Let’s Be NYC in the 90s

I'm a homeless bum taking a dump on the sidewalk while a family of four from Muncie, Indiana is buying tickets to [italic]Beauty and the Beast[/italic].

I’m the clubs where people danced by themselves, did drugs publicly and hooked up with someone they met in person. I was abundant.

I'm "normalcy" including stuffing people into crowded bars and clubs.

I'm the last era between smartphones took over the world.

I'm the World Trade Center Twin, still standing.

I'm The Sharper Image store. Pretentious as hell, I set the standard for the Apple store and Brookstone.

I finally closed in 2008.

I'm Muriel hoping someone will post on this newfangled DataLounge site of mine. There must be a demand for gay gossip and pointless bitchery somewhere on the Internet. Now, where'd I put that other bag of low-fat Doritos?

Twin Towers

I'm bums bathing in the sinks in the bathroom at the Port Authority.

I'm the roving subletter, migrating seasonally from UES to UWS

I'm insanely good-looking gays waiting in line for Food Bar, for mediocre food and indifferent service. But it's Eighth Avenue ("The Runway") in Chelsea, the center of the gay universe! Life is good.

I'm Greenwich Village, not yet completely bought up and controlled by one of my famous residents - NYU.

I'm the guy selling my 🔥🔥🔥 mixtape out of my trunk on the street. And by mixtape I mean an actual cassette tape.

I'm Ann Coulter

I'm fun and filthy sex parties every weekend at The Triangle, the building that used to host J's Hangout, The Hellfire Club, and The Manhole.

You never know what you've got til it's gone, like Joni Mitchell sang.

I'm Nell Carter's insulin syringe, a far cry from the drugs she was taking when she ditched Broadway for TV.

I'm Brooklyn, starting my makeover and transformation. You haven't seen nuthin' yet.

R11 LOL this old review of Food Bar before it closed: “This eatery is on the corner of gay and gayer. Cute staff, cute boys and not bad food make this a great place to see and be seen.”

I'm "Ask a," the gay dating site, and I'm your introduction to DL, inadvertently.

I'm cute but like most "serious" gay dating sites, I mostly suck.

"What are 3 things in your refrigerator?"

I'm the the happy point between scary and rough 70s and 80s NYC and the future corporate, overwhelmingly rich, and Disneyfied NYC.

I'm my rent, still under $700 a month! Ha, suck it, newbies,.

I'm pre-9/11 Rudy Giuliani, when he seemed more like your grumpy old uncle than like Satan, Prince of Darkness.

I'm Diet Coke and SunChips, what most internet users survived on.

We're the owners of Katz's Deli bracing for an influx of new customers after being featured in [italic]When Harry Met Sally[/italic].

I'm the "alternative" gay bar scene in the East Village, and I'm actually really fun for a while.

I'm [italic]Home Alone 2[/italic] immortalizing this period on film with the added bonus of Tim Curry queening it up even more than he did in [italic]Rocky Horror[/italic], and from the same studio no less.

I'm the all-night Korean grocer across the street from Pyramid Club. You'll enjoy the salad bars and a juice after the clubs close.

I'm the pack of cigarettes you can buy for $2 and smoke in a bar or restaurant.

I'm this hotel in the east 50'streets, where you 'd show up barechested at the window and immediately receive a phone call from a gay neighbor directly on your room line,

I’m July 4, 1996, when I relocated to NYC.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

I'm the record shops in St. Mark's starting to clearance out vinyl. Wish I held off for another ten years but that offer from Jamba Juice was too good to pass up.

I'm the multitudes of black leather jacket clones.

I'm Planet Hollywood, anchoring the sanitization of Times Square.

New York in 1999 was a dream come true. Our biggest issue was Monica’s blue dress. I loved every minute of it.

I am the black curtain in The Cock on First Avenue. I get hosed down with bleach every morning.

R29 which hotel?

I’m Zone DK - the last gasp of sex clubs as the police gradually shut down everything fun or interesting.

R38 Gabriel Rotello, former editor of the now-defunct gay magazine Outweek, wrote in New York Newsday that during a visit to another sex club, Zone DK, he had witnessed "a murder-suicide" -- two men having unprotected sex.

[quote]I am the black curtain in The Cock on First Avenue. I get hosed down with bleach every morning.

I'm the load of cum you got all over your arm from the guy jacking off next to you in the back room of the Cock on First Avenue. Dude, watch where you spray your load!

I'm Colony Records - still hanging in there

I'm Sex And The City. I'm about to ruin a lot of this.

I'm Chloe fucking Sevigny! I just got raped and pozzed with HIV on camera and I am so hip!

I am the excitement that came with Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy. I am fading soon.

I'm Splash. You go here more than you admit.

I'm JFK JR. rollerblading shirtless. I like the attention.

I'm the Times Square video arcade peep show. I'll be replaced by Mickey House characters harassing the tourists for $20 for a photo op with their children.

I am the Chelsea Boy. I am found on 18th and 8th. I just discovered steroids and meth.

I'm Michael Alig and the club kids scene.

I'm Michael Alig and the club kids scene.

I’m Ecstasy. I’m the Drug du Jour.

I'm the MetroCard. I was introduced in 1992 and will probably die in 2023.

I'm The Green Kitchen on E 84th St in NYC, where you could get cheese fries or cake after a boozy night out at 3 am.

I am the cheap print with the fox hunt scene in The Townhouse. I am still here and will be hanging there for another 30 years.

R44 I’m the trendy little tops that the fashion forward WASP princesses snatch up at said stores to pair into designer ensembles, à la Sharon Stone at the Oscars. Parading around Downtown like they’re hot shit in their $19.99 GAP tees. These brands, especially Old Navy, will fall out of fashion fast... but for a moment they’re hot and actually better than what’s to soon follow: high-end fashion houses selling out by making purses, clothing and anything really into huge billboards with logos slathered on with the subtlety of Winona Ryder at Saks.

I’m the 9 train.

R46, it was horse tranquilizer (special K) in the 90s. Everyone in Chelsea was either going into a K hole, in a K hole, or coming out of a K hole.

True R46. But meth started to creep in. Maybe it wasn’t as defining for the gay druggie scene then as it is now. People were still a bit too scared to dive into PNP.

I am the crix belly that marked a survivor.

I’m the Gaiety.

I’m the line around the block to get in the Roxy, where I hear Madonna might make an appearance

I’m word of mouth, I will not be around for much longer.

I’ll be the different levels of John Blair membership.

r7 you are mistaken. The 90's were the golden age of Datalounge.

I'm LADY MISS KIER at Wigstock!

Oh yes R63, when Wigstock was fun...I went on the Wigstock cruise 3 years ago, it was a disaster. Lady bunny was not funny, the shade thrown was lame, and half of the jokes and songs were unintelligible because there was no sound system.

I’m the all-white depiction of NYC lives in Seinfeld, Friends, SATC, Will and Grace, Mad About You, among others.

"SIGN THE PETITION!"

I’m R65 and their flyover brethren who constantly hate on the Rachel, Elaine & Carrie version of NYC but intensely long with desire for my life to be a mirror of that fictitious image since I moved to Bushwick from Nebraska or Alabama long ago. In fact those shows are the reason I’m in NYC... weird!?

I'm Woody Allen. My NYC-based films during this decade include some of the more pointless and dim-witted of my career (ALICE, EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU), but my reputation remains impeccable, even after all that nonsense with Mia.

The press still treats me like I'm a god.

PS: I really should have included CELEBRITY there. Wowza.

I’m the fish tank urinal at XL you won’t get to see until after Y2K doesn’t cause the collapse society.

R66 - I love you. THAT honestly is one of my most specific memories of the time. The crazy short haired anti-porn woman - usually in Sheridan Square. I miss her - and Tiffany’s, and Manatus.

I'm the showers at Chelsea Gym. Three muscular guys are masturbating at the same time!

I live in the meatpacking district, a gritty but trendy neighborhood!

I'm the Village Voice at the height of my powers, not realizing the relatively swift decline that would come in the coming decades. That said, that decline wasn't unusual at all for printed publications.

R67 Nope. West coast, I’m from the SF Bay Area to be precise, you’re crazy if you think everyone wants to live in NYC. No thanks, lived in Brooklyn for a year right after graduating early from high school so I could have a gap year like the Europeans. NYC is overrated and this is from someone who also lived in Tokyo for 8 months. I’d take Tokyo over NYC any day.

R36 R40 In the 90’s The Cock (the original, most notorious) was on Avenue A.

I’m Candis Cayne’s original nose

I’m the sad last days of the New York Coliseum.

I’m Girlina before I lost the “Gir”

R79, Right that’s the one with the curtain I meant. So where around 12th street, right?

New York in the late 90s was awesome. It was the sweet spot between the bankrupt and crime-ridden 70's, 80', and early 90's and the soulless post 9-11, social-media-infested, reality TV-soiled , Kardashian and Trumpian new millennium.

R81 see R20

Absolutely agree r81.

I’m the vaguely ethnic guy on the sidewalk selling bootleg VHS copies of “Titanic” and “Rollecks” watches

I’ll be the massive NYC circuit parties.

I’ll be the limelight.

I’ll be HX magazine

I'll be the nacreous layer of permacum on the floor of the Rosaland durning the Black Party.

Awww the 9 train.

I’m the Nederlander theater where RENT-heads sleep on 41st street to get rush tickets.

I'm the Village production of The Fantasticks. I've been here since 1960 and I've got a few more years to go!

I am that view at 5 AM on a summer morning stumbling out from a bar in the Meat District: the World Trade Center glowing in red-orange. I will never be forgotten.

I’m Hells Kitchen, you’ll be getting to know me better in the near future.

I'm Xandos coffee... so much edgier than Starbucks. And Coney Island High. And Dojo. 16 year old me is about to fall in love with the City and lose her virginity.

I'm the full service bar in the bathroom at the Tunnel, with bathroom stalls all around.

Somehow we thought this was edgy and cool - not sure how it was permitted by the Health Department.

Ahh Coney Island High. My first venture into the city for a concert in the late 90s. Popped my cherry.

I am the confidence that a car bomb “could never topple a building as massive as the WTC”.

Virgin megastore on 14th Street. Big Cup. Wonderbar and Starlight. Republic noodles in Union Square.

