NYC Eldergays: Were Any Of You A Club Kid?

Never a club kid. I did like dancing, and the early 90s were (for me) the heyday of social dancing in NYC. The last hurrah.

To me, the 90s club kids seemed derivative of the East Village drag and performance art scene of the 80s, which felt a lot more fun and original and creative (and not as fame-whorish). I just assumed all of these kids were massive drug addicts, so Alig didn't surprise me that much.

[quote] I did like dancing

We all love dancin'

Club “kids” who looked 40 years old.

My boss was a very rich surgeon and his daughter was a club kid. Would see her on the subway with her friends, wearing her Rolex. She’s a surgeon now. Club kids were just another clique.

Was that Rupaul at 1:29?

Ru would party with the Club Kids/Alig often

Geraldo was more open minded 30 years ago than he is now.

I wasn't a club kid per se, but we did dress up to go to clubs in what was considered club gear back then.

I saw all of them - Richie Rich, Michael Alig, Kabuki Starshine, etc. They brought a lot of fun. Everyone was on drugs - not just them. Some of them dealt.

And as above posted - dancing in the late 80's / early 90's in NYC was probably in its heyday. So many huge places and it was exciting to see and been seen. There were different themes each week and different decorations.

I remember one theme in particular - Chiarascuro - at the Roxy. It was a ton of fun - until Guiliani took it all away.

Very ugly group. Cheap and tacky looking. Probably smelly as well.

Would drag performers be considered club kids

R11 - yes. Because the drag was more avant garde, not beauty queen drag.

Sharon Needles type of drag.

Like r9 in the late 80s/v early 90s I went to lots of the weekly theme nights, outlaw parties etc though I didn’t know any of the notorious club kids personally. Great fun dressing up and riding the subway in full wack regalia. Lots o party favors around too, fun but exhausting.

R9 and R13, we probably saw each other out! It was so fun at the time, but, yes, exhausting!

I was an aspiring costume designer, and I would make outfits for people to wear out. I was at Alig's Blood Feast party, did a zombie go go boy thing.

RuPaul looked TERRIBLE back then!

R14 - RuPaul was a straight up bitch back then, very messy and high way too much. And don't get me started on the embarrassing Star Booty stuff. That was low rent crap.

Are there even big dance places in NY anymore?

Let me add - Club Kids were just one group of nightlife celebrities. There were a lot of people known for going out and throwing parties.

The Club Kids were just one part.

Thanks, R15, RuPaul really was. Fucking Star Booty! RuPaul still owes my partner 20 bucks from back in the day.

I don't think there are any clubs like we had in the late 80s/90s. I was there, but my memories are sometimes like watching a movie I think I saw once, on television at 3am. I am so glad I did it all, or at least as much as I could, while being terrified of AIDS. I probably wish I'd given some of you blowjobs back then.

Was there and knew them all; Ritchie Rich, Olympia, Michael Alig, Sushi, Tadie, Kenny Kenny, L'Homa, RuPaul, James St. James, etc....

It was sort of magical (especially if you were young), and very special time in NYC far as nightlife was concerned. It's all gone now (thanks to Rudy G and then Bloomberg), with city having changed dramatically since 1980's and 1990's.

No, all the big clubs are long gone (Roxy, Palladium, Tunnel, Twilo, etc..) Rudy G used nuisance abatement laws to shut places down to point owners just gave up. When stuff hit the fan regarding Limelight, Michael Alig and Peter Gatien that just gave Rudy G. and Bloomberg the ammunition they needed to shut not just Peter G's clubs down, but everyone else as well.

Manhattan areas like Chelsea, Far West Side, East Village, West Village, Far West Side, Soho, Tribeca, etc... had begun morphing into industrial/commercial areas that were largely abandoned at night or on weekends into high end residential. The newly ensconced well off residents neither wanted nor appreciated sort of ills those large clubs brought to an area. So there would be calls to NYPD about noise, traffic, people loitering about on streets, etc....

While many of the actual buildings remain, some like Palladium are long gone. That former movie house on 14th/Union Square was bought by NYU (surprise, surprise) torn down and redeveloped into dorm space.

Still am in touch with and or run into former Club Kids now and then. Most if not all are part of Boomer generation and thus in their 50's if not fast reaching 60's. After the big clubs were shut down rise of "bottle clubs" (concept imported from Europe) like Life gave some Club Kids outlets for performance if not just outright employment, but changes in NYC nightlife scene by 2000's meant things would never ever be the same.

Perhaps last place to see Club Kids (both in or out of costume) was Beige, but that place soon succumbed to same fate as other clubs. East Village isn't what it was back in 1980's and 1990's and complaints about noise and whatever shut that party down.

