The Gaiety in Times Square

Was that the place that had films, and dancers who, every couple of hours, would put on a strip show and frequently end up having sex, either with each other or the audience or both? I recall one such place, but don't know if it was the Gaiety or not.

Loved that place...miss it terribly.%0D %0D Saw some fun shows that, some very hot guys, only took one back to my hotel room once. %0D %0D It was seedy yet fascinating.

I ADORED it. I went for the first time around 2001 and kept going until it closed, whenever I visited the city. It really was something out of a lost New York, the one that only exists anymore in "Taxi Driver" and "Midnight Cowboy."

The waitresses in Howard Johnson's would sometimes comment about the loud dancing on their ceiling.

R1, it wasn't the Gaiety, it was the Show Palace on 8th.

[quote]it wasn't the Gaiety, it was the Show Palace on 8th.

Ah, such fond memories!

Meh to the Gaiety. It was the Adonis and the Big Top (or was it Big Apple?) where all the partying happened.

I remember being a small town gay boy visiting on a high school theater trip in 1980 wanting to go inside so badly.

Could you share your memories of those places, r7?

On a trip to NYC in 1979, I remember a HUGE billboard which was a drawing of a man in a g-string, advertising some gay club. Can any of you NYC'ers from that time recall the name of that club?

The original Adonis was on 8th, almost at the corner of 51st. "Smoking permitted in the balcony" (hint, hint). It was an old vaudeville theatre (I think), and it was like walking into a gay, erotic version of Sondheim's "Follies' everytime you went in. All those ghosts of long-ago performers observing all the incredibly hot and sleazy sex that was going on everywhere (not just in the balcony.) The box office person was a woman, so every now and then the security guard would have to come in and get everyone out of one of the restrooms so she could come in to pee.

Later, after that whole block was torn down, it moved down Eighth Ave - can't remember exactly were, but it had none of its former glory (and of course, this was well into the AIDS era when it moved).

The Big Top (or Big Apple, honestly can't remember which) was on - Broadway, around 47th. Upstairs. It was just a big office area (I guess) that was made into a theatre, and had a back area with glory holes, "mazes" etc. Men's room very active.

I think the Big Top had dancers, but I don't remember if the Adonis did or not.

Loved that place, too.

Bump for more memories

Madonna ruined it with her "Sex" book. It became infested with str8s and women and gawkers afterward.

I ducked into the doorway of the Gaiety after witnessing a mugging. I decided to go inside. I paid the cover ($10?). I came into the theater, I think there was a movie playing. I took a seat. There was a guy nearby jacking off. I got up and stood in the aisle. A hot, short,Italian, came up behind me and started to grope me me. One thing lead to another and we jacked off for a while. I was staying with a friend and he was staying with his cousin, so we decided to ditch the Gaiety once the dancers started. We took a cab to The Monster, and on the dance floor we picked up a third guy who also Italian in a wife beater. He took us to the docks, where we had sex in the back seat while he watched in the rear view mirror. Then he drove the Brooklyn Bridge and dropped the Italian kid off.%0D %0D The guy in the wife beater to me to an afterhours club but there wasn't anything going on. I think it was too early. He dropped me off at my friend's apt.%0D %0D When I came in that afternoon he had left me a phone message (oops! I guess I'm out!). I all him back and gives me the bus details and he would be waiting for me in NJ. Off I went (leaving my NJ's friend phone, just in case I am not hear from in 24 hours or so..). %0D %0D He was there wailing. We went to a local bar for a drink. It was full of Guidos. Then we when back to his house in the suburbs, which was very big. He had a pool. He had a huge pecs and biceps. was about 20 years older than I was and much bigger. And a total bottom.I fucked several times that night. The next morning we had pineapple pie (never heard of that before) for breakfast. he drove us to the a parking lot and we caught the bus back to Manhattan. I always thank the Gaiety for one of my favorite NY adventures.%0D %0D I went to the Gaiety every trip after that. I took my boy friend, all of our friends. One memorable night the punch was spiked. My boy friend fell asleep (or passed out)with a naked guy with an hard onstage a few feet away. You could mingle with the dancers around the punch bowl or in the bathroom and word was they were for sale or wanted fluffers.%0D %0D Then things began to tighten down and soon the Gaiety was the only business like that in the area. The shows seemed endless and eventually there were men with flashlights patrolling the auditorium and the aisles. Its days were numbered.%0D

Here's some history and remembrances.

