"This is the Village. We don't play by the rules down here. It's live and let live."
-- Under the Mink

1. Hudson River Piers where Skip's body was found, and at a time when the maritime Port of New York was at the center of the world's commerce and many labor disputes, as dramatized in Bud Shulberg's book and movie On the Waterfront. Our fictional Pier 53 lies about a block down from 14th St. and historic Pier 54, used by the Cunard Line.
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2. The Charles Street Stationhouse still stands on Charles St. Built in the days when Teddy Roosevelt was Police Commissioner of New York City, it served the Village and nearby waterfront. The building--renamed The Gendarme--has been converted to expensive apartments.
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3. In the 1940s, 17 Barrow St. was a restaurant run by "Mamie" and very popular with gay girls. There was a big fireplace and candles all around to create a romantic atmosphere. The building later became the gay-friendly restaurant One If By Land.
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4. The Page Three was a gay bar that was in business 1954-64. Buddy Kent and Jacquie Howe were part owners. Sandra Scoppettone's Lauren Laurano, in Everything You Have Is Mine, talks about the Page Three with its "nightclub-type tables, those small round ones that hold two drinks and an ashtray. And they had entertainment. Where there is now a fake fireplace there was once a small stage. Tiny Tim, among others, played here" (p. 167). For years, the Page Three has been a straight restaurant under many names.
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5. Blackie Cole's apartment on Christopher St., a few doors west of the present site of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Back then an apartment on Christopher in that block could be had for about $100/month. On Charles St. for about $80/month.
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6. The fictional Candy Box Club is a composite of similar establishments of the period--down some steps and a bit down at heel. It is more or less on the site of the old Bon Soir Club, where Barbra Streisand got her start a couple of decades later, and borrows the Bon Soir's phone number.
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7. The Moroccan Village was at 23 West 8th St., a bit east of the Candy Box. In the late 1940s, the Moroccan Village was billed as "The Gayest Spot in the Village" and staged elaborate floorshows--boys in long dresses, girls in tux. Blackie Dennis played there, as did Buddy Kent--in Kicky Hall's Revue. The clientele was straight, Wall Street brokers, racketeers, the rich and famous. The site has since gone through many names and incarnations.
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8. In the 1940s, the Welcome Inn and MacDougal Tavern sat side by side on Bleecker St. between West 3rd and West 4th. where the NYU Law School is today. Friday night was the big night, when girls would arrive in their skirts with matching jacket and change into pants (also matching) when they got inside. You could check your coat for a dime at one bar and go up and down West Third. Beer was a dime. Femmes and younger girls mostly made up the Welcome Inn crowd, while dykes (butches) and the older crowd gravitated to MacDougal's.
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9. Ernie's was a bar with a straight clientele but a very gay staff and atmosphere. Buddy Kent tended bar there until the cops asked to have her removed because she was too young--not even growing a beard yet--then had her removed permanently because they found out she was a woman. She was discovered dancing at Ernie's by Jacquie Howe and Kicky Hall, who became her agent.
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10. L's Bar was an afterhours bar (from 4 AM on) for gay girls (lesbians) that flourished from about 1946-50, around the corner from Ernie's. There was a jukebox and a tiny dance floor. Dancing with a person of the same sex was, of course, illegal. L's takes its name from the Sixth Avenue Elevated train that ran down Sixth and turned left at Third Street. So many lesbian bars congregated on Third St. precisely because it was under the El train, in the shadows and out of sight. In midtown, gay haunts also sought the shadow of the Third Avenue El train.
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11. Provincetown Landing was a popular lesbian bar and hangout that lasted at least into the 1950s. On the corner of Bleecker at Thompson St., it was only three blocks away from the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal, which originally linked Provincetown, MA, and the Village as twin bastions of liberality and creativity.
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12. The Howdy Club is the earliest club I know about that hired lesbians as entertainers--strippers, singers like Blackie Dennis, and chorus boys who might serve the first round of drinks, then join the floorshow. They were paid a token $10/night, but made a small fortune in tips. The Howdy dates back to the late 1930s, when many midtown operations that featured strippers and other risqué acts moved downtown to the Village, fleeing from Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's attempts to clean up the troublesome Times Square area--target of many subsequent cleanups.
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13. The Albert Hotel where Titanic has a room and shares a night of love with Tyrone. Between apartments or lovers, people lived here, and it was a hotspot for illicit rendezvous. Today it flourishes as a very dignified and expensive co-op--The Albert--oblivious to its scandalous past.
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14. The Bagatelle, now a Mexican restaurant called El Cantinero, was a lesbian bar and hangout well into the 1950s. Saturday night was the big night when dykes slicked back their hair, and Sunday afternoon sessions were an added treat. There was a backroom for dancing, and a warning light that flashed on as a signal to stop when somebody dangerous came in up front.
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15. The Club 181, on Second Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets, identified in 1948 in a nasty little book called New York Confidential (by Lee Morris, a columnist for the Hearst papers) as "the most notorious Lesbian night club in New York" (p. 75). Mr. Morris also informs us that "most female homos' hangouts are in Third Street" (p. 74). From about 1945 to 1953, the 181 staged very professional shows and according to some, was as elegant as the Copacabana. Gay girls worked in tux in the chorus line and mingled with the paying customers for tips, photos, and a commission on drinks. From 1946 to 1949, the 181 and the Moroccan Village on 8th St. were the biggest gay clubs in the city.
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16. The Club 82, at 82 East 4th St., opened in 1953 as the 181 closed. The 82--"The East Side's Newest Rendezvous"--was under the same management as the 181 and inherited much of its personnel and style in floorshows. But it was never so elegant. Tourists flocked to the 82, and gay people often came to see their friends. Until about 15 years ago, a neon sign advertising the Club 82 hung high above the corner of Second Ave. and East 4th St. The site has since gone through several stages--nightclub, restaurant, comedy club.
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