Pater Gatien, how a once great man fell from grace, and spelled end of night life as many knew it then.

The early 90s were incredibly exciting in NYC, but we were also dancing in the shadow of AIDS. I had friends in ACT UP and other queer, very serious political circles, and arty friends who were clubgoers. Only occasionally did those groups overlap.

Almost none of us had real money: gays with money (lawyers, Wall Streeters, yuppies) were automatically "the enemy" and really kept to themselves. And it's trite but true: pre-Internet, smartphone, streaming everything, we made our our creative fun. I worked on a friend's fanzine for a while, helped design another's cabaret act. Nothing to stop us.

^"our own creative fun..."

Did he murder a guy he met at The Limelight?

What R9 said, these were fun clubs and yes everyone was on drugs. All different types of drugs even combining them. For me it was mainly pot, acid, shrooms, alcohol, and coke I tried once but enjoyed it way too much and it was super cheap and everywhere so I never used it again even when it was offered for free from friends. I never took MDMA/Ecstasy, Ketamine, PCP, etc. as I saw friends get out of control with those drugs and go on binges or have bad experiences. It was not like today at all like R20 wrote. Nowadays, er well before the COVID but after the invention of smartphones, social media, etc. clubs and bars became very boring. Even rock concerts are or pre-COVID were a lot more tame now than they were in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s before social media.

Michael Alig spit in RuPaul’s mouth once at an event at one of the big clubs.

One of the largest influences on Club Kids was Susanne Bartsch. Indeed she was sort of a den mother to many, she hired many of them to work at her parties, and helped in other ways as well.

Susanne Bartsch's parties were famous for not just introducing the antics of Club Kids to world, but bringing straights, gays, trans, etc.. of all sorts together just to party. Lots of gorgeous straight boys (local NYC and B&T) would come to SB's parties with their girlfriends as cover, but get the digits or otherwise arrange to met a guy or trans later.

Reasons clubs declined/died

A combination of "more mixed spaces where gays are comfortable" and social media/phones and changes in how a lot of people socialize.

Plus, real estate. Remember the great Rush Back to Cities in the 90s and beyond. Major investment, lots of gentrification in a lot of cities that used to be at least partially run down.

Not always, but more often than not, clubs need at least a partially depressed city to really thrive. There needs to be questionable areas, out of the way streets where you're not going to have 200 condo owners bitching about the crowds and the noise. This isn't a uniform rule, but a lot of great clubs in big cities couldn't exist today in the neighborhoods where they previously thrived.

R26 - very true - another reason how the rich ruined big cities. When people started actually living in the Meat Packing district - where there were quite a few S&M clubs, Jackie 60, Mars, and other spaces - I knew it was gone.

Guiliani brought in a crackdown of a lot of spaces for gays and people of color. Plus the stop and frisk rules - the police would randomly stop and check you on the street for drugs/other. It was under the guise of bringing back law and order, but I don't recall people bitching about clubs before.

There was one very good dance club in Chicago (who bought Sound Factory's old sound equipment) that was shut down because developers built a condo building next door and the tenants were shocked that there was noise after midnight on weekends. WTF did you expect?

I recently re-watched some QAF episodes and it made me so sad. Places like Babylon were common in the gay world. Start off at any number of gay bars and smaller places then everyone shifted to a big dance club later.

I know this may sound like an old person reflecting back on their youth, but I honestly question how much fun gays have when they go out now. Fewer places, smaller places, small dance floors, and everyone looking into their phones.

There was something to be said about standing in a line that wrapped around the block to get into a good dance club. The anticipation, the music you could hear from inside, the characters you saw in line.

Places like that still exist, you just don’t know about them. After COVID is over, take a walk around Bushwick during the night on weekends. It’s the new meat packing. Huge clubs, great parties, music, drugs, drag...

R28 - well, that's reassuring. I look some up and they look pretty cool.

But the difference is that - they're probably mainly straight. I know, I know - gays can now go everywhere, but there's a different vibe when you're the minority among straights.

And straight guys and straight women are really fucking annoying in their habits when they're out in their mating environment. Obnoxious straight guys trying to get attention, yelling loudly and throwing their weight around - gaggles of women talking amongst themselves, looking around, giggling at others.

However - thanks for letting me know it can still be found.

Here’s a gay club in bushwick was popular before covid and I think will make a comeback. It’s much better than the website makes it look.

There are really fun gay bars in Williamsburg that are smaller and have that grunge/east village vibe. I started going to clubs around 2003 so I guess I missed the heyday, but similar places to those still exist, but mostly in Brooklyn.

