NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – In 2018, the city that never sleeps finally (and fittingly) established an official Office of Nightlife. Not just because of how impactful New York City’s club scene is to the economy, but because of how integral it is to the state’s culture and identity.
While nightlife exists all around the world, New York City has long been the standard for what it should and could look like. Whether it’s a rooftop bar in SoHo to an underground warehouse in Harlem, New Yorkers know how to throw a party.
Similar to how the rest of the world owes its current nightlife influence to New York, however, New York actually owes a lot of its original influence to the Black LGBTQ community.
From the early days of the Harlem Renaissance to the dawn of disco, the Black queer community specifically has had a niche for revolutionizing the way people party and not getting an ounce of credit.
In this special Black History Month podcast, that changes.
Listen as we speak with historians Eric Gonzaba and Michael Roberson, as well as current Black LGTBQ icon Egyptt LaBeija, all in an effort track the past, present, and future of nightlife culture.