Music Journalist Barry Walters Looks Back At Manhattan's Legendary Saint Disco

Veteran music journalist Barry Walters has penned a fascinating look back at Manhattan's much-storied Saint nightclub. It begins:

From September 1980 to May 1988, The Saint defined gay nightlife in New York during its most tumultuous and literally plagued decade. Conceived by off-Broadway impresario Mailman, who had just scored a runaway success with The New St. Marks Baths, The Saint set such high standards that it soon rendered its competition redundant.

“When it opened, it just sucked the life out of all the other clubs,” says Robbie Leslie, the most popular of the disco’s surviving DJs. “Everyone abandoned these clubs they professed loyalty to. It only took a week or two, and they just flocked over to The Saint.”

Housed in the three-story former site of the psychedelic rock concert hall Fillmore East, The Saint offered multi-sensory pleasure like no other venue before or since. It featured a circular, 4,800 square foot dancefloor topped by an aluminum dome 76 ft. by 38 ft. under which much of the club’s 1,500 lights would shine, as well as constellations from a Spitz Space System projector ten times brighter than one in a typical planetarium. Designed by architect Charles Terrell, The Saint pointedly directed one’s attention skyward. Its experience was clearly meant to be uplifting – visually and otherwise.

The perforated dome hid the last and largest of the revered Graebar sound systems: Powered by 630 drivers and 32 amplifiers, nearly 500 speakers generated 26,000 watts – a figure touted in The Saint’s publicity materials as being “probably the most powerful per square foot for entertainment purposes in existence.” All this splendor ultimately cost $4.6 million in 1980 dollars – well over $13 million in today’s currency.

You don't have to be an eldergay to enjoy the full piece.

AUDIO: There are many recordings of Saint DJ sets floating around. In the above-linked piece Walters includes this set from closing night DJ Jim Burgess.

Ali Forney Center Breaks Ground On Residence Named For Bea Arthur

Via press release:

On Monday, July 20, 2015, there will be a groundbreaking ceremony for the Bea Arthur Residence, an 18-bed residence for homeless LGBT youth operated by the Ali Forney Center. In 2012 the New York City Council and the Manhattan Borough President awarded $3,300,000 for the renovation of a long vacant building owned by the New York City Department of Housing and Preservation Development. The building has now been turned over to the Ali Forney Center in partnership with Cooper Square Committee, and renovations are beginning this month. It is anticipated that the building will begin to provide housing by the end of 2016.

Bea Arthur gave one of her final public performances as a benefit for the Ali Forney Center in 2005. She was very upset to learn that hundreds of thousands of LGBT teens were rejected by their families, and driven to homelessness. She said that she would do anything in her power to help these teens. When she died in 2009 the Ali Forney Center learned that she had bequeathed $300,000 to us in her will. At that time, Carl Siciliano, the Executive Director of the Ali Forney Center, pledged that the first building they owned would be named in her memory.

The groundbreaking will be attended by state and city political leaders and by the staff and clients of the Ali Forney Center.

East Village Selfie Woman Apologizes

"It was inconsiderate to those hurt in the crash and to the city of New York. What happened last week in the East Village is not to be taken lightly and I regret my course of action." - Former Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Christine Freundlich, apologizing for taking a cheerful  selfie in front of the gas explosion which destroyed the homes of over 100 New Yorkers, injured dozens, and killed two, whose bodies were recovered yesterday. (Tipped by JMG reader Ragnar)

CORRECTION: I posted the wrong photo in the first draft of this post. It's not clear that Freudlich was also part of the group whose selfie made the front page of the New York Post.

Today's New York Post

Via Gothamist:

The photo of 7 women cheerfully taking a selfie on 2nd Avenue—as buildings crumble and burn behind them, and victims of the explosion remain missing—was almost unbelievable. The selfie stick, the beaming smiles... surely this was Photoshopped. It wasn't. The very real photo quickly spread online yesterday, and this morning the NY Post has put the young women on their cover, with the words: VILLAGE IDIOTS. Things are not going so good if the NY Post is, quite rightfully, calling you "tasteless" and "heartless." The explosion, which took place at 2nd Avenue near 7th Street, took down three buildings (119, 121 and 123 Second Avenue), injured dozens, and displaced residents and commercial businesses; Nicholas Figueroa, 23, and Moises Ismael Locón Yac, 27, remain missing.

The three destroyed buildings contained about 70 apartments and a dozen street-level businesses. As you can see, many other apartments were destroyed in the adjacent buildings still standing.