R30 - interesting. Looking through the photos, it doesn't look very gay to me.

Imagine taking the subway late at night out to Bushwick, Brooklyn to go dancing. Or even an Uber.

Pass.

Although fleeting, the club kid movement took off.

Humphries wanted to promote the 4,000- to 8,000-capacity clubs in New York. After getting cozy with Alig's crew, Michael invited her to work with him.

"When I walked through the front door of Disco 2000, everybody was like, 'This is Brooke.' I had a stack of drink tickets in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. I was infamous even before I got there. Am I sounding cocky?" she asks.

Humphries never intended to go to college.

The only aspiration she had was to be a club promoter. When she got to New York, she was shocked at the professionalism and available resources.

"There must have been 100 people working in the offices where Tunnel is — making phone calls and flyers. I was blown away," she says. "Michael worked his ass off. He was always working. He was wildly creative and very clever. You don't know how hard it is to fill a nightclub with 4,000 people — especially in a jaded town like New York."

Alig and Humphries have so much history together, she could write her a book and cash in like everyone else. She mainly got to witness Alig in action, but the whole experience only lasted about a year. Melendez was a dealer, and when he disappeared, Humphries moved into his place. She erupts into infectious laughter while remembering the embarrassing excess of it all — limo rides, Prada outfits, bejeweled Versace glasses. But in all confidence, she says those drug-dealing days are over. With ferociousness, Mayor Giuliani prosecuted Limelight, Tunnel and Club USA owner Peter Gatien. Although Alig was pinned for Melendez' murder, federal investigators were primarily focused on Gatien. And when Michael went down, he took everyone with him. Humphries served three years in prison for conspiracy and drug trafficking. After years of selling drugs and constantly looking over her shoulder, Humphries claims prison was the best thing that ever happened to her. "When I got to prison, I had a solid year of therapy and dealt with issues of criminal thought patterns," she says. "I shed my skin. I told the Feds everything — everything. I ratted myself out." Picking the pieces back'up seems to agree with Humphries, but it hasn't been easy. She says she's much happier just being herself. She's lost a considerable amount of weight and runs a small cafe in Fort Worth. But she's back, promoting parties in Dallas.

R31. I don’t know why those photos are on the website. Like I said, they don’t really represent the vibe of the place. It’s really gay. That neighborhood is the closest to the old meat packing vibe I can think of. The Williamsburg bars have a very east-village-of-the-early-2000s vibe.

One of the problems with recreating the same environment is that gays are really spread out now. HK is full of guys in their 40s and older, but the neighborhood is too gentrified to be fun. The younger gays (early 20s to 40) are probably equally spread among Harlem, east village, Williamsburg, Bushwick, LIC and Astoria- but really my gay friends live scattered throughout the city.

I used to go clubbing for the music and to dance in NYC in the 90’s but not where Alig’s crowd went because they played Techno and I liked House; totally different vibe. House clubs weren’t scene-ey, no one went there to be fabulous and dress up, very mixed crowd too with mostly native NYers.

It must be mentioned too that there was racism, particularly at Limelight. Most of those Club Kids were suburban or flyover and didn’t know how to mix with others.

I was too young for the club kid movement and I lived on the west coast, but what is appealing to them is the inclusivity. As I understand it, it was the anti-Studio 54 where you didn't need to be rich and famous to be included, you just needed to be creative and interesting. I loved underground parties or raves in the late 90's/early 2000's. I liked the ethos of 'PLUR' - Peace, Love, Unity, Respect. Also, the underground parties were so exciting. Picking up flyers on Melrose and then ending up somewhere totally random in the desert or an some rundown hotel ballroom or seedy strip club in the valley at 5am. It was a also a mix of people. Back in those days if you were gay, you were either a circuit boy or a raver. Everyone was experimenting with their sexuality on drugs and I would make out with everyone. It was really fun. I think the kids these days have the same thing but all the young girls look like whores. It's a different;t vibe than the unisex JNCO jeans with the massive pipe legs that we wore. It was right before social media happened/smart phones happened and I am so glad to have experienced that period of life.

This group still parties every week. Some of the same faces (Susan, Richy Rich, Amanda Lepore, Musto)

Still in the village (mostly). They never stopped.

I believe I attended two of the club kid parties in the early 90s. I saw them as vacuous gatherings for fake people to socialize and do drugs. I never understood it, perhaps because clubbing and drugging was never the primary focus in my life. I had other interests; music, sports, the arts, family, friends, nature. I think Club Kids had were looking to escape.

Does RuPaul ever talk about Alig?