I never liked the gaiety because they never allowed action in the theater. They wanted everybody to hire the dancers and go next door to a flea bag hotel.

The real fun place was the one just up the street from the port authority. Those dancers had live sex on stage and would have sex with guys in the audience too. It was wild and lots of fun.

Hi, I'm a former dancer from the Gaiety. I used to work there beginning of 1979. It was wonderful, so free at this time. I was just coming from France and it was a great way to discover NY. Chris

Those fuck joints like the Adonis were depressing. Why can't you queens admit that most gay men, in sex clubs and back rooms and porno theaters, get off on treating each other like shit?

And is anyone more boring and depressing than a semi-straight guy paid to take his clothes off by a bunch of mute immobile grim angry depressed expectant aging unhappy fags?

R19 - too fat to pass the audition.

I think that the billboard advertised the David Cinema. I think it was on West 50th or 51st Street

r18, would love to hear your stories of what it was like there!

r18/chris - I remember you :)

Chris was your stage name right?

I loved that place. The joy I had "meeting" porn stars of yesterday such as Tino Lopez still makes me happy inside.

I received a couple of blow jobs there, but the original Adonis was my favorite place.

I also remember the David. Received one of the best blow jobs of my life there. And I also sucked a guy off that had one of the two most perfect dicks I ever had before or since.

The other life-long perfect most-fantastic penis ever I sucked off was at the Bijou/Jewel Box on lower Third Avenue, where I also received A LOT of great blow jobs.

I used to love going to the Gaiety. Just so seedy and sexual. I used to flirt with and paw some of the dancers in that lounge. What the hell happened to NYC?

I always say I preferred 42nd Street when it smelled like piss - that was what NYC was for me, and forever will be

HAPPY NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY, BITCHES!!! LOVE YA!

R26 I loved the Bijou/Jewel Box I gave alot of great blow jobs there and you are welcome. Still curse the day Guliani was born for closing the place.

um, r30 - the Bijou on 2nd ave is still open

I miss the dirty, grimy, grungy NYC of yesterday. There was a kind of danger to living here, which made it really exciting. At every corner it was a toss up whether you'd find your trick for the night or a mugger. Luckily for me, it was almost always the former. I can't tell you how many guys I tricked with in alleys, in basement-apartment stairwells, behind bushes. Those were the good old days. Now all you find are breeders texting as they roll their double wides down the street. It's just so boring.

My favorite part of the Gaiety was when the movie would end and the screen would ceremoniously be raised, revealing the first dancer. He would do his thing, go back into the wings, and then reappear (much applause here) with a raging hard-on.

A few of them would jerk off to completion, which was really great.

I remember going into the basement of the King theater on 44th between 8th and 9th. It was completely flooded but they had put down boards to act as ramps so you could still get to the booths. Super disgusting.

The Gaiety is where I made friends with a lot of gorgeous strippers from Montreal. Canadian men are hung and always very gay friendly.

Oh yes, the gorgeous Montreal boys. Anyone remember Luke? He was HOT.

I'm 31 and when I first moved to NYC, something like 8 years ago, a faghag friend of mine who was a student at NYU asked me to find a male stripper place for her bday.

I googled around and the Gaiety was the only option I could find. It seemed inexpensive and close to my Times Square office, so I told her and half a dozen of her friends to meet there for what I thought would be a Chippendales-esque show.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

I suppose I should have scouted first. Well, obviously they were the only girls there. And the atmosphere wasn't what I would call fun. One of the girls asked me where the ladies room was and I asked a security guard, who said they didn't have one.

