Within the early ’80s, the East Village was nothing like it’s in the present day. No high-priced eating places, nationwide chains, or vacationers. New York College (NYU) dorms didn’t stretch this far east. We did most of our buying from sidewalk avenue distributors who unfold their wares on sheets. Everybody I knew from again then had both been mugged, burglarized, or each. That was when a 23-year-old Bobby Bradley and his boyfriend, Alan Mace (AKA Sister Dimension), determined to hitch forces with proprietor Richie Hajguchik and switch what had been an outdated Ukrainian bar into what would develop into New York Metropolis’s premier boy bar/night time membership.
Within the custom of Edie (1982), by Jean Stein, and Please Kill Me (1996), by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, We Began a Nightclub chronicles the sharp rise and tragic fall of the Pyramid — and, with it, a lot of the Eighties East Village scene. Instructed by a succession of rapid-fire oral historical past accounts, the e-book portrays key gamers from considered one of America’s most inventive communities. We study of those that got here earlier than (Jack Smith, Jackie Curtis, Charles Ludlum) and those that made it huge (RuPaul, Karen Finley, Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Steve Buscemi), however we additionally get a glimpse of so many extra who had been wild and unique, and died too quickly to enter the mainstream. What began as camp drag performances expanded into political and social satire, readings, rants, and a rock ‘n’ roll venue that helped launch the careers of such bands as Nirvana and the Purple Scorching Chili Peppers.
Ebook cowl of We Began a Nightclub: The Start of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Instructed by These Who Lived It (2025), written by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin, and Kestutis Nakas, and printed by Damiani Books
The three co-authors of We Began a Nightclub are the late Brian Butterick, a supervisor on the Pyramid, founding member of the band 3 Teenagers Kill 4, and performer below the moniker Hattie Hathaway; Kestutis Nakas; and Susan Martin. Martin was the publicist for the membership, and the 30 pages of press releases and flyers within the appendix (made not solely pre-AI but additionally pre-desktop printing) within the appendix may simply be a e-book of its personal.
The e-book is structured in brief chapters that chronicle the evolution of the membership through the years by completely different voices. As is widespread with this style, typically the myth-making feels just a little redundant, with a number of folks retelling key tales or citing the identical colourful characters. However contemplating the variety of narrators and span of occasions, the editors give the reader telling glimpses into a lot of the underground downtown scene. As an illustration, it demonstrates that lots of the staff and performers (who often blur collectively) beforehand labored in a few of the similar locations, just like the Mudd Membership, Membership 57, and Interferon, earlier than they went out of enterprise.
Efficiency by 3 Teenagers Kill 4 (Julie Hair, Brian Butterick and Doug Bressler) (photograph © Lynn M. Grabowski)
However it’s tales about artists and performers that take up a lot of the e-book. Performances by John Intercourse, Tabboo!, Hapi Phace, Tanya Ransom, and Ann Magnuson; movies by Jacob Burckhardt and Nick Zedd; and the bands 3 Teenagers Kill 4, Beastie Boys, and Deee-Lite all seem within the first few pages. Among the many extra bold exhibits it touches on are Chang in A Void Moon, John Jesurun’s play a couple of con man’s countless schemes to defraud the dysfunctional Peters clan and numerous others who conspire to kill him, which ran in a collection from June 1982 to June 1983. Titus Andronicus and The Andrew Carnegie Story, with their sprawling casts and loopy campy hijinks each, adopted swimsuit. Ethyl Eichelberger arrived on the membership already an achieved theater actor and playwright. In an ongoing collection she portrayed nice “historical hysterical” girls by the ages — Nefertiti, Lucrezia Borgia, and Catherine the Nice amongst them — by hilarious monologues delivered at a manic tempo, often whereas enjoying the accordion.
Girl Bunny arrived in 1984 and have become an integral a part of the place. The next 12 months, she grew to become a founding member of Wigstock and staged it within the outdated bandshell in Tompkins Sq. Park. Through the years, the Wigstock Competition moved from the East Village to Union Sq. to the West Village, the place an estimated 50,000 folks crowded in, bringing on stage a wide range of celebrities. Trying again at these big out of doors crowds, it’s exhausting to elucidate how over a couple of years, these two children of their twenties, Sister Dimension and Bobby Bradley, turned a dying Japanese European gap within the wall within the Decrease East Aspect into an revolutionary venue that amused and intrigued a brand new viewers, harnessing and bringing collectively so many alternative inventive forces and permitting for a wild new tradition to come up. Whereas company traders take into account tasks based mostly on monetary investments and protected bets, the Pyramid Membership took probabilities on hungry novices and seasoned execs, who looked for dangers of their work and performances. In taking wild probabilities, some fell flat. However each present, whether or not rock or camp theatrical, was a problem. And a few had been sensible.
Scene from Titus Andronicus, that includes Invoice Rice, Steve Buscemi, Van Santvoord, Catherine Tambini, Steven Keyes, Randy Rollison, Mark Oates, John Kelly, Ann Magnuson (photograph © Lynn M. Grabowski)
As gentrification set in and rents shot up, the quirkier locations and other people discovered themselves being displaced by bridge-and-tunnel sorts, boring but keen to flee boredom. In fact, all this occurred in opposition to the rising specter of the AIDS disaster. One of many first performers to go was Klaus Nomi (who carried out with David Bowie on Saturday Night time Stay). Others rapidly adopted. Throughout the Reagan years, authorities funding for analysis was withheld, and the outcomes had been catastrophic. Eichelberger dedicated suicide, as did Haoui Montaug and Child Gregor, to call a couple of. Tanya Ransom and so many others died, one after the opposite, prompting weekly memorials.
In fact, medicine had been at all times a part of the downtown scene, and that, too, began taking its toll. Bob Bradley, the originator and supervisor, started to overlook funds. Quickly, staff realized he was utilizing the earnings to cowl what had develop into a full-blown heroin habit. And so many others had additionally developed habits, which quickly led to a full purge to filter out the customers. This included each unique companions and a lot of the workers. With the top of the Eighties, the edgy East Village was completed. And although the Pyramid Membership coasted on, this time interval marked the top of what was arguably considered one of America’s most wild and inclusive theatrical, musical, inventive, and spoken-word venues.
Frederick Nunley, Lynn Grabowski, Tanya Ransom, and John Kelly (photograph courtesy Brian Butterick Assortment, Howl! Arts Archive)
We Began a Nightclub: The Start of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Instructed by These Who Lived It (2025), written by Brian Butterick, Susan Martin, and Kestutis Nakas, and printed by Damiani Books, is obtainable for buy on-line and in bookstores.