Not in New York, but I clubbed a lot in Denver. Denver had its own wannabe group, the Sugartwist Kids. All were homely but rich, able to afford the outfits and the drugs. Peking Pussy was one of them.

R37

As discussed in other threads, what else are these people going to do?

M. Musto at least does have a legitimate career as a journalist, true he won't be winning any Pulitizer prizes and has suffer along with many others as news/entertainment media has changed over the years, but never the less.

Richie Rich at one point was a fashion designer with his own company, but don't think things lasted very long. Amanda Lepore is well, Amanda Lepore....

While rest of us either as club kid adjacent or just going out now and then otherwise spent our youth in college then onto building stable careers (hopefully), and lives (ditto), these people were out being famous for well, being famous. All the club kids are easily in their 50's by now and the world has moved on.

Perhaps most clear example is RuPaul; Miss. Ghurl worked her ass off to get where she is now. As result Ru has a couple of homes, shit tons of money in bank, a husband, and could easily buy and sell many of these club kids and get back change in the transaction.

Life is what happens when you're busy doing other things. At some point the die is cast and your life is what it is....

R34 - I believe you. I just looked up some other photos of the packed dancefloor and it was all men. My mistake - some of the photos must have been from some 'event' or else that it was rented for. Or maybe early in the night.

It warms my heart to know these places still exist - thank you.

R35 - depends on the club. Which clubs did you go to? Sound Factory was much more house - but that wasn't Club Kids. Frankie Knuckles at Sound Factory was such a good vibe - much better than Junior Vasquez, who I respect, but he just was not as good.

R12

That's because drag was still drag then, before the infiltration of trans who began sucking air out of the room.

Most club kids who did drag (like RuPaul) only went out in girls clothes when getting paid, otherwise they lived as boys. Femmy yes, but still in boys clothes.

Then the trans started invading parties at clubs and of course Susanne B's events. Promoters like John Blair usually had no problems with drag queens, he even booked them as part of entertainment, but trans were another matter. Go-Go boys at his events were given clear orders, stay away from females and trans while on the clock. Not everyone listened of course, but those were the marching orders.

Drag queens were fun in a non-threatening way; you didn't worry about them coming onto your bf/date or whatever. Yes the more aggressive ones like Lady Bunny might do crotch or chest grab, but again it was more about fun than actually coming onto the guy.

R44 - yes, John Blair had a lot of nights. So did Susanne Bartsch. There are two others I can't remember - one was a southern Jewish girl who was the belle of the ball before Susanne.

And, my memory is just shit right now, but who was the famous photographer who had a lot of events? He's done a shit ton of work and he was very handsome when he was young.

Was it Dianne Brill and David something?

My pleasure R42. I sometimes feel I was born too late. I would have loved to spend my 20s at the Roxy or limelight. I love hearing stories about the piers and bathhouses. Fire island still has that seedy, over sexed vibe, but I’m sure it’s nothing like New York in the 90s. Although it’s changed, nyc still amazes me and I like to discover new places.

R42 here - thanks R46 - awww - it seems that the clubs you mention now probably have great vibes and a lot of fun. Just on a smaller scale.

When you have 3.000 to 4,000 people in a club it's a totally different thing.

At least you didn't have to deal with the outright discrimination, the gay bashing, and your friends and acquaintances dying all around you.

There are many that posit that the 80's and 90's club./drug culture was an offshoot of the AIDS crisis. You wanted to escape, sex was unsafe - so where do you go? (pre-internet of course)

I have to think there's a lot of truth in that but it isn't recognized as much as it should be.

New York in the 1980’s was magical. Yes, it could be dirty and scary, but creativity and joy of life was evident everywhere. Greenwich Village was incredible just to walk through. Like an avant-garde Disneyland for me at the time. Seems like people were so much happier before cellphones and the internet. They actually sat around and talked to each other.

Even at the time I remember thinking that this was a special place/moment in history that would never return. So glad I was there.

F&F the Copycat Thread Thief OP.

All of this info is in TWO Michael Alig threads already and any real “Club Kid” already shared their stories there.

The OP is a toxic social parasite and plagiarist.

I started going out in my teens and just in time for original East Village scene late 70s through 1984 or so. Which as also Mudd Club Danceteria Area, Le Palace in Paris, etc. Continued for 20 years in NY, London, Paris, Miami, La Côte d'Azur, Ibiza and a bit in SF, Hamburg, Berlin, Amsterdam, Zurich, Beirut, Cairo.