I'm the decibel level in upper-mid-priced trendoid restaurants. I go up every year and haven't been in the safe range since 1987.

I’m the Time Cafe on 85th and broadway. Damn that place was good.

I’m the bootleg copies of the Pam & Tommy Lee honeymoon sex film dvd being sold on 14th Street & 6th Ave for $5 each by a middle aged Italian guy. “Pam and Tommy Lee, five dollars! Five dollars!”

I'm the Good Humor man peddling obesity on a stick. Would you like Chocolate Eclair or Strawberry Shortcake?

I'm the bowl of cheap cookies on the bar at the Bijou sex club.

I'm the enjoyment of being young, skinny and smoking everywhere.

I wonder if John-John’s dog is still alive?

I’m the third floor mensroom in NYU’s Brown Building on Washington Square East, heaving with guys getting it on. If it gets too crowded you can head to the Fufth floor mensroom

I'm all the men who didn't survive to tri-therapy. RIP.

I’m Tribeca when you could buy a 1500 sq/ft prewar co-op for $500,000. Now I sell for no less than $3MM.

I’m bring in da noise bring in da funk.

So revolutionary

Tell me more R105, I work in this building now.

I am the excitement that came with the Barnes&Nobel Store on Union Square. Nobody realizes yet how toxic I am to the independent bookstores.

I'm Big Cup, I'm Rawhide, I'm Helen's/Judy's cabaret, I'm Bendix diner. I'm Eighth Avenue and the gays love me.

I’m the toe tag on Jonathan Larson’s corpse that will ensue or greater success for [italic]Rent[/italic] then it otherwise might have had.

Or = far

Ensure

I'm hedwig at Jackie 60

I'm 20 and I make $100K because I know HTML.

I'm your date to meet friends for a new indie or foreign film at the Angelica or the Waverly, something we actually made time for and looked forward to. And passionately disagreeing with the VOICE and/or New Yorker reviews.

I'm the actors, dancers, and singers working at night in the Word Processing department. It's a fucking blast.

I'm Brad Johns' chunky highlights in Carolyn Bessette Kennedy's hair.

I'm David Barton Gym, the love child of a gay bar and health club

I'm a woman walking down 8th Avenue in Chelsea.

I'm the only one.

I'm a condom wrapper floating through the breeze as it blows through Christopher Street the day before they pick up the garbage.

I'm Tompkins Square Park. Right now I'm pretty scummy, filled with homeless and wannbe homeless.

In a few years I'll look like Central Park.

I'm the rest of the East Village.

I'm still pretty seedy and after dark, I can be downright dangerous.

And for some reason I am overrun with Japanese.

I'm the New York Public Library's 25th anniversary exhibit on the Stonewall riots. They had yet to start popularizing the lie that gay white men did nothing and trans women of color did everything.

I'm a classic six on the UWS or UES

Depending on how much I've been renovated, I'm still well under one million dollars.

I'm that first bump of Tina on the road to becoming an HIV-positive denture wearer before the age of 50.

I'm a magazine store.

My walls are packed with glossy magazines of every kind, from all over the world. British GQ. Italian Vogue. Random surfer magazines from Australia.

Oddly, no one ever seems to buy anything here.

There must be another way my owners make money.

I'm Starbucks. That cool new coffee place that's opening up all over the city. I look so different than any other restaurant or bar. People who know the difference between ventis and grandes and don't get thrown by the fact that the third option, tall, is in English, get to lord it over all their less sophisticated friends.

I'm a 1997 [italic]Simpsons[/italic] episode set here that will temporarily get pulled from reruns four years from now.

I'm the New York Press, a free newspaper that's available on every other corner along with the Village Voice.

I'm what you grab to read on the subway because cell phones still only make phone calls.

i'm show world!

I'm a newly arrived transplant from the Midwest.

I still call the N and R trains "the yellow line"

I'm the porn store on the corner of 14th and 3rd. We never card people.

I'm 9th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen.

I'm still filled with bodegas, laundromats and other stores catering to the predominantly Puerto Rican and Dominican neighborhood. It will be a another ten years before the maricons move in.

I'm the Reebok Sports Club on Columbus Avenue.

Elaine's is the only place in NYC you might see more celebrities. And not the younger ones.

Robyn Byrd

I'm the C train chugging up Central Park West.

On a good day, I come maybe once every half hour.

I'm the diner on the corner of 2nd and 23rd where Robyn and her guests used to hang out after the show.

I'm Live Bait. Our bartenders are all models and we don't card large groups of private school teenagers because we know they'll spend a lot of money.

I'm the waiter polishing the glass over Angela Lansbury's Al Hirschfeld caricature at Sardi's. My dream is to be a Broadway star. I just hope this ugly black spot on my wrist goes away first since I've got an audition in three days.

I'm a taxi cab.

I'm filthy.

My driver barely speaks English and has not showered in several days.

I do not have air conditioning in summer or heat in the winter.

If you ask my driver to break a twenty he will begin cursing at you in his native tongue and refuse to do so, claiming he has no change.

Twenty years later he will wonder why Uber was so successful

I'm the Mugler Room at Club USA. I really am a lot of fun.

I'm the newsstand on West 14th Street called Funny Cry Happy where you buy cigarettes sometimes.

I'm Audra McDonald, currently playing Carrie in [italic]Carousel[/italic] at Lincoln Center and wishing there were better options for Mexican food than just Taco Bell.

I'm the beer you buy from the corner deli at 2:30 in the morning because you're on your way home and you're not ready to stop the party.

I'm the pack of Marlboro Lights that costs $2.

I'm the Museum of Television of Radio showing the first episode of [italic]The Golden Girls[/italic] in honor of the last episode.

I’m Condomania on Bleecker St and West 10th- a store that sells hundreds of different kinds of condoms. Because gay men don’t have sex without condoms - because we know we will die if we get infected with HIV.

We're the ghosts of the homeless people Mayor Giuliani secretly had killed. We have been known to haunt Hell's Kitchen since then.

I’m the dressing rooms at Patricia Field.

WTF r149?

I am the Sunday edition of the New York Times. I weigh six pounds. There is an urban myth that someone managed to roll me up an shove me up his ass. With the real estate section.

I'm the NY Times Sunday Styles section, a harbinger of what all of Manhattan will be like.

It was probably just the theatre section, R152.

I'm The Costume Institute Ball before the Hollywood rat fuckers took it over. I'm old socialites, known and unknown, corporate execs, some fashion people, and the Young Friends party crowd.

We're the deal that allowed Disney to take over the New Amsterdam theatre and have it actually showing Broadway shows again, even if they are Disney shows. Would you prefer it became yet another Duane Reade?

I'm Park Slope and Carroll Gardens becoming unaffordable for bohemians due to the Dot Com Bubble economy. Rents double with the next lease. Meet our friends unheated industrial buildings in Williamsburg and Dumbo. People are living in us in plastic tents in side their "lofts" (ha!) throughout winter, icy wind whistling through the gaps in the brick work. Water freezes in the old metal sink.

R117 my god, that makes me sad. I long for the days of discussion and people aspiring to be intellectual. People can barely pry their eyes from their phone long enough to watch a movie, much less to analyze it afterward. We truly didn’t realize what we had before this technology monster devoured the entire “civilized” human race.

I'm the crack dealing on every corner in the West Village in the early to mid90s. (I lived there.)

We're bed bugs, and you don't hear about us much, but we're organizing and growing our armies. Just you wait.

I am the telephone hookup line. I arrange a few good fucks and many bad experiences.

[quote] Virgin megastore on 14th Street. Big Cup. Wonderbar and Starlight.

I met my first boyfriend at Starlight. I still have a box of matches from there.

What was Starlight?

I'm the coffee donut bagel mini van on the sidewalk. Getting harder to find me. My yellow light and steamy windows are reassuring on a dark winter morning commute.

yeah, Rudy got in, and cleaned it up^

I’m Uncle Charlie’s... Born at the same time as MTV, it was one of the first video bars, and soon earned a reputation as a place where nobody spoke, but just stood and watched, a so-called "S&M" bar, for Stand and Model.

R165 just rumor or do you have sources?

I am the only white guy in “The Web”. I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Uncle Charlies were 80s bars. And they were social. The West Village one was the easiest place to go after work, in a suit, stand up, chat, and meet a guy.

Well before the 1990s, NYC and elsewhere embarked a new policy to “curb your dog”. The reason for the policy is that it wasn’t long before that NYC streets were covered in horse manure, and masses were hired to clean up thar manure. The culture changed and most of the horses were gone. They started with laws requiring that dogs crap in the street. Today, you’re expected to pick up the

I’m the NYU freshman who enrolled because of FELICITY.

Starlight was on 1st ave betweeen 10th and 11th st. THAT was 90s gay NY. The anti-Chelsea, cool, smart people bar. East village in the 90s is always forgotten. Everyone talks about Chelsea boys. EV in the 90s was a whole different - and better - scene.

Starlight was wonderful, very chill and relaxed. Great music, too.

Gwyneth Paltrow capturing 90's minimalism in A Perfect Murder.

East Village 90s was merely a continuation and watering down of East Village 80s.

Thank R173/R172. I think I remember it faintly...I had a lot of fun in The Cock on Avenue A.

I’m the new groundbreaking TV show that will turn the Corporate Gays into Ethan Allen/Pottery Barn Basic Bitches for a solid decade and will make every lonely Frau in the city want one of us as an asexual accessory.

R177, just looking at that thing makes my stomach hurt.

I'm the Edison Cafe, the only "real" diner left in the theater district. I'm not on the list of tourist places, and I look a bit dingy, so I'm a nice place to go for a cheap meal. Some of the old timer Broadway people stop in for a matzo ball soup. I am a world of my own.

I'm the 4x6 advertisement cards that are in racks in every gym, bar and rest room. I am shoved aside by the AOL discs (50 hours free, 100 hours free, 500 hours free, 1,000 hours free).

I'm Peter Luger, where tourists with more money than taste will stand nuts-to-butts for a mediocre steak.

I'm the horse stable on the Upper West Side. I rent horses for people to ride in Central Park.

I'm freezing to death here on Astor Square with a pocket full of quarters waiting for the Voice to be delivered on a Tuesday night so I can go the pay phone and start calling to find an apartment.

