New York's historic Club 82 .Early performance venue and hang-out for the likes of [Archive] - HungAngels

sukumvit boy

02-09-2017, 03:01 AM

Lou Reed , David Bowie , Patti Smith and The New York Dolls.
The time was 1969. The place was Manhattan's Lower East Side on East 4th Street between Bowery and 2nd Avenue.
I was still a teenager helping a friend run a coffee house and improvisational jazz club which was just across 4th Street from Club 82. We were little more than a gurgling espresso machine with a small stage , piano and open mic where musicians would come and jam and hang out after their gigs around town.
But across the street Club 82 was always jumping , loud and brightly lit and with the strangest assortment of creatures milling around on the street.
Little did I know...
http://zagria.blogspot.com/2009/04/82-club.html#.WJuQkfkrI2x
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Stavros

02-09-2017, 10:39 AM

Good post, sukumvit boy and have seen most of the photos before over the years.
The important thing to me is that at the time the level of transformation was as good as it could be, which is the same today, but with a few exceptions, and I think the UK was worse off at the time than the US, most of the girls were in drag, rather than living full time as females, and this was due to a number of factors. Surgery was riskier and more expensive, ditto drugs/hormones; and in the UK it was still possible for men in drag if seen in the street to be arrested for 'soliciting for the purposes of prostitution' into the 1980s. There was also a less international dimension to the scene in London - I first went to the Black Cap in 1970 but other than the drag performers like Mrs Shufflewick, Lorri Lee, Marc Fleming and the others, most of the clientele was either gay men or people from the entertainment industry, and even in the Porchester Hall drag balls in the late 70s and early 80s there were only a few transexuals, the rest being men in drag, but as I say that was the best we had. In the Zagria blogspot the website on its London link does not mention Jean Fredericks who started the Porchester Hall balls, or Steve Francis who took over when Jean died, co-ordinating with Ron Storme -the late Yvonne Sinclair put these pages together on the scene at that time:
http://www.yvonnesinclair.co.uk/pages/The%20Drag%20Balls.html

On the Zagria blogspot there is no mention of Vicki Lee who started the Wayout Club with the late Steffan Whitfield I think in 1987. The scene in London began to change in the 1990s and for what it's worth globalization and the internet has transformed the scene into something inconceivable from what it was in the 1970s, and so much better too.

I went to Finocchio's in San Francisco in the early 80s, but that was really 'just' a cabaret for the mainstream crowd but the performers were very good. The lack of internet and poor communications meant that with one exception I lost out on any hot places in New York at that time, which I regret as the London scene was poor in comparison, but that was always the attraction when New York was decadent and dangerous. The one exception was the Fantasy Manor (may also have been called the O Club?) that was on the first floor of a building opposite the Danceteria, I think on West 21st, there were two TS there one of whom had done a photo spread (I think she called herself Polly or Jenny) but both were interested in Bondage and S/M which does not interest me, and as I didn't realise it was an S/M club I only stayed for a couple of hours frankly amazed at some of the things I saw which would have been illegal in the UK. I must admit regretting not staying after seeing a magnificent black transexual enter the club, she looked like Leontyne Price in her prime, but I also shudder to think of what sexual perversions she was into. The Marquis de Sade is best left on the pages of fiction.

Also in NYC I was told to visit a club on, I think 6th or 7th avenue around 12th street but it was a Latin club and I didn't see any TS there, but it might be that they had TS nights and I went on the wrong night. Having seen photos from the Plaza in Los Angeles I went there on that trip but there was a mediocre cabaret, the place was half-full and was disappointing. But again, I probably went on the wrong night. On my last visit to LA -over ten years ago I now realise- I was determined to go to Peanuts, only to be in West Hollywood on the wrong night. I guess it still takes a lot of planning, and venues open and close much as they used to in the old days.