The Anvil was a gay BDSM after-hours sex club located at 500 West 14th Street,

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, USA, that operated from 1974 to 1985.

History

The club was housed in a building originally constructed in 1908, then known as "The Strand Hotel" with a saloon on the ground floor, that catered to sailorsAccording to
court document
of the time, the establishment was catering “to the class of trade that has business at the river front.” and accepted only men as customers. By the 1970s, the building was housing a pay-by-the-hour hotel named Liberty Inn. In the fall of 1974, The Anvil opened, with the main floor featuring a dance floor and a rectangular bar along with a performance area, all painted black. There was another small bar downstairs with a large screen on which gay male porn of the period was shown. Behind the screen, there was a "cavernous" and "dark" backroom that was used as a sex area. There were reportedly mock crucifixions, golden showers, and "plenty of anonymous sex." The club would accept "some drag queens" but not women. On the main floor, the shows varied from performances by drag queens to guys often being suspended on ropes over the bar. Between shows, and to the sounds of "loud"

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music, there was dancing that was described to be "as fierce as a bottle of fresh poppers." As a historian of that period wrote, "the spectators themselves were the performers."

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. ...

was occasionally one of the many famous patrons inside and

Freddie Mercury Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara; 5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer and songwriter, who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the ...

frequented the club when he lived in New York City from 1980 to 1982. Director William Friedkin shot in The Anvil some scenes for the 1980 film '' Cruising''.

Closure and legacy

The Anvil "quietly shut its doors" in 1985 following the closure of the Mineshaft by the city authorities amidst the

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scare. It is now operating as a love hotel again. There are tours taking visiting tourists to the building that used to house The Anvil and to other infamous places marking New York's sexual history.

History

Closure and legacy

See also

Notes

References

Further reading