I'm the AOL M4M chatroom. You're a whore, darling.

[quote]I'm freezing to death here on Astor Square with a pocket full of quarters waiting for the Voice to be delivered on a Tuesday night so I can go the pay phone and start calling to find an apartment.

I got cursed out a few times for doing that (phoning on Tuesday night). The VV was usually delivered to Sheridan Square by 8:00 pm and I don't think 8:30-9:00 pm was too late to call, but apparently some people thought so.

R181 I'm The Cock, where nymphomaniacs with more need for quantity than quality will stand nuts-to-butts for a mediocre dick.

[quote] I’m the all-white depiction of NYC lives in Seinfeld, Friends, SATC, Will and Grace, Mad About You, among others.

We're the reruns of [italic]All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Diff'rent Strokes, Barney Miller[/italic], and other integrated shows set in and around NYC from the previous two decades that make those look like a step backward.

I'm Friends and Sex and the CIty, which made every basic white bitch in Bumfucke Flyoverland come to NYC because they thought these two ridiculous shows that depicted a whitewashed, flyover-friendly NYC that had no basis in the actual reality of NYC were actually fucking documentaries. Unfortunately, many of them stayed, and continue to come to the city and turn it into the boring flyover suburban shitholes they came from.

I'm Jennifer Convertibles, because you love/hate overnight guests!

I'm Club USA.

I’m the expensive Raymond Dragon Tshirt draped on the belt of a gorgeous torso that just got flushed down the toilet at Twilo.

I'm N.A.S.A. parties at the The Shelter.

I'm looking to reload at 2am from my coke dealer... don't judge me 🤨

I'm the happiest 10 years of my last half-century.

I'm subway tokens. I can be used to buy a bagel con schmear and coffee in a pinch. (Have done it.) I'm also walking across town to save money, no monthly cards or subway transfers.

I'm Naomi Campbell's 1997 Supper Club Halloween Party

I am Lou Maletta inviting all hot Chelsea muscle queens to come to my all nude sex parties (West 26th St) on Fridays/Saturdays. $15 was a good deal.

I'm Diesel jeans.

This is my moment.

I'm the Flatiron District.

I am no longer the hip undiscovered part of town but have become instead the Saturday night destination for every suburban teen and 20something in the New York area.

But I still rock the daylight hours--all the ad agencies and photography studios are down here and Coffee Shop at lunchtime is still the place to be.

I'm the Meatpacking District.

In 10 years I'll be trendy and gentrified, but for now I'm mostly warehouses, a not very good bagel store and Florent.

Plus lots and lots of transvestite hookers. (They were still called transvestites in the 90s)

Thats why when people think they're being clever they refer to me as the "Fudgepacking District"

Diesel jeans!!!!

The nostalgia on this thread....

R197 See ya there, Honey!

I'm the 970-PEEE girl

The extra "E" is for extra pee!!!

[when I was 12 that was clearly the funniest thing in the world and needed to be worked into as many conversations as possible, particularly in front of people who were not cool enough to have surreptitiously watched Robyn Bird]

I’m all the spilled coke in the bathroom at Bandito’s Mexican in the West Village. There’s enough ground into that floor to buy a new Cadillac.

I'm Dr. Zizmor -- you can call me Dr. Z. If you need any help with your complexion, just dial the number on my subway ads.

I hear that we are getting an H&M! That is, if Y2K doesn’t end the world first.

I’m the most iconic (arguably) 90s NY movie. Showing all the revered elite spots and being a time capsule of how the privileged UES Ladies Who Lunch of the 90s live.

I'm Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg. In 1993 you begrudgingly accompany a friend on the L line out to me to visit a Thai restaurant he'd read about in The New York Press. The neighborhood seems spookily quiet, barren and quaint. For now.

I'm the Christopher Street PATH station at 2AM, because some of you can't afford to live in Manhattan, and didn't hook up tonight. Your next train will be in... an hour or more... Hopefully, you brought a book and some mace.

I'm stumbling out of Sound Factory at 5 PM on a Sunday and pondering my life choices as I wander through Chelsea Elliott Houses project.

I'm Berlin, recently become cooler than NY.

We're the Trump buildings along the river west of Lincoln Towers.

Someday the guy we're named after will be president, but for now he's just a shady real estate developer. No one understands why anyone would want to live in us, given how far we are from supermarkets and subway stations.

I like that OP's pic has no cellphones in it. I am that NYC.

I’m the dot com job that will soon be non-existent.

I'm the giant "I Love This Game" cutout at the NBA Store on 5th Avenue and 45th Street.

We're old Jewish liberals on the Upper West Side. We were psychiatrists, professors, lawyers and teachers. Now we're retired and like to sit on benches on the islands on Broadway on our way to Zabar's, Fairway, H&H, Symphony Space and the Lincoln Center movie theater.

In ten to fifteen years our kids will sell the apartments they've inherited to investment bankers for seven figure sums, but for now we're here to uphold the stereotype.

Two friends:

Where are we? There isn’t a bar, or another gay guy in sight....

I think it’s called Hell’s’ Kitchen.

I'm Ruth Buzzi signing on to be on [italic]Sesame Street[/italic] only to get it socked to me with a pink slip once everything becomes all about Elmo.

[quote]We're old Jewish liberals on the Upper West Side. We were psychiatrists, professors, lawyers and teachers.

And now you're just pains in the ass to people who are trying to shop at Fairway and Zabars.

Thank YHVH very few of you go into Pioneer.

I'm the polish and ukrainian diners that do most of their business serving cheeseburger deluxe.

I'm the polish and ukrainian diners serving remarkably full-plated $1.50 breakfast specials. I'm a genuine bargain in 1992!

I'm the 1992, pre-renovated Veselka diner. Slanted rooms, carpet samples as flooring, saloon doors to the bathroom and mis-matching dinnerware. I look like something out of Mortville!

I'm Nobody Beats the Wiz, where you can ease on down the road to savings on the most basic electronics. If you want something more complex than a Canon AE-1, you're probably going to have to go to B&H Photo and Video.

I’m a realtor in Hoboken creaming my jeans at the wave of people looking for affordable housing they cannot find in NYC. Ka-Ching.

Veselka = rainbow

I'm R219 shouting "Move it along, toots!" at their hard-of-hearing neighbor as she makes her way down the hall with her walker.

"He's not a nice boy, that feygelah," the neighbor mutters to her Jamaican nurse, just loud enough for R219 to hear.

I'm rollerblades. I was all over the city in 1991. Look out!

[quote]I'm the 1992, pre-renovated Veselka diner. Slanted rooms, carpet samples as flooring, saloon doors to the bathroom and mis-matching dinnerware. I look like something out of Mortville!

I just shed a tear, r222. That's the way I like to remember it. This new Veselka with tourists lined up out the door is not the spirit of the original.

I'm free weekly The New York Press. I'm not quite as good as The Village Voice, but my writing is much livelier and riskier. Plus I have much better comics, an amazing astrology column and an urban legend-debunking column. Sometimes I come out a day earlier than the Voice!

I'm walking out of any nightclub into an attacking army of club kids paid to shove club fliers in your face as you leave.

I'm a button that says "Silence = Death" purchased from Strand Bookstore.

I am the industrial sized roaches.

[quote]I'm [R219] shouting "Move it along, toots!" at their hard-of-hearing neighbor as she makes her way down the hall with her walker. "He's not a nice boy, that feygelah," the neighbor mutters to her Jamaican nurse, just loud enough for [R219] to hear.t

This feygelah has respect for the elderly. What I don't have respect for are people who stand in Fairway and harass the meat cutters while others are waiting as if they are the only people on Earth.

"This roast has too much fat. Do you have any in the back that are more lean? Would you go in the back and look? I'm sure you have leaner cuts in the back refrigerator. I don't want it cut too fine. No, not that thick. Oy vey, that will never cook."

Geez, if you want a special cut of meat go to a quality butcher. Fairway isn't the place to kvetch. And these people kvetch in every single aisle over every single product. "What, ya got no Mandarin olives? Zabars has Mandarin olives. Look at the price of these Greek olives. How do you charge such high prices for Greek olives?"

I’m SPA club. Amanda Lepore and Lady Bunny were here tonight.

Meat, schmeat, R233. We have the best milk-based kosher foods in the city. You'll love our onion rolls and our cheese blintzes!

I'm the Village Gate before I was turned into a CVS. I'm the many performance spaces who within a decade will be closed as off-Broadway dies.

I'm colorful 970 sex phone line ad flyers. I range from business card-size, to 4" x 5". I'm everywhere! Littering the sidewalks, lining phone booths, all over the backs of cabs, stuck on your shoe, stuck in your hair, in your face, YOU CAN'T ESCAPE ME

I'm R233

I'd be much happier back in Flyoverstan with the other goyim.

I'm R233 asking whether I can get a blueberry bagel. I don't understand why everyone is giving me funny looks.

It's like that time I ordered a cinnamon raisin bagel with smoked salmon and the guy behind the counter said "you want lox on a cinnamon raisin bagel? Where you from kid, Iowa?"

Too Jewish.

Fine, I'll do a cameo on that new [italic]Nanny[/italic] show, but if I fly out to the West Coast to tape it, then it has to be for more than scale or I'll lose money on the trip out there. The only reason I did [italic]Alice in Wonderland[/italic] for Irwin Allen or that fairy cartoon for Don Bluth is that they paid a lot more than that cat litter commercial you got me years ago. At least with a cartoon, I didn't have to spend hours in make-up. I don't expect to get paid the same as those, but I had my accountant look at how much it would cost me based on what they're offering and I'd still be losing money on it even if I flew coach. You're my agent; negotiate a better deal for me and I'll do it. My schedule is clear up until next year when we start rehearsals for [italic]Dolly[/italic] again.

I'm Benny's Burritos. I have two (three?) locations downtown, but the East Village one is the best overall. My San Francisco-style burritos and casual Tex-Mex fare are consistently good, well-portioned, priced right, and I have basic good vibes.

I'm the carrot dressing at Yaffa Cafe. You can taste me now.

