NYC and Me: The Swinging Seventies

Clockwise from upper left: me at my drafting table in Maine, Ogunquit Playhouse, Royal Poinciana Playhouse, Jim, my taxi license, the GAA Firehouse dance, me on a set for the Actor's Unit. Center: me in 1978.

This sad summer of 2020 as my city slowly stumbles toward some kind of resolution to the nationwide pandemic only to be further disrupted by protests against racial injustice triggered by the brutal murder of a black man in Minnesota by a police officer, I felt powerless to do much more than bear witness and cheer on the young people from the sidelines. However recently my much younger dear friend Ian persuaded me to take part in a protest march. As I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge I took in the diverse crowd around me and felt the energy and righteousness of their faces as they chanted and held up their signs. Feeling very old, I envied their youth and knew that my old feet would be hurting the next day. I wonder if the 23 year old I was 47 years ago would be marching with them — in all honesty, probably not.

In my sorrow and anguish concerning my city’s current crisis, I find myself looking back and trying to remember who I was and why I stayed in New York even though the city had been a harsh mistress. The City was seductive, beautiful and the source of great joy, but also unforgiving, dirty and the location of much heartbreak. Most all of the dreams I had as a young man about what my New York life would be were consistently unrealized but I’m still here and that is the only dream come true I need now. During this forced shutdown of my social life I can take the time to reflect on my first decade in New York and the 23-year-old me who came to make his mark in the fall of 1973. There are very few people still in my life who knew me as a young man. I have only the faulty memories of an old man and boxes of old photos, papers and the stories I’ve told about my twenty-something self many times over the years that have become less detailed with each recollection. Looking through the ephemera I’ve kept and trying to organize it like I’ve learned to do from my time as a volunteer archivist at the LGBT Center has helped me be more objective in my recollections as I piece together a view of New York City from 1973 to around 1984 through the eyes of my younger self. 

My arrival and first year in New York was facilitated by a close friend, Bruce Martin who let me move in with him and his partner Rob. They had moved to the city a year or so before I did. They had a small spare room in their fourth floor walk-up on west 86th street. Bruce also helped me get a job working with him as a stagehand at the Kaufmann Concert Hall in the 92nd Street YMHA across town. I was very lucky that with very little effort on my part I had a job and a place to live. Also the summer theaters where I had worked and other friends from college who had moved there before me provided me with an instant social and professional network. At the time I was clueless as to how lucky I was to have all this when so many in the city were struggling.

The City was politically transitioning from Mayor John Lindsay to newly elected Abe Beame. The Lindsay administration had been plagued by all the political unrest of the 60s along with teachers strikes, sanitation strikes and police corruption. A huge financial crisis was about to come to a head brought on by “white flight” and the demise of small manufacturing businesses throughput the city. Adult “bookstores” and X-rated films took over Times Square. Central Park was a mess and dangerous after dark. The sidewalks were a mine field of dog shit. The poorer neighborhoods all over the city were pockmarked with empty buildings abandoned by their owners, left to squatters and junkies. The subways were filthy and so covered with graffiti inside and out that often you couldn’t see out the windows. I knew nothing of the city’s politics. I was moving too fast and had too many things to do to pay attention to politics. The glaring headlines on The Daily News and The NY Post weren’t about me. I would reach past them for a copy of Backstage or The Village Voice. Only the Arts & Entertainment section of the Sunday Times held my attention for very long. My world was all about the theater and enjoying the burgeoning gay social scene that exploded in the years just after the Stonewall riots of June 1969.

My first year living in the City was full of new experiences and cultural shocks that I assimilated hungrily. Working backstage at the Kaufmann Concert hall exposed me to music, dance and lectures that I would not have sought on my own. I learned what a “shabbas goy” was when I set up the sound and lights for an orthodox jewish high holy day service booked in the hall. I had to be at work early many Saturday and Sunday mornings when traveling children’s theater troupes were booked. Many of those mornings I would be badly hungover from a long Friday or Saturday night out having fun. 

