Before the Paradise Garage, Saint or circuit parties there was 12 WEST.

The People and The Party

The 12 West parties ran from approximately the spring of 1975 until the fall of 1981 at a converted warehouse building that was located at 12th Street and West Street in West Greenwich Village, New York City, NY, U.S.A. The original membership group was primarily drawn from local West Village gay males who were a major component of that neighborhood's demographics during that era. There were also gay men from throughout the greater New York and tri-state regions and even some from arounf the world. There were also guests of the members that were either gays or gay-friendly straights, dance music industry pros and the occasional celebrity or two. The crowd was fairly diverse racially speaking but it was a mostly male gathering. There were only a handful of female members and guests.

As gays, we were a community that had recently seen some dramatic change. The Stonewall riots of 1969 had taken place in the Village marking a major event and evolution in the gay pride movement in New York. This event almost instantly created not only a sense of identity and improved self-esteem culture and pride, but also one of turf: For about a decade thereafter the West Village felt like it was ours.

A lot of us were already self realized as gays before Stonewall, and this had meant developing our culture and society under considerable repression and without most of the legal, social, economic and family rights and supports that most other peoples would take for granted. Told that we were already hopelessly sick, many of us ignored health concerns beyond immediate visual benefits and were suffering from low self-esteem. Told that we were sinful and bound for hell, many traded traditional spiritual and humanitarian traits for hedonistic and material ones. Subjected to violence, open discrimination and betrayal, many traded the concept of love, trust, and long lasting relationships for anonymous back alley sex. There were of course variations and exceptions, but overall, the intensity of the discrimination caused many of us to lose our trust in the existing mainstream social, political and religious institutions and guidelines. The counter-cultural practices of the1960s were still a fresh memory and a ready alternative. Fear and helplessness in the face of the bomb (the Cold War) and the simple fact that we were attempting to survive in one of the world's most competitive social and economic environments (New York City) were also all major factors affecting the psychology and sociology of the urban gay male.

Following Stonewall however, an effort began to be made to build up the gay male culture and infuse it with pride and it's own brand of dignity. Many aspects of this developing culture quickly spread outward from the New York Area across the USA. A new national minority-group identity and sociology was emerging. People like me were being drawn to places like the Village here in the east and the Castro district out west almost like the flower children of the '60s had been drawn to Haight-Ashbury only a few years before.

Many, like myself, who lived within driving or commuting range came to the Village regularly to be a part of it all. Even some open minded straights came to enjoy the energy of this newly liberated tribe, occasionally even getting to enjoy a night at 12 West, which had rapidly become much more than just a dance but more of an important cultural and even spiritual event for it's members on Saturday nights. Not that 12 West was intimately tied to the gay rights movement, it was after all a private space, there was never a 12 West float in the gay pride parades nor any talk of donations or support that I can quote, etc, but these dances had so outclassed anything that had come before and were right in the neighborhood. There was a real need for a place where gay men could come together and celebrate through music and dance. Indeed, for some it was a very spiritual and necessary ritual.

We were also a community that would soon suffer a crisis of unprecedented proportions. However at that time, in those years between Stonewall and the AIDS crisis that were the 1970s, There was time and space to celebrate life and energy and our new found recognition as a culture in the best way we knew how, by simply living it up. For about five very important years during the 1970s, 12 West was by far the best example of this type of celebration.

The Villagers had a definite big city attitude way of living their lives in what was essentially a somewhat segregated gay enclave. As a New Jersyan living closer to the Village than some people from the Queens or Bronx boroughs of NYC itself did, I nonetheless found it hard to create social connections with the villagers. Again, there were the exceptions and variations but if there is only one thing I would find fault with about the 12 West era it was that the members and the Villagers in general tended to make themselves relatively inaccessible except through rigidly enforced social protocol such as how clever and outgoing a personality you were or how hot a body you had. Just being polite and friendly was not going to cut it! But in the warm glow and rich sounds of the dance and with my Saturday night buzz tied on it was an easy thing to overlook and forget to work on.