We put on our game face and had a good time (sorry gay dudes for frauing the place up!) In the back area we had some soda, played pinball and chatted with one of the dancers, who met up w/ us at a nearby straight bar after. He asked if I was free later...but I wasn't sure if I was expected to pay so I declined.

It smelled.

You sound like a real douchebag, r37. Why don't you move?

I remember reading an interview with the owner in one of the gay magazines around the time it closed... Andy Warhol, John Waters and Divine were regulars. Shirley Maclaine once went with her gay manager.

I can tell you that Shirley Maclain went more then once. I saw her there on several occasions absolutely mesmerized by the action on stage. I also remember Grace Jones, Tony Curtis, Christian Slater, David Shwimmer, Rue Paul, Quentin Crisp, Neil Young and countless soap opera celebrities and a Bishop or two.

Really? One thing I remember and loved about it was it was gay gay gay, never saw one woman in the joint. Never hijacked by tourists in my experience (I get the feeling some are getting it mixed up with other porno chic joints).

And loved that you could smoke in the lounge with the coke machine. Then one day you couldn't. Then one day... Guiliani arrived. The end. Just as well, the boys were all shaving their crotches by that point. Ugh.

Best memory: near the end of my youth, seriously, my last hurrah days in that department, a customer there tried to "rent" me, another customer. I politely declined and then he upped the ante, asked if he could pay for me to be with one of the other dancers. Now THAT intrigued me. But I was with a friend who said he'd never speak to me again if I did it.

It remains one of my few regrets, ha. Odd, I never found Gaeity seedy at all -- just good old-fashioned safe DEBAUCHERY. And, yes, I too miss that NYC.

For what it's worth, fellow anonymous internet weirdos, I seriously realized the folly of my ways, but it was too late I'm afraid. The listing I found on some website didn't make it sound seedy, so I had no way of knowing.

If this had been a few years earlier, there would have been no internet listing at all and I wouldn't have found it. If it had been a few years later, I probably would have been able to find more details and realized this was not the place for my hags (though I suppose by then the place had closed).

But no one got up and left, so we couldn't have been that out of line. I'm all about sex parties and bath houses and such, but that place was just...sad.

I went to the Gaiety a few times in its last years, and there were always women there, almost always occupying the front rows. And the dancers, most of whom were essentially straight, paid more attention to them than to the guys in the audience. That really was not right.

The name, Gaiety, and the Times Square location didn't give you any indication that it wasn't an upscale Chippendales-esque establishment, suitable for the ladies?

This was maybe 2003 or 2004, Times Square was well on it's way to Disney-ification. My office was just a block away. In our defense, we stayed in the back and let the old guys pay to oogle the dancers. No one paid much attention to us the the "theater" area(which was fine by me) and no one seemed visibly upset. We got a good anecdote out of it and that was that.

Having said this, had I known it would be as seedy as it was, I wouldn't have bothered.

And again, as a youngish dirty old man myself, I don't think I'd go to that place on my own if it was still open. It was just...sad. And incredibly unsexy.

I wonder what it was like in there when 9-11 happened...

r46, r37. You sound like one of those very feminine gays who feels being treated like a demure lady.

They should bring the Gaiety Theater back since Giulliani is history and gay marriage is in.

The owner TRIED to relocate to Chelsea but couldn't get it through the Community Board. By that time the snotty uppity galleries had already taken over.

As if the whole art scene wasn't full of even bigger whores....

I think the old sign is still up there in Times Square. I really do not know why it closed since it's not in violation of any school in the vicinity.

I think there is still one place in Manhattan that features male strippers, am I wrong?

Christian Slater? Neil Young? David Schwimmer?

DOUBLE MARY!

I think the whole building is gone and replaced by a new modern structure, r52.

r53, I can only think of places that have lots of gogo boys. I don't know of any that go totally nude (other than the cock and maybe the urge...maybe escuelita too). And those are more like nude gogo boys than strippers...I guess there's a difference?

where r53? The closest thing I heard is the Club 20 but never been there.

There's Club 20, Club 39 (Sunday-night strip night at Escuelita), and Adonis Lounge on Wednesday nights at Evolve on East 58th.

