90s NYC

Limelight

The Works

Splash

When I visited, I had no idea that subway tokens were no longer a thing.

I lived in Brooklyn in the 90s, which was still affordable (and before Brooklyn became a brand).

NYC in the 90s: we didn't know how good we had it, til it was gone. There was still a great off-off-Bway theatre scene, with lots of experimental stuff. Most of my friends were in the arts. None of us were making "real money" and none of us really cared. I saw a lot of "church basement" theatre during those years. Occasionally it was wonderful.

What did we do for fun? We were big moviegoers. Indie movies were a big thing. There was lots of affordable ethnic food, even in Manhattan. It was still a time when you could spend hours browsing in bookstores or Tower Records or something similar. I don't think any of us cared about clothes (much less designer labels). Of course, we were young then. Everyone drank, smoked, some of us got high regularly.

It all feels a million miles away now.

I spent many aimless days ending up at Kim's Video, Tower Records, HMV, Washington Square Park.

I think I spent the entire summer of '92 at Uncle Charlies in the West Village. I was 25 and in the process of a late coming out. I was attending journalism grad school at NYU that summer, and I decided it was a perfect opportunity to explore myself and the Village scene. I met some great guys that summer at Uncle Charlie's. My first date AND kiss with another guy sprung from my time at Uncle Charlie's, an artist from Brooklyn Heights. Another guy I started hanging out with named Glenn, a handsome blond guy, was recently divorced and also in the process of coming out. I know it sounds cheesy, but I remember my first "staring contest" there with another guy as Elton John's "The One" played on a video screen there. Whenever I hear that song, it immediately takes me back to that summer at Uncle Charlie's. Just a wonderful time of youthful self-exploration.

I was just back last January for the first time since the year 2000, and I was struck by how there are now so few independent stores compared to what it used to be like, and in particular there are practically no bookstores. Where does anyone in the city go to get books?

I worked with a woman recently and we spent half the day barely speaking. Then she told me she lived in New York the same time I did in the early to mid-90s, and we talked for hours about Club USA, Limelight, Tunnel, Robin Byrd, Brad Lamm, Lower East Side.

I moved there in 98, when I was 17. Most of the places I hung out were total shit holes, but I do miss Mars Bar, the worst bar on the planet. What I miss most, though, is the sense of possibility. All my artist friends, except for the few who had struck lucky, were priced out of town by 2004. Do artists who are not going to NYC for college even move to NYC anymore? It's become this weird trust fund wasteland. And you can't smoke in bars until 4:15am, after all the non-regulars leave, which is just a total pain in the ass. There was a bar called Siberia, which was actually within a landing of a subway stop. It was another great punk rock hell hole that was so illegal they didn't have applicable laws to shut it down.

My friends and I were "East Village" guys and we identified more with that weird, alternative bar scene than with that of the Village, which we thought of us as more "establishment" and cloney. I don't even recall when Chelsea became a big thing, although it certainly was a gay destination by the late 90s.

At the beginning of the decade, all the G&L people I knew were in ACT UP or Queer Nation or some other activist organization. Again, most of us were students or had crappy jobs, but we managed to get along, in a way that is unthinkable now in NYC.

That corner in the East Village.

Unrecognizable now.

One of my hangouts.

I know I sound like an old geezer, but part of what I miss most about that era is that people made the effort to go to the bars in the hope of meeting someone, whether long term or just for the night. People actually interacted and had conversations, and there was an air of sexual electricity about it all that has gone the way of the payphone and that cannot be replaced by apps.

Coffee at The Big Cup.

r10, the signage might be a little different, but that store is still there on Second Ave. and St. Mark's. They sell the same stuff (plus hats) and you can still get an egg cream.

r12, I still feel like NYC is one of the few places on the planet where you can make a new best friend while standing and waiting for the light to change or while waiting for the bar tender to work his way around to you. People are still forced to interact and tolerate and be curious about one another in New York because you have to live shoulder to shoulder through so much of the day. It's the opposite in LA, where everyone is going out of their way to avoid sharing air or thoughts or any genuine interactions whatsoever with anyone else.

The Big Cup had a relaxed vibe.

I remember going to a lot of other coffee places around the city that I can't remember the names, but were the pre-Starbucks days.

Wigstock, 1993

Gay Pride, 1993

I was using a computer at the Kinko's near Union Square around 94, and the two bald, pierced switchblade lesbians that were in Madonna's Sex book were at the computer next to me.

