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Reply to "Farewell Charming Old New York"

It is definitely true the sex possibilities were more varied, seven. Everything, that was "forbidden" in the first place, was lumped together into a very heady mixture that was certainly very libertine. Therefore, in Riverdale, where I grew up there was a park-- Van Cortlandt Park, one of the largest and wildest (terrain-wise) in the City. Along the western side ran Broadway, which at that point was more like a six lane highway than the commercial street we are familiar with downtown. This was the gay cruising area-- in cars, on foot, on the polo fields and the golf course, along the disused Putnam Railroad tracks, and even up in the ancient graveyard that contained the vandalized remains of the star-crossed Van Cortlandt Family. It was active at all hours of the day, even while people were walking dogs and children were playing in the playground, but if you were not looking for it, you would not see a thing. The real blatant sexual goings-on occurred, though, after the sun went down.
There were a great many "regulars" in this place, and some of the freakier ones after midnight included:
-- Jim, who wanted you to pee on him, and who had, oddly enough, a yellow car.
-- Charles, who wanted to take you back to his place for some give-and-take spanking.
-- A guy we used to call "The Wrestler" who would bring a spare singlet for his partner.
-- A seminary student who would hand you his belt and beg for a thrashing.
-- The businessman who had a complete set of feminine undergarments under his suit.
-- A guy who would hide all his clothing in the bushes and walk around butt-assed naked.
This, and all the "normal" sucking and fucking one might expect.
This area was also the place that we would take our girlfriends to have sex with them.
And so this was the unique education I received. And all before I graduated from high school! Little wonder I never fit into the mainstream!

Merlin, I lived just near Grant's Tomb for a summer, on Claremont Avenue, in a 12 room apartment. One room had floor-to-ceiling windows with billowing white curtains and a piano, and I would sit all day drinking coffee, playing the piano and watching the curtains blow around.
Very Laura Nyro. I was taking care of a friend's dog and would walk her by The Tomb which was in such a state of decomposition with weeds growing waist-high around it. The dog got ticks from those weeds and I learned how to pick them off, using burnt-out matches to entice the ticks to pull out their heads. I then would throw them out the window.
The originial Limelight was also the first disco I went to regularly. Probably because of the Latin flava, Daddy. But the first disco I ever went to, and only once, was Le Jardin. This was maybe 1974.

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