It should also be noted that after the fire at the Everard baths that took DJ Jimmy Stuard's life along with many other deaths and injuries, there was an impressive influx of aid and donations from the local gay male community proving there was a strong sense of community and caring for one's own when it really counted. That aspect of gay male community support continues to this day and has expanded along with the nature and cultural diversity of the gay male himself. We have come far from the outcasts who had scored their first victories and were dancing it off and are becoming part of the mainstream at last with marriage and even parenthood being vigorously pursued by many. The concept of the dance also remains important for many, but it has become a commodity, a formula, still big and wonderful for the young and young at heart but no longer special. The circuit party has become ubiquitous and sadly, the intoxicants of choice have become more dangerous.

Many of the Villagers worked in finance and insurance, theater or other entertainment industry, media, hospitality, restaurant, textiles, design, art, advertising and more. They tended to have above average creativity and very good taste in music. There was especially a difference in the choice and presentation of dance music that they went for and this was one of the most important factors in 12 West's success. By 1976 the entire neighborhood was under the spell of dance. You could not go into a barber shop or a deli and not hear imported progressive dance music. One popular pizza place went so far as to install color gel lights, expensive sound and in their window displayed a large pair of ceramic hands - upturned and filled with a pile of oregano - and a pack of cigarette papers on top as tribute to the relatively safe, and then very popular activity of smoking hemp at the dances and also back then widely tolerated throughuot the village in general. Don't try that nowadays.....

As for me: well, I found the the typical 12 West-er's psuedo-Bohemian appearance and lifestyle particularly appealing. This was the age and place of painted or natural brick walls, blue jeans, brightly colored T-shirts, running shoes, short hair, beards and mustaches. Relatively safe intoxicants like marihuana were in vogue instead of the harsh hard chemicals dancers go for today. These were the infamous 1970s era "Clones" and after 6 years of me trying to look and act like one of my favorite rock guitarists, it was a refreshing change for me to adapt to all of this.

I was fortunate to be able to spend some time in the early 90s with Leo Moore, who was a bartender at the once famous but now defunct Sneaker bar for many years and one of the 12 West members. The building had been razed by then and we would talk about those magical days with Jimmy and other fine DJs and somehow manage to indulge ourselves in a comment or two about 'putting it back up'. Leo's no longer with us but it was good to share a friendship with this West Village night life veteran who would sometimes comment on what he called 12 West's "Jersey section".

Here's a look at my friends and I who were a part of the "Jersey section"; It begins with Peter (no permit yet to use full name but he's still around) who I met through a mutual friend and had known for about 2 years at that time. We were all from the Newark, NJ area but Peter had landed a job at the landmark 'Boots and Saddles' bar in the Village and had heard about me starting to go to gay bars and trying to become more acclimated to local Gay culture. I was only 22 and still had the cultural trappings and sensibilities of a 1973 era rock guitarist so the culture gap was very real for me. So, he takes me to 12 West ... on a Saturday night ... With Jimmy Stuard at the turntables and Jonathan Fearing on lights! They were one of the classic Saturday Night team-ups at these dances.

In one night I am transformed! The tambourines! The bongos and wood percussion sticks! the 'finger cymbals' and fan dancers! All as part of the members dancing right alongside you! Not some separate stage or pedestal act like the Roxy and many of today's venues. Go Go boys?? You had the best you could imagine just watching your fellow members you didn't NEED go go boys! And that freedom to party without resorting to booze...so right for the times! And on top of all that, the 'techie' in me was just so taken with that sound and light show and the work of the men in that booth.

I was not a very outgoing person and was not from the immediate neighborhood but I was determined to get a membership. After a few attempts to socialize with the locals and realizing that it wasn't going to be easy for me, I see an obviously senior-aged dancer and get brave enough to stop him from doing his slow pirouette dance: I'd just met one of 12 West's original members Gino Navarrone! Any former member will remember him! Much older than most of the rest of us yet so like us. He could not prance or shuffle the night away as we did, but would come to the Saturday parties early or to the Wednesday dances when the floor was less crowded and would pirouette with this big lovely smile on his face and his arms out like some little figurine atop a music box. We share a J, I ask him to be the necessary 2nd. sponsor for my membership and he does! The party years begin for me. but after only the first, DJ Jimmy is killed in the Everard bath house disaster D.J. Sharron White steps in and more than saves the party, but the very,first piece of the 12 West magic I had felt.....was gone.