Having sex along the Hudson River before they gentrified it with lovely bicycle paths and let all the respectable people in.... Sex parties at Prism.... Backroom at Limelight.... discovering my nipples....

The Bijou theatre on the Lower East Side used to be a club called Woody's owned by Ron Wood in the 70s, where the Rolling Stones and New York Dolls hung out.

Ah Gem Spa, R10... Madge's hangout till the early 1980s.

The Boiler Room is still there R11? One of my hangouts in the 1990s too. Maybe we saw each other there done time then.

Canal Jean Co., Soho

Love Saves the Day / 7A restaurant / Crowbar / D Generation / Todd Oldham / Angelika theater / DKNY billboard / Marky Mark & Kate Moss / Ranch 1

The movie "Jeffrey"

r23, since you're right there, don't forget to pop into Unique Boutique.

Rounds and the ho stroll nearby. l

The Roxy, 1990.

Fez and Time Cafe

If anyone has a good 90s techno/underground playlist or can direct me to one, I'd be much appreciate it.

And I'm talking about good club music--not the Real McCoy, La Bouche, Madonna remix crap.

r30 there's a surprising amount on Spotify and YouTube. i'll leave you to find your particular likes and dislikes, but Alcatraz, Cajmere, Cevin Fisher, Daphne, are all up there somewhere.

Techno! Well that does take me back. I fucked a lot, and I mean a lot, to clubhouse techno. One bottom was a club DJ....

As a gayling in the late 1980s I promised myself I would spend a summer in NYC after graduation. That vacation never came. My sister went last year and said it was like going to a NYC themed park and nothing felt real or genuine. She cut her trip short and came home.

NYC does seem like a theme park run amok by trust fund babies and pathetic cupcake eating Carrie Bradshaws. I posted upthread about my Uncle Charlie's experience the summer of 92. Even though I really didn't start exploring my sexuality till then, I was always in NYC, where I went to college in the mid/late 80s, and always appreciated the individualism and endearing seediness that pervaded Manhattan. Maybe I'm looking back with rose-colored glasses, which is human nature, but there was something so special about this place before the yuppie invasion.

Though it was 22 years ago (!) I still think I got a great deal on a renovated studio apartment on 79th and 1st for $750.00 a month.

Yaffa Cafe. Limelight. Subway tokens. Talking to boys who weren't glued to their phones. Smoking everywhere.

I had my first BB experience appropriately at Rawhide one scorching summer night in 1994. Met a hot muscle bear type, chatted for a few minutes. Ten minutes later we were in the bathroom, with me on the toilet, legs spread to the heavens with my hole getting pounded. First time without a condom. Luckily I never caught anything. Rawhide was such a marvelously and hypnotically filthy place, but that filth just added to the erotic atmosphere.

Landed in New York in the summer of 1997 with a new boyfriend (a native). He told me the city was already going to hell and becoming Disneyified.

What was that cafe about half a block east of Life Cafe, same side of 10th Street? Was it on 11th?

Junior Vasquez @ The Sound Factory

Deee-lite @ The Tunnel

Partying at Limelight

This thread makes me miss NYC. I was there in the late 90s and again ten years ago.

Anyone ever go to the Gaiety? I had some good times there in the 90s (wink wink). I picked up several dancers. One of the most memorable was a dancer from Montreal with a true 10 inches.

I truly miss those days. They seem just like yesterday to me.

Anyone remember former local NY/NJ TV host Richard Bey? He came off as very conservative-looking on screen. Well, you haven't lived until you've seen him getting off a bus near Times Square, decked out in full leather/bondage attire, and headed in the direction of all of those adult book and video stores that littered (in a good way lol) the area. That was around 1990.

Yes....those were the days! I loved spending time in Tower records, Virgin @Union sq, going to lots of movies. I lived in the village and went to all kinds of bars, clubs, I even went to cbgb and used that disgusting toilet...I could never do that now, some things you can only do while young lol. memories!

yes, hanging out after hours with the friends in the music, acting crowd.

Sex was absolutely everywhere back then and much more easily had. It was wonderfully filthy and erotic. Now everything is a stupid app dance or guys standing and posing in the steam room. It's all so sanitary and boring. God I hate this city so much.

The cell phone really ruined the culture.

Every body is looking into them and not even talking, even when they are together. Fucking stupid.

It was a narrow and cramped, but The Works had the most consistent vibe of any bar at that time. Thursdays were always fun with their cheap margaritas.