The NYC "Club Kid" scene got a lot of press and entertained non-club people in the tabloids, but it was but a blip for night clubbers themselves and not very interesting.Everyone avoid it, in fact. It isn't associated with any great music, and kind of clever dancing, and everything they did stylistically was rehashed and borrowed.

anY kind of clever dancing - they couldn't dance. They had shitty music. And they stole all their ideas from previous scenes. messy messy messy.

I was in the scene, during my late teens, for a spell in the late 90s up until 9/11, after which there was a definitive shift. Somebody upthread called it “the last hurrah” and it felt like that even then. Tunnel, Twilo, Limelight, Webster Hall, Heaven, Cheetah, and many others I’ve forgotten. We had a time.

Those were the days of dancing half-naked on bars and straight into the colored fluorescent lit darkness of the night; working as a dominatrix (don’t ask), club kid and promoter, and a receptionist; making out with straight Long Island boys in steamy hot cramped places (getting fucked by them, too); donning everything from butch realness garb to fem/androgynous perfection and being the utter center of attention! Ecstasy, Special K, coke, weed, and lots of alcohol. Dim sum anyone?, as one of my bosses used to say. Weathering tragedy after tragedy, with AIDS and drugs knocking them out. 😢 And the most serene and beautiful candlelit two weeks, after the towers came tumbling down like two pillars of sand. Getting the fuck out of dodge right after because I was properly lost before I was lost some more, and New York City, my beloved hometown and place of birth, was getting to me. I never looked back.

Just a fact check: Michael Musto is 65 years old. So if he is still out partying/clubbing, more power to him.

I was a club adult. I spent all my time not being able to hear anyone and not knowing where to put anything down.

how does Richie Rich look now? I remmeber him being a pretty boy twink wayyyy longer than most.

I was around for the tail end of Disco 2000, and active in nyc nightlife after that. I remember Musto had zero use for you unless you were famous, Bartsch was lovely to everyone, and Amanda Lepore had the hottest men hypnotixed and doing her bidding. The other thing I remember is the darkness. Dark energy, dark music, dark drugs, dark rooms, dark sex, etc. It was so clearly all imploding in on itself, and Alig etc were sketched out slobbering messes, trying to fuck or get fucked but unable to stay hard. while chasing after underage partiers or straight guys etc etc.

NYC is ok today, but so safe and clean it's almost boring.

R53

Just like Cindy Adams (who is 90 by the way) it's Michael Musto's job to go out, get the scent and report back. Unless he hits Powerball or lands a hugely well paying stable other job MM will continue being at parties, events, etc... and writing about them in various media reports.

R31, that club isn't a gay club. It describes itself as "queer", which basically means anyone who wants to appear edgy. So, yeah, it will attract wannabe-edgy straight "queer" people.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R55

You can't keep that ghurl down! Ritchie Rich has been though it (just Google search for various dirt), but she's like that Energizer Bunny; just keeps going, and going.....

RR does know or knew a fair number of celebs such as Ellen D, and apparently is talented fashion wise. Yes his various efforts don't always last long, but many designers have same problem.

I think 50- and 60-year-old Club Kids dealing with NYC in 2020 (or some other, duller place) would be a brilliant starting point for a sitcom, don't you?

Walt Cassidy is a stud!

wow Richie's looking his years! Suppose we all are, tho

BeautyKween.com never launched

Richie is apparently homeless!

yikes. grim.

I wonder how somebody like Michael Musto can afford to live in NYC in 2020.

R52 I remember when you would write about some of your more famous/infamous clients here on DL...please do so again! Are you trans or are you the woman that was a dominatrix in NYC who used to post here?

R36 I remember that era well but I was more into going to as many phish shows as I could in the northeast, and super strong LSD and mushrooms than raves, although I did go to a few raves. I never took MDMA or MDA, Ketamine, 2C-B, or any research chemicals as smoking pot, tripping on acid or shrooms, sometimes taking Dexedrine, and getting drunk was enough. I used coke once but liked it too much so I never touched it again but I certainly would take low doses of oxycodone, codeine, and hydrocodone sometimes which were everywhere being taken like candy then, and smoke weed or hash with them. This documentary reminds me of then.

Richie Rich could stand with Peter and Paul and sing "If I Had a Hammer" and no one would be the wiser.

Or he could fill in for Janice on the Muppet Show.

Great times for the dancing - hated the Club Kids, “Performers” in general were annoying - I went to dance and meet boys not look at needy, attention starved narcissists. Sound Factory and Sound Factory Bar are what I miss. Going out to have fun - not to be seen. Giuliani and the empowerment of cops definitely killed nightlife - but the money and rise of the internet/social media obsession came soon after to eliminate any hope of revival.

bottle service, 9/11, the inernet/social media, and the gentrification of manhattan killed the scene dead and it's not coming back.