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It put everyone on edge” - these stories range from trivial tales of nightlife to inspiring stories of brave New Yorkers forging community in the face of unimaginable, especially for someone my age, adversity. Whether by firsthand account (“We used to climb up on the High Line when it was still abandoned and party long after the club closed”) or by community lore passed down so continuously it bordered on urban legend - “You know, just before the Stonewall riots started Judy Garland died. Bette Midler’s legendary string of performances at the Continental Baths with Barry Manilow accompanying her - amazing! Learning that the Mafia operated most of the gay bars in the '50s and '60s in New York City and why - mind-blowing! Having the cruising scene at a Greenwich Village automat explained, not to mention learning what an automat was - bewildering! These are oral histories usually shared over a happy hour drink with a, shall we say, more experienced New Yorker than myself. I’m a big New York City history buff, but my favorite kind of local history usually involves the stories that don’t get memorialized on historical markers.
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As Dorothy once quipped, “People come and go so quickly here.” A two-floor dance club complete with onstage showers for the dancers, now a real estate office. An after-hours sex club, now a high-priced brunch spot. An antebellum underground vault where Walt Whitman cross-dressed, now collapsed. A piano bar turned Zagat-rated restaurant.