Uncle Charlie's, Ninth Circle, Sound Factory, Limelight, Palladium, and of course The Roxy which was my favorite. Are there any big clubs in the city anymore?

Where have all the street hustlers gone? There was so much trade to be had. I remember spending whole afternoons just street cruising along 8th Ave. from the 30's through the 40's, flirting with the street hustlers, many of them black and muscular, and often ducking into an AVS to get fucked by one. So many of those stores and so many hustlers. It wasn't so long ago, but I am nostalgic for those bygone days.

Fresh coffee for 50¢, self serve at the greengrocer across the street

Sign the petition!

Sign the pet-tish-un people!

yeah, lots of small mom and pop stores are gone because they just can't compete with amazon. no more bookstores! Only 1 left is Strand! Even Barnes and Noble have closed most of its stores. The one in Union Sq is still there.

[quote] There was lots of affordable ethnic food, even in Manhattan.

Theresa's and Marie's for Polish food. Curry Row on 6th Street -- I swear you could not spend $10 on lunch if you tried. Lots of delis, Ukrainian food in the east village. Dim sum.

Speaking of bookstores and Carrie Fisher, I remember the scene where she and Meg Ryan were in Shakespeare and Co in When Harry Met Sally .

Cafe Tabac in the East Village

Anyone here ever frequent Champs?

I remember Beer Blast at champs, I think it was Tuesday nights R60?

Opening night at Crowbar (and sex in the back room); gogo dancing on the bar at Pyramid, RuPaul as Starr Booty, The Gay Dating Game Show with Tommy Saeli and LaHoma Van Zant; "lie back, get comf-taball' with Robyn Byrd, Trash & Vaudeville for a new/old bomber jacket, P.S. 122, for Ethyl Eichelberger or Tim Miller shows; David Byrne at BAM, The Red Hot Chili Peppers at The Ritz, Mark Berkley always guestlisting me at Limelight, Chip Duckett doing the same for all the cuties at Mars (and picking up two sailors on the roof deck at Mars); Shopping at Patricia Field; seeing weird plays at The Wooster Group; hot sex at Bijou 82, two Boots Pizza on Mondays after ACT UP meetings....

I could go on and on.

Hey R62, I was just in the E village a couple of days ago, I lived there for over a decade, since moved uptown. So much has changed. There is only one store on st. marks place selling rock shirts/smoke stuff now, i went in there and noticed the shirts were all fake lol. I then went to search and destroy to buy some punk shirts for the punk rockers on my xmas list. The shirts were $28 each, not cheap but I paid anyways coz I want to support the store and hope it doesn't go out of biz like so many have.

Whenever I meet someone else who lived in New York in the 90s, one of the first things they'll mention is Limelight.

Zone DK. Now that was dirty fun.

Coney Island High and Dojo on St Mark's.

[quote]Ukrainian food in the east village

Yeah. All 3 of them.

What you really miss is that you were MUCH younger, and could still get laid without paying for it.

I wish I could have been there. My life is dull.

When we fought against travesty, together.

I can still hear the "SIGN THE PETITION" lady in my head when I am on Astor Place. There was this great Polish butcher/deli on 1st Ave between 7 and 8, I think. No one mentioned Musical Mondays at Tunnel bar with that hairy muscled bar tender.

When the tide began to turn.

Times Square, in transition.

Club Kids

The most infamous club kid of them all.

Strike a pose.

Dojo was shit anyways...

I don't think I ever went to Mars bar, I never went past 1st ave, and now can you believe fucking condos are selling for millions, like over 3 or 4 million on ave C? I would never pay that much to live there, I don't care how 'nice' it is now lol.

Both NYC and SF seem to have lost both the artists and the grit that made them magical back in the day. The sense that you could find something undiscovered by the masses.

LA and smaller cities have been the beneficiaries, but most people I know who want to do something creative are starting to flock to LA as the East Side gets more gentrified and as Silicon Beach continues to boom.

When the Real World cast from 1992 went to Limelight, Michael Alig is seen a couple times in the background.

Sad to think that just when the newer AIDS meds starting kicking in and guys who had been left for dead miraculously started living again, many of the vestiges of NYC that had previously come to define their lives started to disappear.

Mercury Lounge / Red Square apartments on Avenue A / Max Fish / Squeezbox / Don Hill's / The Vault / The Townhouse / Rounds / The Works / The Break / HQ magazine / Kim's Video / Webster Hall / Disco 2000 at Limelight / Robyn S. "Show Me Love" / Veselka's / Cafe Mogodor / East Side Club / Bijou theater / The Monster

Magnolia Bakery

Bang Bang clothing store. I was partial to the one located on 8th street. I brought many of my club outfits there.