There's also Cabaret Montreal on Long Island, where the boys get totally naked.

Ok. Anyone been to Club 20?

I go to Club 20 every once in a while. They tend to get the dumb-as-rocks fitness model-personal trainer-Guido types from LI, Queens, Staten Island and NJ. Just my type. The same guys dance at Adonis. Club 39 is ok if you're into hustler street trash. I went there once, and that was enough for me.

"The owner TRIED to relocate to Chelsea but couldn't get it through the Community Board. By that time the snotty uppity galleries had already taken over."

Ha! And nw the heart of Chelsea is getting an IHOP!

Do they really show all nude with hard dicks in these clubs r60??? Is there a private dance as I've heard in Club 20.

I went to Club 20 like three years ago. I remember it was really expensive. It was like $20 to get in and there were these dancers who didn't take off their underwear. I didn't see anyone having sex.

Club 20 opens at 5pm Sundays. They charge $10 cover til 7, and then $20 the rest of the night. The guys are not nude. They serve alcohol there, and according to NYS law, a venue can't have nudity and offer alcoholic beverages. The guys walk around in thongs, briefs, or boxers. A lap dance costs $20 and lasts for 3-4 minutes. The dancer might flash you his goodies real quick, but the security guys are walking around to make sure there's very little of that. They have a "champagne room" where you can have a private session with a dancer. That can cost up to $200, and lasts about half an hour. Depending on whom you talk to, either just a private lap dance or full-on sex is going on back there. I did the champagne room once and I just went for a private dance, nothing more. Of course, for most of these guys, the place is just one live ad for their rentboy services off site. It's fun to go for the eye candy every once in a while and to flirt and touch the type of hot guy I couldn't otherwise get in a bar or club.

Has anyone been to Adonis Lounge on 58th Street? Is it the same vibe?

I was a dancer at The Gayety from 1980 to 1982. I was the DJ/MC from 1981 to 1982. I left NYC in 1982 for a quiet life (away from drugs, hustling and clubs). It was a nice place to go if you were a customer. If you were a dancer it was: quick money (tips and husteling), drugs and a chance to shine for a few minutes on stage. I went to on Cape Cod where I married and had a son. I devorced 4 years later and moved to Miami. I wish (somehow) I could hear from some of the dancers I used to know and hang out with. I hope that none have passed away. Robert

I was a dancer at the Gaiety in the early 80's. Name was Tony.

"This was maybe 2003 or 2004, Times Square was well on it's way to Disney-ification. My office was just a block away. "

The interesting thing is all of those Disney improvements are now 15-20 years old, and the area is once again showing signs of wear and tear. Bloomberg's "improvements", coordinated by that empress Jeanette Sadik-Khan in all likelihood won't survive the new administration. Believe me I would rather have places like the Gaiety than "Baked By Melissa" bakeries with absurdly overpriced mini cupcakes.

does anyone remember the dancer from The Gaiety who was in Madonna's Sex Book? beefy italian guy who was just sizzling hot.

My name was Lola. I was a showgirl.

R69, wasn't that the late Joey Stefano, the HIV+ porn star?

bump (and grind)

[R69] Are you referring to Rocky Santiago? He was a great guy with a wonderful body.

Howard Johnson had the best fried clams. They were on the street level downstairs from The Gaiety. Sitting at the counter we could hear the dancers. This last HoJo in NYC closed in July 2005. The building was demolished.

I always heard that those "clams" were scraped off the floor of the private show rooms upstairs at the Gaiety. High protein snacks? Anything is tasty when deep fried in the right batter.

For one night, I was a stripper/dancer at the Gaiety in NYC. I was a classical dancer at the time and thought I would bring art to the seedy masses. It didn't work. They just wanted to see a big dong, which is hard to produce when you are dancing full out. It was an odd experience and not one I thought it would be. I felt like a whore.

Was there once. (2000). Christ, you weren't even allowed to whip it out!

Goddamn that whack job Giuliani and his Disneyfied Times Square!