My job at the 92nd Street Y had very flexible hours, often in the evening, that made it easy for me to pursue other things during the day. I found plenty of opportunities to work on various “showcase” theater productions and various odd theater tech jobs. There were empty commercial loft spaces all over Manhattan that were taken over by artists and little theater companies. The City was teaming with aspiring artists, actors and designers like myself who took advantage of the cheap housing available in the sketchy neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, Chelsea, Soho and Hell’s Kitchen. Actor’s Equity had very lax requirements for their members doing “showcase” productions which usually paid nothing or provided just subway fare. I designed several shows (which I also built and painted myself) in Chelsea in a former sweatshop at 682 6th Ave. I was thrilled when one of their shows got reviewed in the Village Voice with a favorable mention for my work. 

There was an abundance of creativity going on in the arts in the 70s and in retrospect I can see that I may have missed a lot of chances to network in the creative circles that might have made me a more successful player in the arts scene of the time. At the time there were so many choices dropped in front of me. It was all very random. There was no way of knowing if collaboration with a certain director or producer was going to lead to fame and fortune. I would occasionally seek out a job from an ad in Backstage, but most of my jobs came from referrals from friends or people I’d worked with in summer stock theaters.

In the years immediately after the Stonewall riots police harassment diminished significantly and gay activists were beginning to have an affect and a small amount of political recognition even though real political power and equal rights laws were years away. The Gay Activist Alliance was the first gay activist organization in the city to take up the tactics of the anti war movement with acts of civil disobedience and protests. I wish I could say I had gone to their old Soho firehouse headquarters for their political meetings, I didn’t. I only became aware of the GAA because of their Saturday night fund-raising dances. They were fantastic and so popular that you had to get there early or wait in a long line to get in. The energy and pure joy in that crowded firehouse filled with queer people celebrating their youth and freedom in a totally queer space is a sweet memory that I cherish. The GAA firehouse dances ended in 1974 after the building was damaged by arsonists. Many gay bars noticed a decline in their business on GAA dance nights. A segment of the business community, including some gay entrepreneurs also noticed and were realizing there was money to be made from this newly enfranchised community. I believe there is a direct connection from the popularity of the GAA firehouse dances to the countless gay clubs that sprang up over the next decade — queer spaces filled with shirtless young men in a joyous tribal dance immersed in a throbbing fog of sound.

Those first months as I was rushing through life like most twenty-somethings do, I had become a bit of a self-centered asshole toward my housemates who had helped me so much. I became a very squeaky third wheel in their household. I was told they would prefer to be living alone as a couple and I was kindly asked to find new living arrangements. I decided to return to a summer theater in Ohio, Kenley Players, where I had worked the summer before. In May 1974 I moved out of Bruce and Rob’s apartment, put my belongings in storage and returned to Ohio for the summer as a scenic painter. During the summer one of the set designers quit and I was given the unexpected opportunity to design the sets for three of the shows that season. Kind of like the classic show-biz story of the understudy stepping in for the star. The highlight of that summer for me was designing the set for “Oliver!” starring Vincent Price. I was able to expand my portfolio with big productions that included “star” names and I thought I was now on my way to becoming a big-time designer on my return to New York that fall. It turns out the New York world was not that impressed with my new portfolio.

After the summer I returned to New York and took an apartment in the East Village east on 6th Street with an old friend from school, Gregg Marriner. The East Village in ‘74 was years away from becoming the trendy neighborhood it is today. In fact Gregg and I had initially intended to have an additional roommate, our dear friend Linda, but she didn’t feel comfortable with the east 6th street location between Avenues A and B and decided not to join us. To say that the block was a bit funky is an understatement. I wasn’t the worst block in “Alphabet City” but there was at least one abandoned building on the block occupied by crack addicts. I never felt threatened walking around the area, but I would find myself crossing town to the West Village most evenings when I was seeking entertainment. I didn’t stay long in the East 6th Street apartment, but the East Village would be my neighborhood for the next 42 years. 