Gray's Papaya on the corner of 6th ave and 8th street. God knows what was in those hot dogs, but they were cheap and tasty. Barnes and Noble was across the street from it.

Is Gray's still in NYC?

NYC before cell phones, Sex and the City and 9/11 was so damn fun I had no idea how much at the time.

I'd kill to go back to pre-millennium sleazy NYC. The seediness was part of the city's charm. Where else but in a buddy booth of a sleazy Times Square ABS could you get DP-ed raw by a broadway actor and hunky bartender at 4am on a Sunday? God how I miss all of that.

Sounds hot as fuck R87. Any other fun stories to tell?

Nickel bags in Washington Square Park, shows at Tramps and the Cooler, disco fries at Stingy Lulu's, St. Vincent's Hospital.

Fucking hell, I remember Tramps..

David Barton & Suzanne Bartsch, Polly Esther's, Charlie Mom, Lucky Cheng's, Keller's, Three of Cups, Sine, 🌇

It's so much fun now, though. The restaurants serve 4 tables all night, or you can go to the Olive garden. Broadway shows are now movies made into musicals made into movies made into musicals. Live in a honeycomb for people.

Looking at 1 AM to buy stolen Glen Yank jewelry lovingly displayed on blankets on the sidewalk around the Cube at St Mark's.

If I lived in the East Village (Alphabet City) in 96-98 and walked to NYU daily - and haven't been back since - what would I notice if I returned? How would it seem different to me? Even back then I remember people complaining that NYC had been ruined from its heyday. I re-watched "Kids" recently and that felt like the NYC I remember

Florent

Spike

Champagne Video

Edelweiss. Cheap hotels.

That's LONG gone R58.

Walking through the subway from train to train all the way to the front

Fruitopia fruit-collage subway ads

Candis Cayne pre-nosejob busting in Crowbar and walking through the bar like a runway on a slow weeknight.

90s NYC was OK, and I was still very handsome and young. 80's NYC was much better than 90's, though. New York started to slip away from grunginess and bohemian wonderland in the 80's. By the 90's the process was half completed and it was already a bit sad and tragic.

As a young homosexual, I used to love coming into the city, staying at the West Side Y, smoking a joint, and heading down to the Gaiety to see the strippers with hard-ons. Then, to the Showplace, where the men either jacked off on stage or participated in the "love segment." It was mostly blowjobs, but an occasional fuck on stage. And, every once in a while, the dancer would come into the audience and get sucked by patrons. It was all too sleezy and wonderfully exciting, especially after returning to the Y for a little lights off shower action with other "guests." Now, Disney has ruined it.

Michael Eisner destroyed Disney in order to save it.

I don't understand for the life of me how you old queens could long for the NYC of the 80s and 90s? It all sounds too filthy for words, and I'd think that your memories of AIDS would eclipse all of those happy memories of skeevy NYC.

Don't challenge your tiny clean mind trying to think for us, dear R104.

Odessa

Florent

Veselka's

SAINT MARK'S BOOKS

Limbo on Avenue A

[quote]Uncle Charlie's, Ninth Circle

Wasn't the Ninth Circle gone by the '90s?

Lox Around the Clock

Yaffa Cafe

Chumley's in the West Village

Stingy Lulu's, Lucky Chen, Pyramid, Save the Robots, Kim's Video, Cucina Di Pesce, Angel's Share, after hours Ave. C...

R100, I went to school with CC, when she had her old nose and her penis. (In Hawaii). It's rather a good thing it was removed. The nose too.

The Big Cup (can you imagine an independently-owned coffee house of that size opening these days?) and Bendix.

The old guys standing outside bars and megaclubs in the middle of the night handing out flyers to the next party.

After hours dance clubs that started at 4am.

I loved Big Cup. That was my go-to spot for initial meetings with guys I met online before taking them back to my place to do the nasty.

I arrived (to live) in 1991. This thread brings back so many memories. The main thing as has been said above is that the "Carrie Bradshaws" hadn't arrived yet. I blame them more than Disney because Disney only changed Times Square, whereas the Carrie Bradshaws changed the West Village and Chelsea and several other neighborhoods. NYC has always had tourists, but the CBs brought their entitled, whiny attitudes and their just "in the way" because they don't contribute anything to the city.