Did TV shows - e.g., Friends, SATC, really cause a sizeable population to move to NYC - independent of any other reason? SATC was when cities all over the nation started to become hot again - a rush back to cities after a long period of flight, which included lots of investment and construction, and was bolstered by the "New Economy" and generally good to great economic outlook until 2008. So, wouldn't a lot of these SATC women came anyway?

I’m Hell Bar in meatpacking district.

We're oak moss, sandalwood, ambergris, civet, rose oil, jasmine absolute. We're in all the fragrances that smell nice and you take us for granted. You're going to miss us when we're gone in 10 years.

We're the magazine industry. That "new media" shit isn't really going to make us obsolete . . . is it?

Ha R242! I had totally forgotten about Benny's!

When I was in 8th grade we used to go there in a pack to eat as it was (a) one of the first places in NYC to serve the overstuffed SF burrito and (b) the sort of food 14 year olds really enjoy.

We used to drive the poor waiters crazy trying to split the bill between 8 or 10 credit cards, but I guess we tipped well enough for them to put up with us.

[quote]Did TV shows - e.g., Friends, SATC, really cause a sizeable population to move to NYC - independent of any other reason?

I think it was the tone of the shows. Both shows basically say that if you move to NYC, you'll have a great job, loads of friends and fun, fun, fun.

I have to laugh because recently a woman moved into the building I live in. The exterminator came around and she said, "I've had a problem with both roaches and mice." Lately, I've been trying to keep my DataLounge personality in check, but I thought, "Welcome to NYC, honey, that's the way it is."

The point is that neither Friends nor SATC ever gave even the slightest hint of what NYC really was like. Why, Carrie Bradshaw even made it cool to eat at Grey's Papaya.

I'm Varla Jean Merman. I came from New Orleans, and now I live in Provincetown. But in the 90's I was all NYC!

I'm Hogs and Heiffers in the Meatpacking District (forgot about it in R200) a pseudo biker bar with a weird mix of underaged Manhattan private school kids trying to seem cool (raises hand), twenty-something film and art geeks trying to do the same, and a bunch of outer borough bikers or biker wannabes. The bartenders would dance on the bar and women would throw bars.

Every so often someone you knew would get drunk enough to dance on the bar with the waitresses which would get talked about at school all week, but without social media to document it, would soon be forgotten.

^^Doing the math I would have been there in early 00s, but no doubt was the same in late 90s.

I'm the 19 year old vogueing pier queen getting kicked out of a crowded Sheridan Square diner at 4 AM for causing a scene. I'm intense!

I'm the "real New York pizza" place you take your visiting friends from your hometown on their first ever trip to NYC. The slight but unspoken fear readable on their faces at the "filthiness" of the place, and obvious disappointment that the pizza doesn't taste like something from Disneyland are just two facets of hopeless situation.

I'm the big bowls of free condoms and lube at the exits of most gay bars. I'm slightly hopeful AND a grim reminder!

I'm the two abandoned piers on the west side, off Christopher Street, next to the one working pier.

One of me is a boarded-up, sinking warehouse structured, and the other is just a bunch of decayed wooden points sticking out o the water, as most of me has forever dissolved into the Hudson.

Gather by the chain-link fence and point and reminisce. But be quick about t! We'll both be gone before the 90's are through.

Some sentiment with this thread

I'm Two Boots Pizza! I'm in the East and West Village and will soon expand to six locations! My shop banners remind you of a Jonathan Demme film!

Pizza, pizza, pizza

I'm the constant thought of "Jesus Christ, all the stereotypes really ARE true" whenever you spend time on the Upper West Side.

I'm the "Habitrail" in the East Village: walking from Crow Bar, Wonderbar, Dick's, The Cock, Phoenix, The Boiler Room, Tunnel Bar, The Bar... and possibly ending at The Bijou!*

*different establishments were open different years, but there was always a "trail."

R261 And if was early 90's, your night may have started at an ACT UP meeting at Cooper Union (if it was a Monday).

I'm the trans women of color who had fuck-all to do with ACT UP and other activism of the period, in spite of the revisionist history bullshit that's now being presented as fact.

R460 I liked the Upper West Side as a tourist but after living in New York it always felt anemic. I would rather live anywhere below 14th street than UWS.

What are the stereotypes?

I'm HX and Next magazines. Everyone laughed about how shallow and garish these freebies were (accurate!), but the amount of time they spent reading and looking at them while in line, in a cab, eating breakfast, or at home just bored and was a lot more than people wanted to admit.

I am a new to NYC go-go dancer tired of being groped by Lady Bunny everytime I see her. She gets way too drunk and high, very sloppy person. Complaining does no good, you just have to keep pushing her away and tell her that you will meet her later after your shift and then avoid her. UGH. UGH.

I'm the ubiquitous drug dealers hanging around Times, Washington and Tompkins Squares, walking past you muttering, "Smoke, smoke, coke, smoke..." on and on.

[quote]I'm the ubiquitous drug dealers hanging around Times, Washington and Tompkins Squares, walking past you muttering, "Smoke, smoke, coke, smoke..." on and on.

That has never stopped in Washington Square Park. These days there are tons of police around due to the protests and they're still there saying, "Hey, boss, smoke? smoke?"

I am the empty apartment on 18th street used by the real estate agent for quick fucks.

The real estate firm was gay owned and operated, many agents were failed actors and models.

I am the good times in the Ramble still to be had in the late 90’s.

I am the Swissair flight that remained grounded because the Captain was arrested in a men‘s room and kept overnight by the homophobic police.

I'm go-go boy Mark Allen. You saw me dancing on a box at a club last night, you're watching me dance at a club tonight, and you'll see me dancing at whatever club you go to tomorrow night...

I'm the David in Times Square. I think I'm still here in the early 90s. I smell of old men and cum.

NYC is in trouble gurl.

I’m NAKED IN NEW YORK, 1993’s utterly shameless and charmless godsawful Allen rip-off.

I may have been the kiss of death for Eric Stoltz’s career, and I would have killed Ralph Macchio’s too had any significant numbers actually bought tickets and watched me in theaters.

To add insult to injury, my gay content is scant, decidedly not sexy, and has no payoff in the plot.

R273 I mean Marc, you may want to post a pic of yourself. Most people aren’t going to know you by name.

Mark Allen from about 5 years ago. Go-Go boy in transition to Go-Go Woodsman.

I’m an incest survivor, High School fag bashee, middle class Theatre kid from Nebraska, with mucho Daddy issues. I thought the freedom & alleged acceptance of New York City would fix my life... but after the glamour fades I’m just developing serious alcohol, drug and sex addictions. I moved here to be a star, but now I’m just cycling from one shitty job to another trying to make enough to pay rent, eat bodega food, buy cigarettes and go out EVERY night. I sometimes splurge on designer clothes when I’m high. Sometimes I turn tricks. I’m like a young gay Norma Desmond. My body dysmorphia is getting worse and my bitchy, judgmental friends here are almost worse than the ones back home. I’m difficult to be around because I’m so disassociated and never make eye contact. I hate myself. I’d be better off back home & in therapy. I’ll burnout, after 5 years, 13 jobs, 183 Johns & 9 boyfriends, then I’ll return to a mid-sized Midwest city to live with my local Latino Husbear and 3 chihuahuas in a urine-scented trailer.

New York City ate me alive! I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille!

Sorry Mark. We still don’t remember you.

Brad Lamm

Any pictures of young go-go Marc to jolt our memories?

Or go-go Mark?

Send nudes.

I’ll be the speed walk up and down 6th Avenue between the Chelsea scene and the village.

I'm the forty something very below average looking, below average intelligence, badly dressed and "husky" gay man who works in a low level billing department job because I can't rise any higher, and my grossly obese fag hag who is my manager. She is so obese people stare. She is a real manipulative bitch and takes out anyone who gets close to her "gay". I know it and I let her destroy all my chances of normal relationships with potential friends and partners alike.

We have been best friends for 20+ years and we truly believe we are Will & Grace in real life. The series was made about us. We are so like the characters. We look and act exactly like them.

(This is a real life story.)

[quote](This is a real life story.)

In real life, are you the husky gay man or the obese fag hag?

I'm me walking to Webster Hall followed by a car with two men who either wanted to have sex with me or kill me.

R288 maybe they wanted to do both

r288, maybe they were just looking for Webster Hall?

Brad Lamm!

Thank God NYC is rid of THAT one!

I’m crystal meth, I ruin EVERYTHING.

I am the city’s last dying gasp of glory.

I’m the Talk magazine party that ended the ‘90s (and NYC apparently).

Wasn't too hard to figure out that was a real story R286

I'm the mysterious Asian(?) woman who walks around the Tompkins Square area of the East Village, dressed normally, but wearing a full motorcycle helmet with dark face shield. No one knows my identity, or why I wear the helmet. No one ever will, because after a few years I'm just gone. Or *am* I?

I'm Adam Purple. I'm every where downtown.

I’m zines!

I’m Big Cup, where people nonchalantly cruise you but you wouldn’t know. It was where everyone went when they were waiting for somewhere else to go.

I'm the Village Voice classified ads.

R300 Always good for a cheap thrill! Every NYC free weekly newspaper and mag had these. Always a howler or two in the lot.

I'm a conga bar to be eaten with a double latte at Big Cup.

I'm the DJ at the Crystal Room at the Roxy on Saturday nights playing fun 70s and 80s hit tunes where people can dance and have a fun time in a small mini disco overlooking the techno noise on the main floor!

R303, I totally forgot about that room at Roxy. I didn’t spend much time in it, as I was normally in the middle of the main dance floor. But I do remember it. I also remember a place in the upper back of Roxy where there were some couches and a bar.

I'm the old lady that dresses up as Holly Hobbie and rides my bike around the East Village.

I'm the Normandie Court apartments on East 96th Street, aka Dormandie Court

Every recent college graduate from a certain set of schools either lives here or knows someone who does.

I'm George Magazine. I had my fifteen minutes, too, remember.

I'm George Magazine. I had my fifteen minutes, too, remember.

I’ll be cocaine. I will be soon deserted in favor of meth.

I’ll be the yellow cab, I rule the roost and nothing will ever replace me. I don’t wash my car or acknowledge you exist but what choice do you have besides taking the subway.