Years go by. Pete is the first to move on ... first to the new wave punk rock scene and later back to school. He's a professor now and pretty much suppresses his memories of the 1970s. The small band of New Jerseyans that we went out with either settles down, moves away or otherwise drifts apart. We do lose a few of our little group in the AIDS crisis but are not hit as hard as the Villagers were. I suppose this is one reason why I can look back on these days with such fond memories. We just did not take as direct of a hit overall.

I did learn a hard lesson though: back in the early '90s I was out dancing at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in NYC ... fairly close to the original site of the 12 West parties. They were serving liquor that night and I'd had my share and then some. The floor was full and the DJ was spinning a string of disco oldies. Noting the energy level and thinking no one was going to hear me over the sound system anyway, I go ahead and shout "Any other old 12 West queens in here?"

To my dismay, this cute short older fellow who had been dancing nearby with a big smile on his face suddenly stopped and burst into tears. He had to leave the floor and probably left the dance. Even drunk, I didn't have to try to read his mind: This poor soul probably lost most of his friends from that era in the crisis. I will never forget ruining his night.

However, 12 West meant a lot to me and had a big impact on my life: I chose to do some moonlighting as a DJ myself on and off over the years, trying to export back across the Hudson River what I had experienced at these parties. My most important playdates were at Feathers bar in River Edge N.J. in 1989, The Odyssey in Asbury Park N.J. in 1990, and Vibrations nightclub in Teaneck N.J. in1991. I also worked extensively as amobile DJ sound system provider for various gay related organizations in NJ and NYC and had a sound system on the New Jersey VIP parade float in one of the mid - 1980s Gay Pride Parades in N.Y.C. All as a result of what I learned at the 12 West parties.

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What follows next are recollections based on my perceptions of a typical Saturday night dance in 1976. My mention of any particular orientation or activity is not to be construed as stating that any particular person was involved! In any case, this was a long time ago in a New York that really no longer exists in this fashion...

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It was another Saturday night, well under way, in 1976 Greenwich Village. Also well under way is the era of classic disco music. We've just spent all of maybe 8 to 10 minutes walking over from the west end of Christopher Street with it's busy bars, restaurants and shops, on up to 12th. Street, by way of West Street. Back then this was a stretch of mostly mixed industrial usages, clinging to West Street like the scrubby weeds eking out an existence on the occasional spots of unpaved land in this otherwise concrete and asphalt jungle known as New York.

Standing there at the corner of 12th. and West Streets by a large brick warehouse building with a heavy canvas canopy set up about it's doors is a line of mostly men, 20 to 50 year old looking Village night life types mainly. The cue goes back past the smaller restaurant building at the corner and down 12th. St. Our friend who invited us waves and we join the line. It moves steadily towards the larger building.

As we draw near we become aware of the sound: it's the steady basic rhythm of disco bass drum beats only now it has this characteristic to it...almost like each kick was something huge taking a step towards us: .....dooom dooom dooom DOOOM DOOOM!....

Our friend starts chatting with us about the quality of the sound system and what he thinks of the Deejay and some guy behind us folds his arms and says "I don't care why other people come here, I'm here to see the meat on the hoof!"

Finally, we're through the very plain looking but precisely painted steel doors. There's a lobby area where we file past the coat check and the admissions window where a mysteriously quiet blond haired woman is writing down everyone's membership card number by hand on a legal pad and noting how many guests they bring. There is this sort of combination Bohemian-village-alternative-theatrical look and feel to the lobby with interior surfaces of dark blue-grays, purple, lavender and black. Tightly focused lighting illuminates only what has to be lit but whatever we see is so CLEAN looking: The brick walls look freshly sandblasted and very professionally painted. There is dark blue gray hi-traffic carpet underneath and it's very clean too. There is no gaudy plastic or wall mirrors or wood paneling. This is a very downtown Village experience and everything just seems so understated yet robust and neat and just so DIFFERENT than the ordinary dance bars we've been to.