Getting one of the first copies of The Village Voice Tuesday nights at the Sheridan Square newsstand. Buying Backstage for auditions. Hitting the temp agencies for work. Trying to be "That Girl".

The wonderful clothing stores: Canal Jeans, Unique Clothing Warehouse (or was it Wearhouse?), West 8th Street was full of independent clothing stores. Barnes & Noble and Gray's Papaya on 6th Avenue and 8th Street and then just walk 8th looking at all the shoes and clothes.

The Tower Records by Lincoln Center had every possible fucking record you could ever imagine and many of the salesclerks knew their merchandise. (Tower Records had the Flo Henderson recording of "Oklahoma"). And if they didn't have it, HMV was up on 72nd Street, a short walk away.

The restaurants: there was still affordable food in the city. Great diners, Big Cup, Velselka was good (now it's crowded as hell), Corner Bistro (also crowded as hell). Woolworth's lunch counter on 33rd, cheap but good.

The theater was amazing. So many off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway shows. I saw so many. "The Green Heart" "Zombie Prom" "Cowgirls" "Nunsense" "Other People's Money", tons of cabaret and drag shows and just little shitty productions that aspiring actors would put on.

I didn't go to the bars much, but I did frequent Uncle Charlies. I loved their videos. There was a hilarious "short" where this woman played Joey Buttafucco's wife. I remember she said something like "I just opened the door and this bitch shot me in the face." It was so funny.

Also, was there a sex club on the West Side HIghway. I remember one night following this guy from Uncle Charlies all the way over to the West Side Highway. It was one of those old buildings and up a flight of stairs. You paid a fee to get in. There were guys standing around in groups. Mostly circle jerks and blowjobs. Or the New David Cinema which was hilarious. On the second floor were a bunch of guys sitting around on sofas. Mostly older men, but a few married men. In a corner, somebody might start giving someone else a blowjob and suddenly all the old men would get up and run over to where the action was. And those old men would start to get grabby. So New David wasn't really a place that you could enjoy because of those old men constantly trying to be part of the fun.

The cost of living hadn't gone through the roof yet. You could still find a Yorkville studio for $600 a month (my first NYC apartment). And later a 1 bedroom in the West Village rent-stabilized at $750 per month.

The skinny blonde (lesbian?) who stood on the street corners "Sign the petition!" For awhile she was doing animal cruelty. Then she turned over to porn. It was funny because she would hold up this big sign with a woman tied up in bondage. All these guys would stop to stare at the sign and she thought they were actually interested in signing the petition and not just looking at some sexy picture.

Nation of Islam was on the streets more with their "Bible" readings. They were always saying they were the real Jews. One guy would preach for a few minutes and then he'd ask a "brother" to read. Usually the "brother" was the worst reader and stumbled all over the words.

Alicia Keys captured the atmosphere really well in her song "Empire State of Mind."

I'll try and think of some other things.

The Lure

The Big Cup Tower Records Various sex clubs

Those were the good ole days

Splash

Tower Records, Patricia Fields, Mom and Pop stores, Blockbuster video nights, meeting people on the street, at the gym, everywhere since no one had a phone and there was actual eye contact when you walked by someone. Affordable apartments, subways that were not wall to wall all crowded and no garbage bags on the streets

The K-hole slide at Club USA.

Cable access channel 35 with Robin Byrd, In The Dungeon, Fashion Patrol with Brandywine and Brenda-A-GoGo (featuring Peelin' it off with Mrs. Peel) Party Talk, Mrs. Mouth, Sick and Wrong, Men in Films, Lou Maletta, etc.

For R109, I just found this online, I guess I was there for the extreme tail end of the ninth circle, I was way too young to even been in there! I have some great times there as a young gay, that was the first NYC gay bar I snuck into as and underage gay form Long Island. Great times!!

Thank you, R122. I spent much of the '70s there, when I was in my 20s.

So, is the city's "greatness" a thing of the past, or merely the old DL posters?

I moved to New York with a close friend in 1990. He was a struggling dancer and I was a struggling writer. All of you have captured the nitty-gritty, friendly, freeing spirit of the city during that era. My friend lost his life in an auto accident six years ago and tonight, because of your posts, I go to bed with sweet memories of him and those bygone days.

Hey R125---love to you,baby!

One of the first thoughts I had on 9/11 was that I must have passed by or taken the train with someone who was in the WTC when I lived there in the 90s.

R125, more love to you as well, this thread is the real deal, those who didn't experience the city during this time missed blissful adventures, and NO, Manhattan is NOT better in 2017.

