Pyramid Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Pyramid Club is a nightclub that has been located in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City since 1979, which helped define the East Village scene of the 1980s. The club is located at 101 Avenue A in Manhattan.
In the late 70's and early 80's, when mega-clubs like Studio 54 and Limelight dominated the nightlife scene, the struggling artists, actors, and musicians who lived in the East Village created their own scene. They began taking over some of the local dives, like the Holiday on St. Mark's Place (which is there to this day). They made clubs where there were none, like Club 57(in the basement of a church), and 8BC , on a block of abandoned tenements. And they took over The Pyramid, an undistinguished club on a desolate block.
The Pyramid became the sort of place where you might catch a live theatre production --- as likely as not, it would star Ann Magnuson, Steve Buscemi, or John Kelly. Maybe performance art was your thing: enter Karen Finley, Phoebe Legere, Klaus Nomi, Wendy Wild, or John Sex. Cheering them on (if not designing their costumes and sets) were artists like Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. Pyramid also served as the birthplace for the drag renaissance. Lypsinka premiered her early plays, like "Dial M for Model," here, and drag legends from The Lady Bunny and Tabboo! to RuPaul graced the stage periodically. The Fleshtones also regularly played at The Pyramid in the mid-80s, and Fleshtones guitarist Keith Streng booked "The Mod Teepee" there weekly.
One evening in spring 1984, a fairly inebriated bunch of queens and some members of The Fleshtones, all led by Lady Bunny, left the Pyramid and headed across the street to Tompkins Square Park to hang out at the bandshell. It was there that the idea for an outdoor drag festival was born. Called "Wigstock," this annually held drag extravaganza would over the course of two decades be attended by tens of thousands of people.
As the 80's went on, the Pyramid became more famous. Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry dropped in to do a feature on the club for MTV. Madonna appeared at her first AIDS benefit at the club. Both Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers played their first New York City concerts there.
Another interesting note: the apartment directly over the club belonged to Nico, the chanteuse from the Velvet Underground, throughout the band's heyday in the 1960's. The club today remains open seven nights a week.