“And I don’t go to Brooklyn!” R310

I'm that blond guy dressed all in black protesting against the death penalty with a small group of people. We're on Times Square and our slogan is "NOT in my name!". I'm standing opposite a young gal (a tourist), holding her hands and go "I would NEVER kill you".

I'm the group of black prophets in the middle of Times Square preaching about the Edemites and dressed like Earth, Wind and Fire.

I’m Rose, the flower lady.

I’m the door man, people are desperate to get my attention and I am lord of the nightlife.

I’ll be Cafeteria.

Ah, Cafeteria. Where your blackout drunk ass went to eat after the bars closed.

I'm Hell's Kitchen; err, Clinton -; no, Hell's Kitchen.

I'm LaGuardia Airport.

I'm really difficult to get to because there is always construction on the Grand Central. 25 years later, there will still be construction.

I'm the Eastern shuttle at LaGuardia.

Do you want to go to Washington or Boston?

No problem. We have a plane every hour. Just buy a ticket and walk right on. You can even show up 10 minutes before we close the gates!

I am La Escuelita. Can I buy you a drink, papi?

I’ll be the line for TRL in Time Square

I am the “hip” tourists causing traffic snarls while standing in the middle of the intersection of Rivington and Ludlow in the LES, trying to re-create the 360° panoramic shot on the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique album cover

I'm a "Chelsea Boy"

I work out, use steroids and have giant Schwarzenegger like muscles that let you know I don't have The Plague

I wear tight Abercrombie t-shirts with the name of a football team that doesn't actually exist on them, a backwards baseball cap and cargo shorts (also Abercrombie)

But when I open my mouth I sound like Richard Simmons on a particularly fey day.

By now I am used to all the double takes and smirks.

I am the plane at La Guardia heading for Syracuse. I get accidentally boarded by a guy heading for Ithaca. Nobody checks.

I am “The End of History”. I come with “New Economy” and “Dow 30.000”. People really believe in me.

"There's a party tonight but it's in Brooklyn. I'm not going all the way out to fucking Brooklyn."

I’m the t-shirt hanging in the window of a souvenir shop on St. Mark’s Place with a crazy photo of Charles Manson looking at the camera while holding a glass of milk, with the caption, “Got Milk?”

Everyone thinks I’m hilarious.

I'm "Talk to the hand!"

I'm the downtown supernovas of art, performance, fashion and music. The zeitgeist cycles through us quickly. And it will get worse in the oughts.

I am “Plan Eat Thai”, R326. I am the only reason why one would venture out to Williamsburg. I am such a clever wordplay because I got sued when I opened as Planet Thai.

I'm Scoop, the shitty overpriced store selling cheaply made gossamer peasant tops and velvet hip huggers for rich daddy funded publicists or spoiled Jap housewives. I was founded by the exact prototype of the person I just mentioned. With the popularity of SATC I explode and become even more obnoxiously ubiquitous with stores all over NYC selling the same shitty clothing. Eventually I collapse and become a bad memory, like a stinky fart that left the room a few minutes ago.

Ha R331!

Every girl I went to school with used to get their clothes there in those years between bar/bat mitzvah season and sophomore year of high school. I may have gotten jeans there myself. There was one downtown (SoHo? It was a while ago) and then another one out the beach. Did not realize they had numerous branches or a SATC connection, but I was not the target market-- did they expand to the usual suburban towns too?

But yes, the stores were exactly as you described them.

I’ll be Nobu, where I had a memorable birthday dinner.

I am a Gristedes store. I leave newcomers bewildered why New Yorkers put up with such a shitty supermarket chain. I am overpriced and there are mouse droppings everywhere. I am still around 25 years later and I am as greasy as ever. I don’t know how and why I exist with Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods in town. Must have something to do with the mob.

I'm me standing on Astor Place in 1997, seeing THREE Starbuck's all at the same time, thinking what the fuck has happened to this town?

i'm that gay guy from the boondocks who was greatful he got to visit the sleazy 42nd street and nearby Adonis theater before they permanently vanish.

I am the Carly Fisher Music mural on Astor Place. I will soon be obscured by a hideous postmodern tower.

I’m the flash of someone taking a photo in a nightclub. I’m VERY rare. There must be press here! Is it Musto?!

I’m the go go boy who thinks I’m famous and that everyone knows my name and will remember me as a legend. I think I don’t even need to post a picture of myself to jog your memory!

I am the Cubbyhole and there was no place better to hang out with the gals back then. I'm still here, but I now have to bill myself as a "fusion bar" because the straights will ... not ... leave me alone. Sigh.

I’m a giant container of rice and beans from Cibao on Rivington and Clinton for only $2. In separate containers so you can mix as you like!

Variations of me are available from the numerous Cuban and Dominican restaurants in the LES. Along with delicious traditional Spanish fare, Cuban sandwiches, black ink squid rice, fried plantains, snappy Latina waitresses, and crazy jukeboxes.

I’m a huge slice of real pizza made with fresh ingredients cooked in a real pizza oven by a family-owned establishment that really knows food, and I currently only cost $1! (okay, very early 90’s)

What’s this “dollar pizza” you speak of in the future?

I'm Burt, I'm planning to leave my "garden" apartment and Ernie, who asked to open our relationship after our vacation to Palm Springs last year.

Not that it will matter, because as r218 said, it became all about Elmo.

I’m cages of roosters kept in community gardens on the Lower East Side crowing at sun-up. Bitch shut up I just got back from J’s!

I'm Canal Jeans. I have really come into my own as a store and have a wonderful store on Broadway.

I'm the Japanese tourists who swamp Canal Jeans because American jeans are all the rage in Japan right now.

I'm 6th Street in the East Village. Every storefront is an Indian restaurant. The joke is we all share the same kitchen.

I am your know-it-all friend who swears they can tell the difference between the various restaurants and will guide you to the best one.

I am the West Side Club. I am filthy already but at least the showers work. There is a lot of unsafe fucking already.

Tower Records on lower Broadway. Great cruising.

I am SARS-CoV-2. I don’t have a name yet and I live in a bat but I will FUCK YOU SO UP that you won’t stop whining about how great the 90s were in New York.

I’m the abandoned viaduct of the New York Central Railroad running along Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. Mayor Giuliani wants to demolish me.

I'm the sound of "you've got mail!" inside an Internet cafe, where you pay by the minute to check your @aol.com email.

While here you go into the NYC M4M chat room and find a group sex party at the Roosevelt Hotel.

[quote]I’m the flash of someone taking a photo in a nightclub. I’m VERY rare. There must be press here! Is it Musto?!

I'm the patrons of the nightclub getting pissed off that someone's taking photos. They don't want to be photographed while they're drunk/high.

Unbelievable as that seems in today's world, but people were embarrassed by that sort of thing back then.

R351 Tell me more about this party. Vies was this organized before apps and pics?

R352 Agreed!

Cell phone cameras are the head lice of the zeitgeist.

Nell's on W 14th Street with that crazy woman running the door.

R109 Apart from the NYU sports center those floors in NYU we’re the most cruisey. The third floor men’s room had a Gloryhole in the center stall and there were lines waiting to get in to be blown. Sometimes the center stall was occupied by an older conservative Jew and the only way I can describe him is yellow; his hair was yellow and his fingernails were yellowed, he was quite pasty and the place was empty if he was looking to blow. The other guy was a small Latino who carried around out of date Bar Bri books.

The end of the goings-on in those bathrooms came with the Latin guy was made head of security in the buildings and he conducted sudden raids and he would line guys up outside looking for ID. I think he was an evangelical Christian ,there was a tremendous burning hatred in his eyes towards anyone he suspected of being gay. Complaints were made about him and the raids lessened. Eventually they put electronic locks on the doors which required student ID for access.

R356 Is the Latin security guard!

R356 only on Datalounge would you find such detailed and atypical information.

I'm Mother. I have lots of powdered substances for sale in my bra which I will scoop out and sell to you with my long talon of a nail. I go all around the club with my own security of big black guys and no one dares interfere with my business. Not club security, cops, no one. No one really gets that close to me as my "security" keeps them at bay. I've got quite the operation!

I left NY to go to grad school and would come to town a few times in the early 90s and my friends were getting rich and not always so bohemian please crash here. Sometimes I'd go do a bar pick up and a couple times I tried to sleep in a sauna, which was my trick from European cities. Well I'm sure the showers in the West Side Club were not working already in the early 90s. And the East Side Club was impossible as it played music and was kept at freezing temperature and there would be about 5 men there in the middle of the night, all axe murderers.

R360 is still high from 1992... say what now?

I'm that leather jacket and combat boots at Trash & Vaudeville that you can barely afford, but want.

I am the Safe Sex Monitor in the West Side Club. I few weeks into my job I don't give a shit anymore. I have seen it all. I wear Doc Martens boots.

We are the Caribbean women wheeling white babies and toddlers around the Upper East and Upper West Sides. Their parents call us "babysitters" and not "nannies" because they think "nanny" sounds too pretentious. We show up at 6AM and leave as late as 8PM.

We cook and clean for our employers and try and instill some sense of the British style manners we were brought up with in our young charges

About one out of every three of our charges are named Zach or Emma, which can get confusing..

We have our own social circles, often based on which island we come from (no one likes the Jamaicans) and we try and be pleasant to the white moms who insist on joining us in the park because they took the day off from work.

This is our heyday, as upper middle class Manhattan moms still believe that day care is something that white trash Flyoverstanis use when they can't get someone else in the trailer park to mind young Kayleigh and Brayden.

I'm movie location from famous films made in this city. You can love a film like TAXI DRIVER, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, ANNIE HALL TIMES SQUARE, AFTER HOURS and countless others, and then see the exact building or area I was shot in and walk around in it. It's like magic! Take a photo. But you'd better hurry! By the 2000's we'll begin to disappear.

I'm the twin towers being consistently in the background of everything you do downtown.

I'm crap stores, similar to dollar stores, but with a much weirder mix of delights.

We're still here R367!!!

There are a bunch of us around Penn Station-- Jack's and whatever the 99 Cent Store is called these days.

For R367

Those 90's non-chain dollar-like stores were always interesting. There were a lot on 14th street, and also Delancey. And Chinatown. Many other places too, those are just the ones I frequented. There was one on 14th that was huge. I swear it went all the way back the length of the block. Some of the merchandise was piled so thick and high in areas it looked like they hadn't cleaned or done inventory in decades. It was like being in a cave.