Nation of Islam, or did you mean the Black Hebrews who dresses up like they were at a disco?

I can't recall the name of the theater, but they'd have strop shows every couple of hours from 2PM - midnight. Boys would each do an individual strip, followed by a group nude number, and then when the movie restarted they'd hustle the audience (dressed).

[quote]The Tower Records by Lincoln Center had every possible fucking record you could ever imagine and many of the salesclerks knew their merchandise.

The one on Broadway was always better and BIGGER.

It opened the week I arrived in New York in 1983. I was in there all the time for years.

[quote]Yaffa Cafe

With the great garden in the back.

I filmed all over the East Village in 1988 and took my camera in there. Even filmed the prices on the menu. Maybe I'll post some online for DL to look at - jog a few memories.

Stella's. Cats.

Save The Robots

Who remembers the Factory Cafe on Christopher Street? I actually preferred that place to Big Cup. It had a more diverse crowd, and good eats. There was a perch where a lucky customer could sit. I was always up there, watching the cute patrons down below as I had my pound cake and coffee.

There was still a Chock Full O Nuts on 23rd Street into the 1990s. And welfare hotels.

It was the NYC I first saw when my grandparents took me there at the age of 9 in 1992, the year before Giuliani took over. Just thinking about those Good Humor carts, going to Rattner's with my now-deceased great-uncle and great-aunt, my grandfather trying to tell the cabbie from the Newark airport which Sheraton in Manhattan was the Sheraton Manhatton, and the Empire State Building takes me back. I didn't go to a Broadway show until my second time there in 1994, when my mom, my other grandma and I saw [italic]Beauty and the Beast[/italic] and [italic]Carousel[/italic]. That's when I first went to the World Trade Center.

Video Vrooom, Champagne video. The first big video franchise was RKO. Looked like they were going to take over when BAM Blockbuster busted them.

There were so many video shops it's ridiculous. There was a little store across the street from me that was empty for years. Opened as a video shop and for about 2 years it was filled with all kinds of people. They had art movies, porn in the back room. You had to wait to get in on weekends. Then it closed and was empty again for years.

There was a giant card shop nearby that had cards, stationery, pens, watches, magazines, newspapers. They opened a 99 cent video section. It was pretty good. Lots of older movies.

Sometimes I catch Seinfeld reruns and whenever they are in a car "driving" in Manhattan they go through my neighborhood and past my old building. I get so nostalgic. My rental building is luxury condos now with 1BRs going for $1M. The bars that lined the street are all gone and big highrises took their places with CVS, Duane Reade and ATMs on the ground floor.

A Whole Foods moved in and put all the green grocers out of business.

I remember cappuccino shops. They were big for about 2 years and then they all folded. No more tiramasu. There was a gelato shop in my neighborhood.

I lived in midtown and on the UES. I remember so many movie theaters in my midtown neighborhood. So many card shops/stationery stores everywhere. You never had to worry about getting a birthday card or wrapping a present for someone.

Woolworths. Macy's Cellar. They had tons of food in Macy's cellar but no one was ever in there buying anything in the 80s when I lived there. Hardware stores. There were TONS of them. They were all tiny but they always had exactly what you needed and they could run you a new set of keys in minutes. They all folded when Home Depot opened in Manhattan. Dramatics haircutting, Love Cosmetics, three Barnes and Nobles within 3 blocks of each other. I think one might have become an HMV for a while. Or Petco. Haha, I remember Petland Discounts. I had a pet bird and bought seed and worms and cuttlebones there.

And pet stores with puppies in the window. Everybody claiming they were THE original Ray's pizza. Ottomanelli's were all over the place. And there were several bakeries in my UES neighborhood. I recently went back and couldn't find a greengrocers. The Koreans sent all their kids to medical school and retired.

Sound Factory Bar

Limbo coffee on Ave. A

Kim's Video Saint Marks / Kim's Video East Village (where I would see Iggy Pop and his young Asian girlfriend) / Kim's Video West Village

I ordered the Rob Lowe VHS sex tape with bonus behind the scenes drunken tour antics of the Go-Go's from Al Goldstein's public access show.

In the late 90s there was a bartender at the Works who made his own fruit-infused vodkas. He was way ahead of his time.

I wonder if any of you NYers knew my old friend Robert Scott, who lived in NYC in the late 80s and early 90s. He worked for Robert Stigwood.

Trump was there. This was his favorite ad...