The fall of 1974 into the winter of 1975 I worked a series of odd theater tech jobs and designed a few showcase productions. Many evenings I went prowling about the Village bars. There was a palpable fog of sexual tension and energy permeating the bars, streets, parks and other areas where gay men would gather in those days. A night out could be a silent game of hide and seek on the dark streets of the empty meat packing district or abandoned piers along the river for anonymous hook-ups. I was moderately intrigued by these places, but I didn’t find them as seductive as some my contemporaries. I didn’t become obsessed with sex as it seemed many gay men were then, but I did participate in the newly open sexuality of the 70s. I preferred to find my hook-ups in bars and more ordinary social situations. I wasn’t particularly outgoing or aggressive when I was out cruising the bars, but I was young and attractive enough yo have plenty of sex without much effort on my part. It was the 70s and the sexual revolution was peaking for gay men with a vengeance. We didn’t have Scruff or Grinder, but in the bars, on the streets, deserted piers and dark corners of public parks there were rituals and signals that were easy to interpret — a backward glance, a leather vest, a certain color hanker-chief in the back pocket of a tight pair of jeans — many variations depending on the place. If you were young and gay New York in the 70s was a smorgasbord of sex and not getting laid regularly would take more effort than being celibate.

The Ninth Circle was a particular favorite bar of mine at the time and a place I was most likely to find hook-ups. I went there alone on the night of my 25th birthday and got picked up by two guys who became the nucleus of a small circle of close friends that sustained me for the next five years or so. The group included some aspiring actors and a black woman who was the epitome of the pejorative “fag hag,” but we loved her. She had a voice that sounded a bit like Butterfly McQueen. One of them Jim Dozmati, became my boyfriend for a while. In the fall of 1975 I moved into a small walk-up apartment with Jim, who I had been seeing since January. He came to visit me in Ohio where I had returned to work that summer for a third season at Kenley Players. I asked Jim if I could stay with him when I returned to NYC. My roommate had moved us out the apartment on 6th street while I was away after it had been burglarized and I would be homeless when I returned to NYC. In retrospect I’m not sure if I was proposing we become a couple or just wanting a place to land while I looked for a place of my own. In any case we did become a couple and after several months I persuaded Jim to sign a lease with me on a one bedroom apartment at 170 Second Avenue in the East Village. Also I had decided to go back to school and took out loans to attend NYU’s Graduate Theater program for design. To pay the rent I got a taxi license and worked the night shift driving a cab for several months. The night shifts soon became too tiring, so I went back to taking odd carpentry and theater tech jobs to support myself.

In February 1976 My mother came to New York with two friends and I was able be a tour guide for them. They stayed in a hotel and I think I impressed them with my ability escort them around the city on the subway like the seasoned New Yorker I had become. I don’t recall introducing Jim to my mother at that time and if I referred to him I would call him my roommate. My mother still euphemistically referred to me as a “confirmed bachelor” to her friends and while in most aspects of my life I was not secretive about my sexual orientation, with my family there was a tacit understanding that it would not be discussed. At one point this year I do recall my parents did meet Jim when they went out of their way to stop by NYC while on one of their road trips somewhere to drop off some furniture they were giving me. They would have seen my one bedroom apartment with one bed and met my “roommate” then. No questions were asked.

The summer of 1976 was the beginning of a cycle that last for the next eight years working half the year outside of New York mostly for one theater producer, John Lane. He ran a summer stock theater in Ogunquit, Maine and in winter produced a season of plays in Palm Beach, Florida at the Royal Poinciana Playhouse. In retrospect I feel that I may have limited my chances of becoming a more successful designer in the New York theater world by working outside of the city so much. Nevertheless that’s the path I took. The first summer in Ogunquit I was a scenic painter. My closest friend Gregg was the lighting designer. I didn’t think much about leaving my boyfriend/roommate on his own for the summer. He had his job as gardener in the City and I had to go where my theater jobs took me and without much discussion I just left him on his own. The status of our relationship and what we meant to each other wasn’t discussed. I was too self-absorbed to notice if Jim was upset by my leaving him on his own for the summer. Also I was beginning to be concerned about Jim’s drinking. When he came to visit me in Oqunquit I was very upset that on the first night of his stay, after weeks of being apart he was too drunk have sex with me. There was bit of drama and I was petulant asshole. 