Massive Explosion Rocks East Village

Multiple fatalities are feared after a massive explosion rocked the East Village this afternoon and caused the collapse of at least one apartment building. Dozens of apartments are reportedly engulfed in flames and the FDNY has declared a seven-alarm emergency. All local television stations are covering the scene live and reporters there say there is a strong smell of gas. The fire started in a building at Second Avenue and East Seventh Street and hundreds of first responders are on the scene. I'll update this post when more is known.

UPDATE: Some video is coming in.

UPDATE II: From the Wall Street Journal.

An explosion in New York City’s East Village on Thursday afternoon led to a building collapse and multiple injuries, a law-enforcement official said, with hundreds of emergency workers on the scene fighting the fire and searching the rubble for trapped people. A preliminary investigation indicated the fire and building collapse was due to a gas explosion, the official said. Two other buildings were in flames, the official said. The explosion, which sent flames into the sky near the corner of Second Avenue and St. Mark’s Place in the East Village, happened shortly after 3 p.m., according to police officials. A ground-floor store was blasted out, a law-enforcement official said. The scene created chaos in the East Village, a neighborhood filled with apartment buildings, restaurants and bars. Perry Kroll, who lives a block away, said he felt his whole building shake, and all of his neighbors spilled out into the street. “There’s an epic smoke column rising from the block,” he said. “I can see really big flames everywhere and chunks of ash falling from the sky. It looks like a building just blew out into the street. It’s just absolute chaos.”

TONIGHT: New York City Drag March

Facebook event page.

Arrest Made In East Village Bashing

ABC News reports:

Police say Gornell Roman was charged Wednesday with assault and aggravated harassment, both as hate crimes. Roman is accused of yelling an anti-gay remark and attacking a drinking companion in the East Village on Monday. Roman and the victim, Dan Contarino, lived at a nearby homeless shelter. The attack was one of two bias reports authorities announced Tuesday following the killing of a gay man over the weekend. Tuesday morning, two men were walking in lower Manhattan when two other men yelled homophobic slurs in Spanish and attacked them. They were arrested on hate crime assault charges.

Another Gay Bashing In New York City

There has been yet another gay bashing in New York City, this time in the East Village. Bruce Yelk reports at Nightlife Gay:

Shock, outrage, anger sums up how I am feeling today as one of my very good friends was gay bashed last night in New York City. Dan Contarino, former promoter of Shampoo Nightclub's "Shaft" Fridays, was jumped last night at Avenue D & 4th Street. Allegedly, witnesses are reporting the assailant was yelling "faggot" as he was kicking and beating Dan. Neighbors rushed to Dan's aid and chased after the attacker but unfortunately he got away. The police are investigating the assault now and have not determine it a hate crime.

Just last night thousands of LGBT New Yorkers and allies marched through the West Village in the memory of Mark Carson.  (Tipped by JMG reader Nick)

UPDATE: Contrarino writes this afternoon on Facebook: "UGH.... THIS IS JUST AS BRUTAL AS the ATTACK.... 3 hours... 8 detective interviews... now waiting for Hate Crimes Unit main interview... THEN BACK TO HOSPITAL...."

Power Returns To Much Of Downtown NYC

After five days, electricity was restored this evening to parts of downtown Manhattan, almost a full day ahead of yesterday's forecast by Con Edison. According to Miss Twitter, folks were literally dancing in the LIT streets of Chelsea, the Flatiron, the East Village, Chinatown, Soho, and parts of the Lower East Side.  Con Ed tweets this disclaimer: "For all in networks that have been restored who are still out- your building likely has H2O/wind damage that building manager must repair before restoration."  The West Village, where flooding was more severe on the blocks near the Hudson River, remains dark, as do portions of other Manhattan neighborhoods.

Con Ed Posts Outage Update

From the storm update on Con Edison's site:

More than 650,000 customers in New York City and Westchester County lost electrical power due to Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison said early today. "This is the largest storm-related outage in our history," said Con Edison Senior Vice President for Electric Operations John Miksad. The previous record was more than 200,000 customers affected by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Miksad cautioned crews must assess damage prior making to repairs, but early today low-lying areas of New York City and Westchester County remained under water. Challenges include, for example, more than 200 wires down on Staten Island. In Westchester County, more than 180 roads are closed. Restoring electrical service to underground equipment demands cleaning all components of sea water, drying and testing to make it safe to restore power.

A spokesman from Con Ed spoke to local television by phone this morning, advising those currently without power that it may be several days before repairs can commence in some areas. Last night's transformer explosion in the East Village may take over a week to repair and lower Manhattan residents should plan accordingly. Those who can take temporary refuge with friends or family should consider doing so.

Bloomberg Orders Mandatory Evacuation

Mayor Bloomberg has just ordered the mandatory evacuation of the lowest-lying areas of New York City.   Residents of Zone A are to immediately begin making plans to leave their homes. Zone A covers much of downtown Manhattan and the blocks bordering the Hudson and East rivers.   Hospitals in the affected areas will be moving their patients to other facilities via city buses.  All schools in the five boroughs will be closed through Wednesday at the least.  Story developing...