>>>>

Coliseum Books on 57th, near Columbus Circle. I used to work in the area, and would spend many of my lunch hours there. After work, too. I brought many books from there, after spending considerable time browsing and skimming. It was a great bookstore and I cried when they shut down.

I remember that store r144. I loved it there. I used to spend so much of my leisure time going to book stores and record stores.

The world seems smaller nowadays without them.

Anyone else visit IC Guys in Chelsea... It was pretty much a gay bordello, with boys in rooms who could be hired. I looked around and fled, I was out of my depth in that place.

[quote] I think one might have become an HMV for a while.

Was that the one on Lexington and 86th Street? I went in there one day and went down to the Show Tunes section in the basement. I was flipping through and found one copy of the Judi Dench "A Little Night Music". I couldn't believe it because it was so hard to find. I grabbed it up real quick hoping none of the show queens around me saw that I had it.

[quote]Coliseum Books on 57th, near Columbus Circle.

That store held a lot of nostalgia for me. I grew up in a small town. One time our class came into NYC to see a Broadway show. We were given free time before the show and I wandered up to that store. It was like heaven for me. I had never seen such a collection of eclectic books. Their theater section alone was amazing to this high school kid. After I moved to NYC, I shopped there a lot.

When they closed the 57th Street store, they relocated for awhile to 42nd Street between 5th and 6th, but I think they eventually couldn't deal with the high rents of NYC. Same with so many wonderful niche stores like Footlight Records and the clothing stores along Broadway like Canal Jeans.

Some pretty good imagery on this New York City in the 90s photo archives website

OMG, this thread is making me so nostalgic with all these names I remember so well: Limelight, Tunnel, Tower Records, Canal Jean Company. There was an after hours club I used to frequent, but dammit I can't remember the name.

Is the Strand Bookstore still around? I loved that place. Actually taking my paycheck to Manny Hanny to deposit on payday.

I'm sure this is long gone, and it wasn't nothing but a neighborhood place, but Eisenberg's Deli around where I worked for a while near the Flatiron Building was a typical NYC deli at its finest. Run by a little old couple and the homemade chicken noodle soup could cure cancer.

Friends of mine worked at Coliseum Books in high school, I remember they used to tear the covers off paperbacks (rendering them damaged & the cover would be returned to publisher for refund) then keep them to read. Good times(?).

R150, Eisenberg's Deli is still open--and in the same place you remembered! I believe they have ongoing bridge games there as well!

Does anyone remember a hustler bar called Stella's? It was on 48th or 49th Street, I think, and just off 8th by the firehouse? More hot trade than you could get your hands on. I had some memorable encounters that sprang from that place, and ran into some regulars from my gym uptown, both trainers and gym goers, who were plying their trade there. They were straight for public consumption (gf/wife and kids in some cases), but were either bi or gay for pay when they needed to pay their rent. It was just all so wonderfully sleazy.

R153 really needs to make up his mind about whether he's gay or not.

[quote]Actually taking my paycheck to Manny Hanny to deposit on payday.

Were you in banking, R150?

Everyone talking about Blue Man Group

Keith Haring's Pop Shop

Mrs. Mouth

OMG R152 that makes me happy to hear, although I'm sure "Irv" and Mrs. Eisenberg are long gone :-(

I'd kill for a bowl of that chicken noodle soup right now

No R155, I worked for a political consulting firm. There was a Manny Hanny branch down the street from the office where I used to take my checks on payday to deposit. We didn't have direct deposit LOL.

Those were the days

I did the big move from highschool in queens to Chelsea (FIT) . Chelsea still was gritty then (before the galleries and wayyy before the breeders) and I used to get head on street corners (parking lots/porn stores and flea markets back then). Limelight and Nells were my life.. First time I did ecstasy was there (Limelight and consequently, I screwed all sorts who claimed all sorts of sexualities TBD... Those were the days. But I am still a staunch Manhattanite and have my fun. I'm very happy in my life. So many things from that era are dead, but it's all good. It was a different world. I used to see Gregory Hines walking down 8th Avenue with a big smile on his face and so happy. I'm glad to have caught a faint whiff of it. I love and respect all my eldergdays.. You bitches taught me more than I could even fathom. More people should respect the paths that were blazed for us. I only wish I had the foresight to hug you harder back then. (I'm an elder gay now, but you queens forged history for all of us.. thanks for that.)

Good for the country (Clinton) bad for the city (Giuliani).

