There are no words to describe the love, fun, excitement and hope during that time that was heard through the music. I am so grateful to have been a part of it. Young gays today have no clue of the "brotherhood" of disco clubs.
Souvenirs was our theme song! Whenever it came on (and it always came on), my "family" and I would drop whatever we were doing to dance at 4:00 on the dance floor!
don't think i ever missed a Saturday... or Sunday for that matter, it all depended on who was playing and if Monday was a holiday even better. The Saint was for me the gold standard to the greatest total experience. its 2020 and i don't think anyone i knew back then is around. RR
Before The Saint, Michael Fesco gave us Flamingo and there was never any club like it. Where The Saint was magnificent architecture, Flamingo was a beautiful room with beautiful men surrounded by the lights and music.
Guys, thank you so much for putting these videos together! They're an amazing glimpse into a New York I never got to experience. Each one is fascinating and so well produced.
I went to a lot of discos while I lived in Manhattan (1973-1981) but the music that David Mancuso played at The Loft still stands out in my mind as some of the best from that era. His parties were legendary and I feel so privileged to have been able to attend many of them when The Loft was located on Broadway . . .
Interesting, since I was a part of the equivalent scene in Phila. (DCA Club) (and New Hope, Pa., where a lot of New Yorkers came for weekends) from 1975 onward, So much to remember, the feeling that we were on top of the world, the music was amazing, sometimes even haunting; the whole atmosphere of thinking there was no place in the world you would rather be. AND - let's not forget that, generally, we dressed better than those polyester clad guys in Saturday Night Fever (remember, around 1977, the jeans tucked into the Frye boots) - jeans, boots, sneakers, polos, t-shirts, fun things like belts with western-style buckles, shirts in '78 with tiny little collars, skinny leather ties tucked into jeans (and the latter were so tight, how DID we get into them!). As far as the ambience, it seemed like it was the right mix of belonging and anonymity - nobody really knew everybody, there was always some elusiveness, something more to discover. But it reallly was like a lost world, usually remembered for its promiscuity, BUT - while promiscuity was very common, it's also true that many people were not as sexually active as is believed (though of course not celibate), and many did not do drugs or only did them intermittently. But whether doing these things or not, and no matter to what degree we chose to do them, many of us are still alive and can remember - painful because of all who have died but I think some of us are just starting to allow ourselves to have the memories. After all, how can we forget the era of disco that Camille Paglia once called "a tremendous cosmic vision ot the world?"
@theorbitofme Did you know that at The Ice Palace 57 they had, as one of their many rooms in the middle of that long building, a small showroom ? And they used to have incredible live entertainment, generally an all - girl orchestra that played the great Big Band songs of the 1940's ! There is nothing today that offers you nice things like that .