Then we go around the far wall of the lobby and the main room is revealed to us almost all at once! Raised about eight inches, we step up onto a beautiful hardwood tile floor framed by carpeting and crammed with hot sweaty dancing men who begin to strip off their T-shirts as the dance heats up. There are big carpeted bleacher-style multi level platforms at the corners of the huge room and they are sitting or standing and dancing all over them. Some dance with brightly colored folding fans or cloths. Others have tambourines or other percussion instruments. The room looks and feels like it's over 100 feet across!

The main room's brick walls are painted with bright primary colors as continuous wide horizontal stripes all around the walls, following the shapes of the multi-level platforms, evoking a kind of "1960s psychedelic meets 1970s streamlined minimalism" look and feel. Above that, a tightly packed continuous ring of several hundred theatrical lights mounted in strip boxes playing upon the striped walls facing away from the dancer's eyes. Above this, a fully restored 19th. century warehouse skylight ceiling array where there are four really HUGE looking sound cabinets hanging on chains along with this intricate network of smaller speakers that look something like flying saucers. They are everywhere in mid air well above your head and the sound clarity is nothing short of amazing! There are about a dozen big mirrored balls arranged in three separate groupings with still more lights filling much of the remaining space in the ceiling area.

The room fills quickly. Mostly with gay men. There is no alcohol being served. Some dance sober, Some use amyl nitrate inhalers, some smoke pot, (widely tolerated in the Village back then). Some come in from cruising the bars to dance off the drinks to a better DJ or just to scout out the local men. Our friend explains: "When you become a member here, this becomes YOUR dance. YOU are taking responsibility for what happens here! They just don't want a "back room" sex scene or any violence in here. It's a private dance. YOUR dance."

There is really good snack food, cookies, fruit, soft beverages and later on in the morning fresh coffee and it's all out on a table in the adjoining main floor lounge area there for the taking. It stays clean and full all night too. In this town with such a reputation for being so expensive, we've spent only $12. and won't be spending another dime here tonight because the only other charge ever to be paid was the coat check. Like any host, we are just paying to make the party possible.

The DJ and the light show operator act in concert. A tightly rehearsed team. Intimately familiar with the music and actually re-mixing it "on the fly" using special turntables, reel-to-reel tape decks and other mostly analog gear of the day. Without the help of computers they roll a fantastic multimedia production out over the crowd live in one long continuous eight hour trip that accelerates until about 2:30 A.M. and then coasts for an hour or so before beginning to shed velocity and intensity as it continues until dawn. They whip the willing dancers into a frenzy of movement and vocalizations and then take them slowly down to where the slow sleazy music plays as daylight begins to filter in through the old warehouse style skylight windows. There is music you know, followed by music you WISH you knew and you resolve to find out where to get those records.

As we explore, we notice that wherever we go in the wide two floor public area of the building, we can recognize our favorite songs by the smooth clear bass that seems to follow us around and never gets really muddled. So we mellow out for a bit in one of the upstairs lounges. They sort of combine the look and feel of the lobby with that of a typical 1970s Village loft with tightly focused stationary color gel lights illuminating coffee table floral centerpiece arrangements and carpeted bench style seating and there are more snacks and beverages set up there too.

But then, that record we love comes on and we rush downstairs to dance whoop and holler. we can stay until the dawn looks in through the skylight windows and then some! When finally it is over and we have saluted the occupants of the booth with a six minute standing ovation, we emerge literally into the sunshine of a new morning, spaced, happy, resolved to do it again next week, and ready now for the Silver Dollar diner back on Christopher St. Hey. with enough coffee maybe we'll stay until that "Vinylmania" record store over on Carmine St. opens or if not then I'll see you next Saturday Night! ;-)

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Thanks for taking the time to share these memories!

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Take One Last Look at 12 West: CLICK HERE

The NYLGBT Community Center: CLICK HERE.

Columbia University's Stonewall 25 exhibit: CLICK HERE.

Return to main page: CLICK HERE.

....In remembrance of Ronnie, Leo, Tom, Jimboy, David

and all the other dancers in my past...

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