The last great carefree days in NYC

The 90s was when the character of each of the neighborhoods started going away as box stores like Gap and Banana Republic showed up everywhere, killing off the smal. Independent stores that have NYC so much of its character

Sounds like things have improved significantly.

NYC will never be like that again

Fez and Time Cafe

What are some specific ways the city has changed since then?

Moved here in ‘97, the city was becoming safer but was still unbelievably fun...now it’s beyond boring, and not just saying cause I’m old...it really is boring as fuck compared to then.

1) It's not just NYC....Disney/the Internet/cell phones/the Carrie Bradshaws also did a number on every fun, cool, big city. The Blandification of Urban Life happened/is happening in San Francisco and Seattle and Portland, too.

2) I feel blessed I first visited NYC in '93. I got to experience the grungier side of the city...the grit and the independent businesses and the art.

I just spent a few days there after many years away. (I lived there full time 1979-1985 and summers afterwards until 1988). There were always busy, touristy parts of the city, (5th Avenue, Times Square, Lincoln Center, shoppers on Madison Avenue), but in those years, there were many many corners of Manhattan that were unvisited except by the residents, and you could feel like you were discovering them for the first time. Many of them were borderline dangerous, but if you were young and fast, as I was, you never felt as though your life was in danger. Yes to the old piers along the Hudson, yes to the trucks parked underneath what is now the Highline, yes to walking through the Rambles in the days when people would dart into a heavily shrubbed area and drop trou., yes to the sex clubs in the meat district. Scary but fun times exploring the East Village (St. Marks and the Club Baths), the Bowery, Soho, Little Italy, Chinatown, or going far up the west side to Washington Heights (the Cloisters) or even to the ends of the earth (Inwood). Of course, all the gay bars mentioned in the thread above. Now, walking through Manhattan, I felt there isn't an unexplored inch. 9th Avenue used to be pretty seamy, now it's one restaurant after another for 30 blocks. Walking through NY last month, I almost got the feeling that the majority of people I was seeing were not NYC residents, but tourists - and maybe they were. It was fun, but had a totally different energy. I also spent time in Brooklyn and Queens this trip. They felt a bit more like the Manhattan of my youth.

It was a great time to be in New York

The end of the old NYC. By 2000, most of the elements of the new NYC were in place - even if they hadn’t completely steamrolled the old NYC yet. What felt like a renaissance in 2000 in retrospect was the beginning of the end of old NYC. Just today I was walking around downtown thinking that this is a whole new gilded age of NYC. The amount of new buildings and the extreme level of wealth and luxury has created a new city geared towards global wealth and extreme income inequality.

I’m glad I was in my prime in the 90s to enjoy it - though the one thing I would have changed is the AIDS=death gloom that hung over everything for most of it. But AIDS did create a certain grounding in that you knew you could die at any time - so it forced a certain prioritization in life that generally involved enjoying life rather than accumulating hoards of money and luxuries.

"Those were the best days of my life"

Sinead O'Connor at Limelight

[quote]R55 Sign the petition! Sign the pet-tish-un people!

omg ... I know just who you mean!!!

Cafe Orlin

I grew up in Hollywood (born in 1980) and loved the grittiness of it. I assumed New York would be the same. Moved to Manhattan in 2004. I left two years later. I found it sterile in comparison to LA - and I truly never thought I'd say that.

Barnes and Noble in Astor Place had a huge grand opening in the mid-90s.

One thing I don't miss is getting mugged. It happened to me twice and the first one scared me to death Is there any street crime left in Manhattan now?

God - I remember so much of all of these things. I think it was Guiliani that really changed things. I moved away in 96, but God did I have fun and LIVED!

Yes - I was young. But, besides AIDS, it really was a great time.

I went to college in DC and one of my best friends went to Marymount Manhattan and we would visit each other a few times a year in 98-00 when we were 18-20. She took me to the Cock where our friend competed for the bar bucks (can't remember their name) by giving a guy a blowjob while humming the national anthem. The drag queen hosting ended up being from our hometown and we ran into her on the street walking around St. Marks the next day. Went to see Grandma Sylvia's Funeral and thought it was cool I was seeing Drew Barrymore's mom and Lee Meriweather. We would shop at Trash & Vaudeville and had weed delivered by a courier, I couldn't believe it! Had so much fun.

The End of the Innocence

Wow, this thread is great!

How long until Manhattan picks up to 90s levels

r153 yes I remember stellas!

r153 I paid my rent many times at the last minute with Stella's help.