The Lost Leather Bars Of Manhattan: A History

June 20, 2008
STURTLE

What's happened to the leather scene? Sure, events like IML and the Folsom Street Fair(s) still pack 'em in, but those are special occasions. Aside from a couple of harnesses in Titan flicks and an assless chap or two on Pride floats, leather seems to have languished as a regular presence in gay life. Yes, we know it's summer and that leather totally doesn't breathe, but if "Sex and the City" taught us anything, it's that suffering for fashion is OK--and that goes double in Manhattan.

Looks like we're not the only ones longing for the smell of ~~amyl nitrate~~ leather cleaner in the air today: Jeremiah's Vanishing New York surveys the demise of New York City leather bars in photos, offering before and after shots of yesteryear's most notorious hangouts and links to lots of backstory. To be sure, the post raises almost as many questions as it answers--like: if other aspects of gay culture are flourishing nearly three decades into the AIDS epidemic, why has the leather community been particularly affected? That aside, it's an interesting trip down that silver-studded memory lane. (Not that we're nearly old enough to remember anything before 1990 ourselves, of course, but we've heard tell.)