We understand its a sore subject, but we really must take a second the closing of The Roxy. No, we won’t go into some tired history of the legendary nightclub, nor will we outline the amazing events and scandalous dramas that unfolded in its putrid mists. Rather, we’d like to share two quotes from the New York Times article exploring the club’s demise.
The first quote comes from a 36-year old homosexual named Joe Panetta, 36. Mr. Panetta apparently loved The Roxy so much that he regularly drove in from Newark to dance with the other men:
This place has molded me. The people here are doctors, lawyers, professionals. The people I met aren’t the stereotypical gay men that I used to see on TV.
The second quote comes from party enabler John Blair, who has hosted Saturday nights since the beginning of time. Of the party’s origins, Blair says:
…We were just coming out of the dark ages of AIDS, and there was a real move away from the sort of pageantry of clubs and drag queens and that whole thing where the clubs threw glitter on the people.
This was the emergence of the Chelsea era, and the Chelsea Boy look. Everyone worked out really hard. And they all worked on the same body parts.
Now, please compare those two quotes and you’ll understand why we’re not weeping over our loss…
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Joseph Mills
You should be sad. Avalon is gone and now the Roxy is gone. The Roxy was a great place to dance, meet other guys, and have a good time. It’s sad that you don’t care that the places the community meets is going away.
James
Bravo to Queerty for not shedding tears over the Roxy!
Amber LeMay
Thank you, Queerty!! Why should we feel a loss for the “non-stereotypical” and the glitter haters? They can blend into any other dance club and lead their “I may be gay but I’m not THAT kind of gay” existence.
If they’re feeling a loss – maybe they can empathize with the way we felt when they took over the clubs and bars from us after we gave them a place to go to begin with.
Will
Yes, let us all mourn the passing of a dance club where you had to be high as a kite to actually enjoy the music.
Ben
I feel bad for the people who had a good time there, but it all sound slightly like internalized-homophobia.
michael
shame on you guys. Roxy has changed over time to suite the interests and needs of its patrons. It was the last of the mega gay dance clubs. An era is over. It will not come back due to the accessibility of hookups via the internet, raising rental markets and dispersement of gay community, generalized acceptance (in nyc anyway) and the so called “quality of life” issue that has the city cracking down on clubs and anything it deams not condusive to continual raising of the real estate market. But unlike other big dance clubs of years past, it didn’t have a strict door policy, and it let everyone in; no doorman picking and choosing who is “fabulous” enough to get in. The fact the club attracted muscle boys as well as everyone else is no need for you to dismiss it, as we are just as much a part of this community as you. The fact that people focus just on the muscle boys at this club is more a reflection of their own perceptions and biases. Roxy was for everyone. It provided a space to lose oneself in the music and enjoy the commaderie of other like-minded individuals.
James
Oh pleeeze. So not to mourn the Roxy is somehow to be anti-gay? Cry for the place if you need to but don’t assume your tears are universal!
Martin
No club is worth the $30 cover charge! Well, no club is worth ANY cover charge, if you ask me.
mc
The fact that New York City has no more major gay dance clubs is the shocking thing here for me. Has this ever happened in the past thirty years? So while it seems that a lot of you queens are celebrating Roxy’s departure, I’ll shed a little tear for the end of an era.
Joseph Mills
Atlanta has lost all their major gay clubs – Backstreet and Blu. The gayborhood in midtown is over. I loved going to NYC to party at the Roxy. It so sad to see people who don’t understand the community and have a narrow view of club life.
Johnny
If you don’t like the music or the scene, fine…its not your cup of tea, but its a shame people would take such a narrow-minded, uninformed view of the closing of such a landmark institution. I’m no “Chelsea Boy”, nor am I a drug user and the same could be said for a multitude of people who were there Saturday night.
I was there for nearly 9 hours, completely sober save a couple vodka tonics, dancing to the incredible music and having the time of my life until my feet felt like they were gonna fall off. I’ll miss the Roxy because it was a great place to go have fun with friends. What’s so wrong about that?
Sounds like some people are bitter old queens who haven’t attended a good club in decades and have decided to take out their frustration on those of us who can enjoy ourselves responsibly.
James
Not the “bitter old queen” charge! Well okay. I’ll admit to being two out of the three.
Amber LeMay
B.O.Q. tatooed all over my wrinkled drag queen ass!! Actually just a B on the right cheek and a Q on the left… the O takes care of itself.
Glenn
Thanks Queerty – you just reminded me why I only went to Roxy maybe 3 or 4 times in 16 years…it was fun right in the very beginning when the Pyramid queens were doing a party there and then the middle-brow, anti-bohemian, drugged-out zombies with bad taste in music took over and we all went to Squeezebox every week instead.
Paul Raposo
I think mc is right. If we are losing all our hang-outs, where will we and the next generation of GLBT’s be able to hang out? Becoming homogenous is fine, but I seriously doubt many het clubs are going to welcome us on the dance floors. We need our own spaces to be ourselves without fear.
James
I loves me some Amber!
Greg
I just wanted to state that I have been to the Roxy more than a dozen times and I don’t live in NYC but I always made sure to make it to The Roxy on the Saturday night I was there. I am not a muscle boy but I am happy with myself and I never worried what anyone thought. If you are happy with yourself you would not have to worry about letting loose and having fun anywhere! And for the record there was plenty of glitter still spraying around as well (unfortunately) the times I was there but hey to each their own!
Glenn
I have a section in my book, “Confessions from the Velvet Ropes”, about a night at the ropes of the Roxy. It’s not anti, but the profile I wrote of doorman Derek Neen shows what a toll mid-90s gay hedonism took on many party boys back then. For example, Derek COLLAPSED at the ropes while working on Gay Pride ’96 because of years of drug abuse. Stories of K-hole victims being carried out of the club are legion (it happened to a friend of mine.) The mid-90s was a dark, decadent time in NY club history and I’m not sorry to see the Roxy, frankly. Change can be a good thing, kids!
Johnny
“For example, Derek COLLAPSED at the ropes while working on Gay Pride ’96 because of years of drug abuse. Stories of K-hole victims being carried out of the club are legion (it happened to a friend of mine.) The mid-90s was a dark, decadent time in NY club history and I’m not sorry to see the Roxy, frankly.”
Its sad that some chose self-destructive paths like you describe, but those were their decisions to make and the existence or non-existence of clubs like the Roxy wouldn’t have changed their choice to be self-destructive.
Its not the job of club owners to be their customers’ parents. They’re adults and they make their own decisions. If someone gets drunk at a club and kills someone on the way home because they chose to drive drunk, that’s not the fault of the club owner…its the fault of the drunk. Same goes for drug users who overdose. And customers who are responsible and can safely enjoy a night out shouldn’t be punished for the mistakes of the irresponsible.
KC
After 4+ years of parting at Roxy I will truly miss it. It was like a second home for one night a week. My wife kept on telling me that I’m too old to be going out dancing but the music and the vibe of Roxy kept on telling me – time was not up. Hopefully it’s still not … let’s see what March 31 has to offer!!! : )
Love to Dance… so much…fun…