Places I’ve lived, part 3

178 E. 2 Street 1993-1999

When I first started spending real time in the city, the summer after my first year of college, the East Village was still pretty wild. It was 1984. I was living in a studio on 67th and Columbus, but I’d take the 2/3 train down to 14th Street and walk east for 25 minutes—walking long distances instead of taking a closer train being something the young do without thinking about it—to meet friends at old man bars like the Holiday or the Blue and Gold. If it was dark out, I walked a bit faster to my destination, but even if it was still daytime, I was kind of nervous once I ventured east of Second Avenue.

On some nights, we’d go to the Pyramid Club on Avenue A. The Pyramid was one of the most well-known East Village clubs, home to the downtown drag scene, and definitely one of the longest-lived venues around (it hung on, in one form or another, until 2021). At the Pyramid one night I fell into conversation with some guy with Flock of Seagulls hair who’d only just graduated from Swarthmore and who told me the Pyramid was over. The whole East Village scene, he insisted, was over.

There was always someone, I soon learned, at any East Village bar or club or party back then who was ready to tell you the scene was over.