Other than Jim’s visit my summer was great. A lot of hard work and lot of hard playing. Ogunquit had a vibrant gay scene that coexisted with more traditional family oriented New England beach town vibe. It was a microcosm of all that’s picturesque in a New England fishing village and had attracted artists and tourists since the early 20th century. Where there are artists there are bound to be some gay people as well. Ogunquit wasn’t equivalent with Provincetown or Fire Island but many of its businesses were gay owned. I would spend every summer there (with one exception) for the next seven years. Working away from the City every summer prevented me from participating in any New York Gay Pride parades until 1986. I wasn’t connected to gay activism in any meaningful way partly because of my absence from the city for work so much and partly because working in the theater there was little need to be in the closet. I was protected from the kind of discrimination that was still prevalent in other occupations. In fact being gay in the theater could actually be beneficial as there were so many gay directors and producers. In fact in retrospect I can admit that there may have been a bit of casual flirting involved in some of the jobs I got. In my twenties I could express sympathy for someone who had to hide their sexuality in there work life, but it was not something I had experienced. My self-centered 26-year-old self remained only superficially aware of gay activism and politics.

I returned to New York in the fall of 1976, grateful to be home. I resumed classes at NYU, but it was a struggle financially and there was more personal drama with Jim. I was not mature enough to tolerate or help with his alcoholism. Before the end of the year John Lane offered me a job in Palm Beach not only as a scenic painter, but I would also design the set for two of the shows. The choice was to stay in gloomy cold New York with my alcoholic boyfriend, taking classes that were putting me in debt or spend the winter in sunny Florida designing and getting paid for it. I couldn’t pack my bags fast enough. 

Florida was successful for me professionally, but not otherwise. It was actually quite cold there the first month. When you're under a palm tree in an apartment with no heat, fifty degrees feels much colder than it should. Also I found Palm Beach oppressively pretentious and Florida in general a pastel colored cultural hodgepodge where people with varying degrees of success, live their tropical fantasy on a paved over swamp. I was never so happy to return to New York after that winter in Florida. It would be a new beginning. Over the winter my boyfriend/roommate had found someone new. I would keep the apartment and find a new roommate. These were my “snowbird” years. I would return to Ogunquit the next summer after three months of unemployment checks and odd jobs for cash. This time as set designer for the entire season. Then back to New York in the fall to more unemployment checks, only to head off to Palm Beach for the winter. My apartment in the East Village became my anchor to New York. All those many times in a cab from the airport crossing the Williamsburg Bridge I would look at the Manhattan skyline with a mixture of awe and gratitude that I could claim it as my home. Those years while in Maine, Florida and one summer in Lake Forest Illinois I would design over eighty productions. The few shows I designed in New York were all low budget off and off-off Broadway shows. 

There’s and an old song titled “There’s a Broken Heart for Every Light On Broadway.” This became true for me in 1980. The summer of 1979 I was hired by a director I had worked with in Palm Beach to design a four production season for the Academy Festival Theater in the affluent Lake Forest suburb of Chicago. One of these plays got picked up by New York producers for a run on Broadway. The director and producers both assured me that I would be hired along with the rest of the creative team for this production and I was ecstatic for several weeks that my name was going to finally be in a Broadway Playbill. My excitement didn’t last long and shortly before the first production meetings were to start I was informed without explanation that I would not work on the Broadway production after all. It was a huge disappointment and since the costume and lighting designers all were kept with the show. I never had a chance to find out from the director exactly why I was dropped. It was also a considerable blow to my confidence in myself and every job I had after that seemed like a step backward. I did four more summer stock seasons in Ogunquit and a few more productions in Palm Beach, but this path was seeming more like a career dead end for me. I didn’t achieve real success in the New York Theater, but I feel privileged to have been a part of it even on the fringes as I was. I feel I am a better and more interesting person for having tried and failed than never having tried at all.

I turned thirty in 1980 and the swinging seventies were winding down. As I was starting to have doubts about my career choices there were also signs of the looming dark times to come in my personal life as well. I had a few close friends and fell in and out of many casual intimate relationships that became progressively disappointing and often ended with a STD and a course of antibiotics. My evening jaunts to the Village became less rewarding, less frequent and each year more fraught with the first signs of the looming health crisis that would change everything. I have many fond memories of experiences that were so unique to New York in the 70s. I’m glad that even though the next decade of my NYC life would bring more heartbreak, it didn’t make me leave New York. 

The current health crisis in NYC in 2020 echos fears and emotions that began to challenge me and my community in the 1980s. This third decade of my life would change me and will be the subject of my next post.