[quote]Some of the merchandise was piled so thick and high in areas it looked like they hadn't cleaned or done inventory in decades. It was like being in a cave.

Stores used to be like that. The Unique Clothing Warehouse was like that. You went in there and there were so many racks stuffed with clothing you could barely get around the store. I'm surprised the Fire Marshall didn't shut those stores down.

[quote]Trash & Vaudeville

Don't forget the ripped heavy metal shirts. Only $129.99

R363 sage sex monitor at the west side club??? I never saw that??

I’m Callum. I’m a bartender at Splash and a personal trainer. I eventually move to SF and get hooked on meth and then get sober by moving to the woods.

I'm a new sexier revival of bell bottoms (flairs) pants.

I’m the tribal tattoos and frosted tips on the Chelsea boys.

R376 I’m the tribal tramp stamps let you know I’m a pig bottom.

The 90s was the beginning of the end of the fun New York as it increasingly became a wealthy and overly commercial city. People forget now, until the Reganism of the 80s, NYC was effectively a poor to middle-class immigrant city. It was basically the hub for "outsiders." I grew up in NYC back in the 70s back and it was dirty, druggy, crimey, and a hell of a lot of fun. Watch movies and tv shows from the 60s and 70s and you'll see that NYC was never depicted as a city of glamour or romantic..that would come in the 90s.

I'm r378. I just boo hoo hoo poor old me. I'm a Bridge and Tunnel queen that never got to live in Manhattan so I'm just going cry about how great the 70's NYC was when getting mugged all the time was. Boo hoo fucking hoo.

I'm R379 and I live in my parents basement, am 300lbs overweight and I have a micro penis boo hoo hooo hooo.

I'm r380 and I'll still never get to live in Manhattan because I'm just a guido bridge and tunnel dweller. Boo hoo hoo.

For arts and culture and nightlife, New York sucks worse each decade. The 90s were a let down after the 80s. The 70s were better. The 60s had everything. The 50s were cool.

I'm Brandywine and with my partner Brend-a-Go-Go we host a cable tv show called "On Patrol" . We cover great LGBT stories that you don't see on Eyewitness News.

I'm Linda Simpson and I am disgruntled.

I’m MY COMRADE magazine! Fringe East Village gay humor.

At least if you lived there in the 90s you were there for the last great decade.

I’m the SnackWells that forced you to quit your diet.

I’m that old man that walked around Tompkins Square Park with the glasses and big plastic fake nose

What are “ frosted tips” R376?

Behold, r389

Thanks R389....interesting. Forgot this was a Chelsea Boy thing. But then they always had their caps on. Even in bed.

I'm the model bar where Wall Street and Euro trash congregate.

I'm the model who still has name recognition and grace the covers of fashion magazines before actresses moved into our territory.

I am Brini and I brought drag into the daylight. I can ice a cupcake better than Martha Stewart.

I’m Simon Doonan’s garish and creative 1991 Barney’s Christmas windows. Sophia Loren made out of dry pasta, unflattering Madonna as a marionette, Jesse Helms made of papier-mâché and jars of urine. Oh, the spectacle. The crowds!

Brini Maxwell!!! Ahhhh! It truly was the last great decade. It really, really was. And then the technology took over.......

I'm a fish entree under 15 dollars. At Aquavit!

R345 Canal Jeans was the best, truly unique store.

R394

I'm your roided out hostess at Claire's on 7th Avenue on a Sunday afternoon in August. You must be on my list to get a table.

R398 Fab! 🙏 I wish I could find more photos of that year’s Barney’s windows online.

I always found Barney's fairly obnoxious but make no mistake: it was part of the NYC landscape in the 90s. Particularly the original location in Chelsea.

I was never a fashionista, but was friendly with people who were back then, and it was a full-time job, regardless of how you actually made a living. Haunting sample sales, sneaking into runway shows, trying to score a party invite with the designers and models and wanna-bes: it was a much more closed scene, pre-Internet, but it could be a lot of fun. (Remember PAPER? Or the original DETAILS?)

To paraphrase Fran Leibowitz, yes, she was a serious writer but if she preferred the company of shoe designers vs poets, it's because the shoe designers threw better parties.

I’m any of the YMCAs where you could hit the steam room during lunch break and engage in the most sensuous of sex.

I’m any of the YMCAs where you could hit the steam room during lunch break and engage in the most sensuous of sex.

Bump.

Bump of K anyone?

Loved the Barneys sample sales twice a year, the only way I could afford their merch.

I’m a protest against the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

I'm the Puerto Rican Day Parade

"Seinfeld" makes jokes about me and all the White people on the Upper East Side leave town that weekend.

The New York Post loves me.

^^not only that, but many apartment buildings along the route are barricaded. Everybody just counted down the hours until the damn day was over.

I’m R67 and the only art I have ever mastered the art of is the art of psychological projection.

Those crappy shows ruined this city and you know it. They were the blueprints for present-day gentrification.

True R410

None of those socioeconomic factors mattered.

It was purely all "Friends" and "Sex and the City" that did NY in

Friends and Sex and the City reflected what was happening more than caused it.

For those who weren't there.

NYC I couldn't care less about. The 90's on the other hand... I would live in an endless 90's loop if I could.

R411: Those shows were both deliberate distractions from the problems created by those who caused it. They took something that was wrong and made it worse. What you call underlying social economic conditions those stupid shows call their reasons to exist. If it were not for those irredeemable pieces of crap, we might not have had three recessions since 1994.

[quote] NYC I couldn't care less about. The 90's on the other hand... I would live in an endless 90's loop if I could.

Not me. I hated it then, and I hate it even more now. The rest of us, i.e. those of us who are normal and not living in the past, would like to move on with our lives. Failing that, we would pick a less trashy decade around which to create a sense of false nostalgia.

No, I have no nostalgia for a decade when sodomy laws were still on the books in several states, when a ban on gay marriage was enshrined in federal law, and when gay soldiers were forced in the closet for threat of dishonorable discharge. Nor do I have any nostalgia for all of those innocent black men who were sent to jail. In that case, you don’t need to be nostalgic because it’s still going on to this day. I have no nostalgia for a decade when the phrase “ex-gay therapy” was popularized.

Live in the fucking now, goddamnit!

I am the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center in 1993. You know what they say: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

I am the power vacuum caused in gay and lesbian activism by the first wave of AIDS deaths. This allowed big corporations run by heterosexuals to swoop in, manipulate the sources of funding, and eventually turn it into all-trans all the time. This did not start overnight when the US Supreme Court struck down the ban on gay marriage. This was planned for much longer than that.

I am the rising rate of obesity everywhere other than a gym in Chelsea.

But, it didn't become all-trans all the time right away, R418. There was a gap. The corporations and hets preceded the trans explosion by quite a bit. The question is - what made them change course?

And the World Trade Center buildings in 1993 after the first bombing. I’m the World Trade Center buildings in 1993 after the first bombing. Waking down Christopher someone looked across at 9:30 at night and the top halves of the towers suddenly light up.

I am this floral fabric bag worn as a hat by Sassy "intern" Chloë Sevigny while she slums around the East Village

[quote] But, it didn't become all-trans all the time right away, [R418]. There was a gap. The corporations and hets preceded the trans explosion by quite a bit. The question is - what made them change course?

Money. What else?

That gap narrowed to a tiny slither by the time I came out of the closet in the late 1990s.

[quote] If it were not for those irredeemable pieces of crap, we might not have had three recessions since 1994.

And there you have it folks.

Sex and the City and Friends are responsible for three recessions.

That damn Jennifer Aniston and her horse-faced friend Sarah.

I bet they run a pedo ring out of a pizza parlor in LA

I'm pretty sure the WTC might also be standing as well.

Indeed R425

I did the research and learned that Kim Cattrall and Matt LeBlanc were secret advisors to Bin Laden and Lisa Kudrow was having an affair with Mohammed Atta

In all seriousness, I never got called an anti-Jewish slur until after 1994.

Are you a Hasid R427?

Nope.

I'm Johnny Fluevog munster pumps. I took off internationally like a rocket in the early 90's even though I debuted in the late 80's. Deee-Lite and Madonna wore me in front of cameras! You could buy your own pair at Fleuvog's quint Soho shop for a small fortune.

I completely remember Lady Miss Kier from Deee Lite wearing them, but don't remember Madonna wearing them - but I've never seen her live. Lady Miss Kier wore them in video.

I'm Maria Ayala's Plastic Passion "daisy design" jewelry. You can buy knock-offs of me all over the city in 1991!

Madonna wore them in her Truth or Dare movie

I'm the center parted hair on guys

R431 Madonna wore them very visibly in several sequences in TRUTH OR DARE (the Almodovar party scene, for one). And there are several red carpet shots of her from that year in them. But I don't think she ever performed or wore them in a video.

I've never seen Truth or Dare - and I liked Madonna back in the day. Is it worth checking out after all these years? Maybe as a time capsule.

Did someone say NYC 90's fashion trends...?

I'm Marie Blake and you can sing along with me at the Five Oaks on Grove Street on most nights! My gravelly voice is legendary.

I sing too! Anyone know who I am???

I’m the bargain bin in Filene’s Basement, full of polyester.

We are Buffy and Biff and we weekend at Davis Park. We haven't discovered its cooler to hang with you guys in the Grove yet.

we ARE the 90s! Gigi, Bella, Kendell who?

Maria Ayallah plastic jewelry!! Oh my God that brings back memories of Pat Fields!!

r422 I had that issue of Sassy!

I’m the Sam Goody store on Sixth Avenue near 8th Street. On the second floor, some queenie employee has created hundreds of one-off posters of the current Broadway shows. And I go there to do the meet & greets with the big stars (Tom Eyen, Michael Rupert, Carolee Carmello, etc.) and spend my paycheck buying CDs.

I end up marrying the queenie employee.

R445 I bet his name was Brian.

[quote]I’m the Sam Goody store on Sixth Avenue near 8th Street.

I remember for awhile they had a huge poster of RuPaul hanging on the wall between first and second floor.

I'm the Virgin Megastore in Union Square, where you go once every two weeks to check out what's new. You leave the store with a bag full of books and CDs.