Disco Obamarama

My favorite monthly dive bar party gets uncharacteristically political this Saturday. Always a blast.

On Alternative Media

Free Republic is doing backflips over a blog that wrongly claims that the Village Voice has ceased publication. In fact, the Voice is merely moving out of its longtime office building next spring due to the expansion of the high school next door. Putting that silly lie aside, here's how the blog author characterizes alternative media:

All that was left for the alternative media was to run yet another profile of a new bar where people drink the tears of Ecuadoran children purchased through fair trade while looking at themselves doing it in video monitors as an artistic commentary on capitalism. And these days that's what the internet is for. A culture eager to document itself doing everything, take photos of the food on its plate, review the movie on Twitter while watching it and run a blog about its street corner is in no need of an alternative paper to kludgily do these things for it at a snail's pace.

Alternative represented the hipster ethos of being different for difference's sake. It's why every indie quarter boasts signs like, "Keep Portland Weird" and "Keep Austin Weird", not to mention "Keep Berkeley Weird". But how do you stay weird when everyone is trying to be weird at the same time? What does weirdness even mean when everyone is weird and doing their best to get a condo in weirdsville, only to move out in protest because weirdsville isn't weird enough anymore?

I have to admit, I laughed. A lot.

East Village To Get Douchey

Not satisfied with having destroyed the entire Meatpacking District and much of Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, and Midtown with their "high-end, velvet rope, bottle service, VIP banquette" nightlife douchebaggery, developers have now set their botoxed eyes on the East Village, Manhattan's last hopping bastion of relatively seedy, funky, underground coolness. Gothamist wails:

If you think the East Village is bad on weekend nights now, it could be about to get a whole lot worse. At least according to Ariel Palitz, who’s selling Sutra Lounge after nine years. "There’s an opportunity to change the culture and the makeup of the neighborhood from the underground nightlife experience to a high-end clientele." Really? The East Village nightlife has been "underground" for the past decade? Sadly it isn't just Palitz who believes the area is about to go BOOM. According to the Daily News, "In recent weeks, major nightclub operators associated with the Meatpacking District, SoHo and West Chelsea have been sniffing around the E. Houston corridor from the Bowery to Avenue A, where the weathered and fully licensed lower First Ave. properties Sutra Lounge and Lucky Cheng’s are prized commodities." People sniffing include operators from Pink Elephant, Greenhouse, Hudson Terrace, Acme, 1Oak and Electric Room.

At least we'll always have homo-hipster Nowhere and their $3 PBR. We hope.

Morning View - Washington Square

Photo by Dr. Jeff.

Afternoon View - Union Square

The Rent Is Too Damn Low

Gadfly tenant activist Jimmy McMillan, whose campaign for New York governor charmed many, is being evicted from his apartment. You may recall that McMillan ran on the Rent Is Too Damn High ticket. In a switch, McMillan says his landlord is kicking him out because his rent is too damn low.

Jimmy McMillan says he pays $872.96 for a rent-controlled ground-floor apartment on St. Marks Place in the East Village -- which he's had since the late-1970s, when the rent was around $275. But the man who founded the tenants-rights party says his landlords are giving him the boot so they can pull in way more dough. "I've been here since 1977, and they want more money!" McMillan said. "It's about 'My Rent is Too Damn Low.'" So McMillan now has a new crusade -- waging a legal battle to keep the hipster-haven apartment he shares with his adult son -- a mission that meshes well with the credo of his populist political party.

McMillan says he's running for president in 2012.

Afternoon View - Strand Books

Weekend Mix - DJ Jeff Jackson And DJ Disco Connie

Roll into your holiday weekend with this flashback '70s disco classic mix from the tag-team duo of DJ Jeff Jackson and DJ Disco Connie. Setlist. Website. Facebook.

RESIDENCY: Double Headed Disco @ Nowhere Bar, New York City. "Double Headed Disco is a small collaborative of DJs who have turned their monthly disco party into an East Village institution on the last Saturday of every month." The next party is tonight!

PREVIOUSLY ON JMG: DJ Phillip Kimball. DJ Paul Ferrer. DJ Shane Stiel. DJ Paul Goodyear. DJ Susan Morabito. DJ Seymour Butz. DJ RuBot. DJ Rotten Robbie. DJ Ted Eiel. DJ Herbie James. DJ David Knapp. DJ Dave Huge. DJ Corey Craig.

NYC: Marriage Proposal Flash Mob

The girl is the middle thinks her boyfriend just wants to slow dance with her in the park.