on their way to a Broadway matinee..

In a perfect reflection of what has become of New York City and its once thriving nightlife, the space where Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Ike and Tina Turner, and Jefferson Airplane had performed, and which had become the grandest statement of both New York dance club and gay bacchanal, is now an NYU dorm with a bank downstairs.