I'm the sound of Junior Vasquez 12" remixes wafting through Chelsea open windows.

I'm the Bendix Diner.

I’m salon headlines on 8th Avenue where all the Chelsea boys go.

I was a VIP guest at Splash when Brian and Harry had their private parties.

Je suis Florent. You came after clubbing. You came for the food and the people.

I'm the big mugs of green apple vodka at Yakatori at St. Mark's.

I'm Spy magazine Parties are held for me at the Puck building. Graydon Carter, Kurt Andersen, and I--we knew Trump was a jackass, we todja.

I am the 30 or so bar and bat miztvahs I went to in the Puck building during 7th grade in 1998.

It's 1991. You missed us at La Mama and PS 122. Here's a flyer for our show at Astor Place. Not sure how long it will run. Love, Blue Man Goup

I AM Glorious Food. It's my hayday.

*Group*

I’m The Coffee Shop where you can get mediocre food served by models.

R458 Oh, Dear!

[quote]It's 1991. You missed us at La Mama and PS 122. Here's a flyer for our show at Astor Place. Not sure how long it will run. Love, Blue Man Goup

I am working in HR at one of the major investment banks. We have to plan an outing for the Summer college interns. The fraus want to take them to see a Broadway show. i recommend they go downtown to see Blue Man Group. The interns LOVE the show and the idea of being part of the 90s East Village scene. The fraus reaction is lukewarm to hostile UNTIL the Blue Man Group debuts a national commercial for Intel. Then the HR fraus are walking around telling everyone that they saw Blue Man Group back when they were playing a tiny theater in the East Village. Bitches, every single one of them.

I'm STOMP, the stupidest show on earth. I'll be immensely famous and profitable well-past the 90's!

[quote]I'm STOMP, the stupidest show on earth. I'll be immensely famous and profitable well-past the 90's!

We were so popular, we appeared on an episode of the Roseanne show.

Free everywhere you shop!

I'm a successful, professional African-American man in my 30s waiting for a taxi. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

I'm Kim's Video, the only place you can find rare things such as the Star Wars Holiday Special or obscure foreign films. Once streaming on the internet gets going, I will be obsolete in five minutes.

I’m the Sunday morning AA meeting at the LGBTQ Community Center where the lead was always a broadway actress who thought it was an episode of Inside the Actors Studio. And the Queens loved her.

[quote]I'm Kim's Video, the only place you can find rare things such as the Star Wars Holiday Special or obscure foreign films. Once streaming on the internet gets going, I will be obsolete in five minutes.

I'm the employees at Kim's Video. Surly as fuck and can't be bothered to help.

I'm the cheap socks you bought on 14th Street.

And I'm one of 7 wig stores on 14th Street. If you need a ratty tranny wig, we've got you covered.

(On a side note, it's sort of refreshing that 14th Street largely remains a shithole, 30 years later.)

I am at the Vault on Sundays for the J/O parties walking around naked in boots while greasing up with crisco in small white cups that are placed everywhere.

I am the fat Al Sharpton (before his new lifestyle diet or gastric bypass) eating 2 entrees and 2 desserts at Food Bar with a bunch of gay power players and loving the fawning attention many queens are giving him. Never paying for his food and hopefully leaving a nice tip for the wait staff.

We are Yankel Rosenbaum's family sitting shiva for seven days after he is murdered in a race riot in Crown Heights.

I'm Sue Simmons and I am *the* black power lesbian in NYC.

R393 isn’t Brini the one who makes her grilled cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise instead of butter?

R476 Watch out... you’ll get a whole thread started on this!

I’m the Disney Store in Times Square. I am a harbinger of its metamorphosis from crime-riddled shithole to the world’s biggest and loudest strip mall.

R478 I’m fat pig Deplorables finally ready to explore NYC now that it’s a safe theme park

I'm Show Palace and Show World, where you can watch actual pornstars "dance" and they will grind in your lap for a couple of bucks. Good times.

Im my fat 7 inch dick getting blown in a NYC glory hole in the 90s. Now it's barely 6. What the hell happened!

I'm the Let's Be Troll and I'm tired of the 20th century nostalgia.

Next up: Lets Be New York when it was New Amsterdam in 1620s.

I'll start: I' the 60 guilders the Dutch West Indian Company paid to the Lenape for Manhattan Island in 1626.

Talk about a fucking GREAT investment!!!!!!

Until this fucking pandemic.

Well, easy come, easy go!

We're Flyoverstani tourists who have just left the Disney Store and are heading down to see the Statue of Liberty... on the SUBWAY!!!

Even though almost everyone on the rush hour train is an office worker in business attire, we're on our guard for muggers!!

We will ask a different polite looking white person at every stop if the train does indeed stop at South Ferry

I'm the 1 train subway platform at South Ferry. I serve millions of tourists each year because the 1 train hits the majority of tourist spots on the West Side and I'm close to the ferry to The Statue of Liberty. I'm very short. In fact, when the train pulls into my station, only the first five cars will open. I am a constant source of confusion for tourists because the MTA is a shitty service and doesn't make it clear that only the first five cars will open. I am also a thorn in the side of Staten Island residents because I also service the Staten Island Ferry and these tourists slow the train down at Rector Street while they walk forward to the correct cars after the conductor makes three announcements only in English, which the majority of foreign tourists do not understand.

I will finally be extended and start operating like a normal platform, only to be incapacitated by a hurricane and flooded and have to go back to the old way of doing things for many months.

I am first discovering Century 21 at a time when I cared about my wardrope and designer items, today not so much.

I'm Seamen and Cumming!

Inwood is in northern Manhattan, R486.

Not "in the Bronx."

Some of us don't go that far uptown, dear.

I'm the plastic ten-pack of subway tokens you keep in you front jeans pocket - the one opposite your wallet. (Only stupid farmers carry their wallet in a back pocket!) Be sure to only make a small hole in my corner so you can squeeze out your tokens one at a time, inside your pocket.

I'm Danceteria later re-opening on East 30th Street in 1990, after my original and most famous location on West 21st closed down in 1986. Most young people don't know the difference!

R490 wrong you are, as the ORIGINAL location was West 37th Street. It moved 2x.

R491 There were also, weirdly, Danceteria outpost locations in the Hamptons at some point in the 80's.

In Manhattan, the 37th Street location was the original location. But the most famous location when the club was in its famous 80's heyday was indeed the 6th floor spot on West 21st.

OMG I went to that 90's Danceteria several times as an NYC student in the 90's thinking it was the original! Haha what a rube. Oh well who cares my friends from back home were impressed.

The Peppermint Lounge moved once or twice, too.

Is there a definitive book or website that talks about all of those discos, showing pictures of their interiors and their different locations? I'm always fascinated by where things were and what they are now.

I'm the absence of a sin tax on your supersized soda from the McDonald's in Times Square. That sort of thing is for cigarettes.

I'm Coney Island High a venue where middle class kids could showcase their "alt music" before Guiliani and Bloomberg sold off the city to rich real estate investors and everyone else was squeezed out of the rough but very cool neighborhood. Shit Mayor DeBlasio finished it off.

I'm a daily parade of tourists taking up Quentin Crisp's offer to meet him if you take him to lunch. I have a favorite spot in the large window at an eatery in the East Village where we dine, which serves as advertising for more lunch-buyers. Oh, the conversations I've had to suffer. But I eat lunch free every day. I had Angelyne's scheme beat by two decades!

I’m the trek between the Spike and the Eagle, made much more difficult by construction on the West Side Highway.

I’m David Dinkins’ self righteousness. Stay out of here please, there’s no room for anyone but me!

I am the older thin man from the West Village with the 13 inch cock who would wear tight blue or red spandex pants with his dong showing for all to see. Anyone from that neighborhood has probably seen him.

I am that 13 inch cock.

I’m the thin dividing line between Marc Berkley or John Blair’s gay side of Limelight, and Peter Gatien or Michael Alig’s club kid side of Limelight. My barrier is a mere velvet rope guarded by a petite club kid in dreadlocks, platform sneakers, and a clipboard. Don’t let the streams cross! Oil and water.

I’m living in the city long enough to know where all the non-public but very usable bathrooms are, in various businesses and buildings. I could draw a map!

I’m lounging on Tar Beach!

I'm Ruby Foos. Thank god, someplace new and fun in Times Square!

Im Lucky Chengs. We have lot sof Asian drag queens that sing and dance.

Wow, just found this video. What a different vibe. So peaceful and alive, everyone wasn’t staring at phones.

Part 2

r166 and r169, Uncle Charlie’s had also been ‘70s bars uptown (38/3, 75/Lex). Maybe ‘60s bars, for all I know.

[quote]I'm the constant thought of "Jesus Christ, all the stereotypes really ARE true" whenever you spend time on the Upper West Side.

r260, what does this mean?

I am Job Lots. I am the beginning of Big Lots and all the crappy dollars stores on every corner of every town in every state now

I am LA 1998. We are ALL staring at our phone by then...it's going to take a little while before you catch up, but you will. Life will never be the same.

R512 what are you staring at? The number you dialed. Texts and the snake game are not out yet?!

I’m Miami. I’m starting to happen! Are you a model?

My bad R513. I'm 1999 and Im a Blackberry

I’m Tabitha Soren wandering alone around Avenue A Tompkins Square brunch spots, with a Sunday Times and my dog. It’s my one real day off from my gig on MTV’s “alternative/youth-oriented” news show opposite Kurt Loder. I seem nice and smart on the show, but the staff and crew who work at the Times Square studio all call me “Crabitha” behind my back.

Don't worry R511 big real estate will soon buy out the landlords in NYC and poof all the pesky dollar stores will be a distant memory.

I’m the Summer of ‘97 and the fear in Chelsea, the Villages and on weekends in the Pines that Andrew Cunanan is in our mix.

R518 *midst

Goddamn it.

I’m coffee to go from a deli in a generic paper cup and plastic lid with no heat sleeve (what’s that?) I know a place that has pretty good fresh brew. They have large size cups now too. You pour it yourself!

R520 ☕️

R520 I’m the warm, tall, cardboard, half quart of milk wobbling next to the coffee maker. I’m less than 2/3 full and suspect but people still use me for creamer anyway.

R522 I’m the little pink squares of empty Sweet and Low packets tossed everywhere.

I’m working at a little store in the village on 8th street. I’m just waiting for Michael to get arrested. We ALL know he murdered Angel. He’s just walking around like la Dee da but we’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop. When, when, when, are they going to take him in for questioning?

I’m that brief moment when The Village Voice went up to $1.25 from $1, then just a few months later it was suddenly just free.

I’m the “Will you pee on me?” guy. I’m around 40, have a heavy foreign accent, am balding, unattractive, and wear ratty old suits.

I loiter frantically outside Limelight, Sugar Babies, Boiler Room and even a few uptown gay spots, loudly begging men to “please pee on me” as they walk out. People laugh.

Everyone thinks I’m into water sports but clearly I’m just into public humiliation. I show up outside any club where the doormen and security haven’t shoo-ed me away.

I’m practically famous for about a year. Then one day I’m just gone.

R526 I assume he’s dead.

R527 Maybe he drowned.

R521 Those are still around.

I’m the large amount of legitimate treasures at Gay Treasures bookstore in the WV. You’ll miss me when I’m gone!

I’m the 90’s Gay & Lesbian Center on West 13th Street. A charming dump!

I’m Bang Bang, where you can buy audacious, satiny skin tight shirts to wear at Roxy that hug your muscular pecs. All of them are horrendously overpriced- until one day you bring a bouquet of flowers and the manager thinks they’re meant for her, and suddenly you get half off everything in the store!

I’m skinny un-athletic me; 5’9” 160 - who has desperately wanted muscular pecs since puberty - finally deciding it’s now or never and mustering up the nerve to walk into Johnny Lats off Union Square and not get overly intimidated by all the huge guys around me. I stick to it, show up most days after work, and start actually getting stronger and eating more. Three years later I finally crack 200 - my shoulders, back and legs are actually big, my arms are decent and I still have absolutely no chest.

R533, did you score lots of dick at Johnny Lats?

I'm the square toed shoes that is the only thing you won't miss about this decade compared to what's coming.

R535 I loved my square toed boots

I’m the “ a” gay personals site. It’s hard to find any evidence online that I ever existed, even though I was everywhere in the late 90’s in NYC.

The competition for gay dating sites was heavy, and my angle was a fabulous Dame Edna-like drag queen persona as mascot of the site (drawn as a cartoon). Don’t I make you thirsty? Guess not.

I'm Hot & Crusty, TCBY FroYo, and Mike's Cookies.

I'm the Big store. You can buy "big" versions of things at me, like a giant pencil or a huge paper clip. Isn't it hilarious? We were featured on Letterman once!

r516 I can attest to that. I worked at MTV during that era. Tabitha had no sense of humor and took herself WAY seriously. She really was a thin-lipped bitch.

I’m personal beepers.

I make normie plebes feel important by going off all the time so they can stop what they’re doing, look down at me and loudly exclaim, “Who the hell is calling me now?” I disrupt everything good. Turns out there’s a huge market for making people feel important by allowing them to disrupt what’s going on around them.

If you think electronic communication devices disrupting normal life are annoying now... hold onto your hat because you haven’t seen anything yet!

I’m Howard Beach, Petri dish ultime for racist Italian Americans and Irish Americans.

I’m gay pet names for everything that you eventually begin using in place of the real names, without thinking about it...

Limelight = Slimelight, Flashlight

Splash = Drip, Plop

Boiler Room = Spoiler Room

Tunnel Bar = Fudge Tunnel

The Works = The Worst

David Barton’s = Dolly Parton’s

Better Bodies = Bitter Beauties, Bitter Bottoms

Chelsea Gym (above a Diagastino’s) = Fags Above Dags

Madonna = Madoodoo

I'm all those eclectic indie record shops that will close down one by one due to the upcoming online digital download alternatives and the spiking rents resulting from hyper-gentrification.

I’m the large-size, female, African American bathroom attendant in the main bathroom of the Roxy. The queens love me and tip me well but oh Lordy the things my middle-aged eyeballs have seen!

I’m a 24-hour McDonald’s located near Times Square at 5 AM on a Saturday night. The too-crowded restaurant is a literal war zone of trash, trashy people, screaming people, drunk fights, horrible puddles, thrown food, overflowing trash cans and oh god don’t even go in the bathroom! Somehow homeless people can be slumped over in a corner sleeping through it all. The doors keep opening and more and more drunk people keep pouring in. The manager and staff behind the counter are in literal tears as they work.

WEHT Tabitha Soren?

I'm Harlem before the gentrification. It used to be rare and unusual to see white folks walking my streets.

I’m the chunky heels.

This thread really tapped into much needed nostalgia while the world falls apart.

It was a great time and place to be alive. The energy was palpable. The great in-between transitioning overlaps of grunge & yuppie, paper & technology, the last innocence before the upcoming destruction by the internet, social media and 24 hour news cycles. The peak of society and the last dying breath of introversion & class. The Genie is out of the bottle and it unfortunately can’t be put back in.

I love this thread.

I am the newspaper being skillfully folded and read on the subway.

I am the list if things that have been pulled out of somebody’s ass. I include 11 billiard balls and a full rolled-up Sunday New York Times.

R547 She married Michael Lewis and became a Bay Area housewife.

I'm 80's art world, media, and nightlife fixtures who left the city in 1990 after deciding it was over. We live in upstate NY, New Jersey and other parts of the world and have no concept whatsoever of NYC after the 80's. A few of us think NYC is still the same!

I'm this place

Bump

I'm Queer Nation having a "kiss-in" at a popular and reportedly homophobic straight bar in mid-town. We made the New York Post again!

I’m Mrs. Tartaglione of Howard Beach, suspiciously eyeing any moolie or PR in y neighborhood past 5 PM.

I'm DON'T BUNGLE THE JUNGLE II benefit outdoor party/fashion show/concert on the newly renovated westside pier, in 1991. Can you believe they renovated this pier? It's fab! I hope they keep having events here. Thierry Mugler, Joey Arias, Kenny Scharf, Fred Schneider, and every Interview magazine-level NYC celebrity is around. What a chaotic mob scene! Deee-Lite are having sound problems, Claudia Schiffer is being painted nude backstage, and Lady Bunny got turned away at the door. Oh, the drama. We're helping the rain forests!

I'm George Wayne's R.O.M.E. magazine. I'm a gritty downtown fanzine-y magazine, but I'm also Vogue. There's stacks and stacks of me available at St. Mark's Books. $10 a pop! Anybody want one?

Oh R561 you took me back!

I'm Outweek's "Old Clone vs New Clone" issue. I'm on the cutting edge!

*I hope this link works. I'm trying to link a specific page on an online .pdf.

R564 nope

R564 Worked for me in chrome. It just doesn't appear in the preview.

I remember that issue of Outweek. Old gay clone vs new gay clone. It DID seem on the cutting edge, at the time.

I'm not sure an updated version would even be possible to show by example today.

I’m the “ Dick n Box” at the Limelight. I’m a 8 foot wood box with various holes on all sides. I keep a different nude porn star within my walls hourly. People put their hands or dicks in the holes to touch the nude star. I’m so popular by the 4th week my walls are in shambles.

I’m the United colors of Benetton.

I am the Cupcake Cafe

I’m the weekday gay night of the Monster 1990s Super Clubs holding 5-10k people, Mars, Red Zone, Tunnel, Egg, Club USA, Exit. . 500 person orgy rooms. A sea of gays the world hasn’t seen since. Realizing “ you are not alone” .

I'm Don and Marla's constant presence as a quarrelling couple, trading insults and making up using the covers of The New York Post and The Daily News as our primary communication device. We are beyond obnoxious!

Marla does look good with the big hair. Though it’s weird how she’s both pretty and nondescript at the same time.

I don't know her.

How did Tiff end up so unfortunate looking?

R572 This one was a howler

WHY does almost every DL thread have to mention that motherfucker Dump?

Everything that fug troll ever touched turned to absolute shit.

I'm the hand. Talk to me.

God, this was an amazing thread for 550+ posts and then of course it had to become about Dump.

Well, he was a oppressing presence in NYC back then.

I'm Hot & Crusty. Oh, the jokes...

I'm HARRY'S BURRITOS, the original early 90's location on 7th Street near 1st Avenue. I'm a quaint, out-of-the-way restaurant with minimal but kooky "hip" decor, run by a Mexican family. We make San Francisco burritos equal and most agree better (and definitely bigger) than the more popular Benny's Burritos in two nearby downtown locations. Our menu is nearly identical, but we don't serve booze. I'm also much cheaper. We're one of downtown's best kept secrets in the late 80's and early 90's! Local celebs love us. We have a good run until about 1986 until we close, change management, and move to the NYU area and lose all our charm.

R582, but not as good as The Kitchen's burrito's on 8th Avenue.

burritos^ What hipped to the future where typing was supposed to be obsolete? Yuk, I hate it. (4 corrections in this post.)

Tacos stole burrito’s spotlight.

The Part II link, since we're close to finishing this one.

I’m Sidewalks restaurant where you can have a showing of your own shitty artwork.

R587 Or music on open mic night.

We're CARAMBA!, a small chain of Tex-Mex restaurants where gaggles of gays gathered to drink too many slushy margaritas and down delicious food. Favorite one was on 8th Avenue near 55th Street. Many BNOs spent there with my theater friends.

I am the raunchy Keith Haring Bathroom in the Gay Center on 13th Street. I am still there, can be visited any time, just walk in. I am one of NYC‘s best kept secrets .

I’m the lack of Starbucks and other corporate atrocities.

I'm Michael Alig living breathing and walking around

I'm the homeless black guy writhing around on the sidewalk with a heroin needle in his arm that I had to step over on my first trip to fancy NYC!

I’m a small neighborhood coffee shop where you bought beans or ground coffee and things like coffee presses, mugs, etc. The neighborhood is so thrilled I’ve opened up. They crowd in here everyday to pick up their coffee. I’m so glad my owner decided to put his money into a coffee shop. I plan to be here for 25 myears, then retire.

What happened to their dog???

What happened to their dog???

What happened to their dog???

I'm.

R1 Best comment, ever. Wanna lick your ass clean.

Close out this thread.