Seasoned New York City Club-Goers Share the Ins and Outs of the Downtown Scene of the ’70s and ’80s

DJ History’s Bill Brewster met Yvonne Leybold, AKA Miss Yvonne, in New York through the late DJ Adam Goldstone. She worked at KISS-FM and provided vocals for a series of records Goldstone produced under the name Superstars of Rock, whose first album Brewster released. She also grew up clubbing in New York in the ’60s and ’70s, at the outset of disco, and became an aficionado of the downtown party scene.

In this interview from 1999, Leybold and her childhood friend Terry Hayden tell Brewster about clubbing together in their teens, their early disco days at the Cheetah, the first gay parties, seeing Larry Levan DJ, why Reade Street was their go-to club and more.

Tell me about yourself.

Yvonne Leybold

I was born here but spent the first 16 years of my life between here and Puerto Rico. When I was 15 I decided I didn’t want to go back there any more. I decided to get a part-time job for the summer. I was clubbing from about 14.

Where?

Yvonne Leybold

The first real disco-type club was Cheetah. That was a lot of fun. It was a very mixed atmosphere. It was the first time I went into a place and you see lights, and you see atmosphere, instead of the rinky-dink places I used to go to after school and weekends.

Like sock-hops?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah, those sort of things. They were horrible, actually. Especially, if you belonged to CYO [Catholic Youth Organization], like I did. So what they used to do was have pizza parties for us, and I hated those things. The pizza was cold; you couldn’t get any booze. And I think back then before they had invented pantyhose, we were still wearing garter belts and I used to hide a bottle of rum inside my garter belt. So we did things like that. And of course there were the usual drugs. We started out smoking marijuana.

Was this at Cheetah?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah, definitely. And the braver ones were doing coke and heroin. Everybody did pills, but we didn’t indulge in them that much.

Like amphetamines?

Yvon Leybold

Amphetamines, downers, basically whatever you could get out of your parents’ medicine chest. That’s how I used to get mine. I used to take my mother’s Librium and Valium, and my dad had some really fierce pain pill that I can’t think of the name of. That’s what we used to pop, especially at high school. We would take a pill for each different class. How we survived high school.

Which school?

Yvonne Leybold

Catholic high school, Cathedral High. It was in midtown Manhattan.

Terry Hayden.

It’s still there. It’s on 51st and Lexington.

Where was Cheetah?

Yvonne Leybold

Midtown. On 47th Street. I think.

How big was it?

Yvonne Leybold

For me it was gigantic. Gigantic. Huge space, soft lights. Different colors and shades of chiffon curtains that they had around. They had light shows. What I like was the emblem. It was a cheetah, but it had a woman’s face and breasts. But there was also another club called Trude Heller’s Trick.

What did Cheetah look like?

Yvonne Leybold

It was cubby holes. Clusters of rooms. They had a huge dancefloor, and there were clusters of rooms on either side. It was bigger than Trude Heller’s Trick because that had a little dancefloor I remember.

Terry Hayden.

I think maybe about 100 people on Cheetah’s dancefloor.

How many ante-rooms were there going off the sides?

Terry Hayden

Now, see, you're talking about somebody who was 12 or 13 years old.

Yvonne Leybold

I was going to clubs at that time and I was 14.

Terry Hayden

Sneaking in.

Yvonne Leybold

Dressing up to look older. And they didn’t card you back then. Least I never got carded.

What year was it?

Terry Hayden

It might have been ’68 or ’69.

Yvonne Leybold

’67 for me.

Terry Hayden

Hot pants were the thing. So that’s what we wore, with fishnets.

Yvonne Leybold

Do you remember what we were talking about the other day: window pane stockings, how we had them in different colors?

Terry Hayden

I remember my hair was up in this pom-pom with these little stupid curls on the side. It was pitiful.

What was going in the ante-rooms?

Yvonne Leybold

They were more loungey.

Terry Hayden

It was like levels with velvet on them.

What music?

Yvonne Leybold

Back then it was typical R&B: The Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes.

Terry Hayden

[Sings] “Papa was a rolling stone...”

Yvonne Leybold

Marvin Gaye, Stax...

Terry Hayden

The music that was on WWRL.

Yvonne Leybold

It was a great time. Those were really my first two disco experiences.

What kind of composition was the crowd?

Yvonne Leybold

For me it was basically pretty straight.

Terry Hayden

See, you were older than me. I didn’t know the difference. I was just going in to hear the music and see stars.

Yvonne Leybold

It was black, white and Latino. Very mixed, very straight.

Trude Heller’s?

Yvon Leybold

Trude Heller’s was more of a soulful place.

Terry Hayden

That was wild.

Yvonne Leybold

It was in the Village and, at the time, what were considered the trendy people would go there. Basically, their crowd was more of a black and Latino crowd. They were the ones that knew about the music then.

Terry Hayden

During that time, my friend from high school lived right across the street from Trude Heller’s and I lived uptown so it was exciting coming down to the Village. And I remember during that time, we were able to see Stevie Wonder at the Bitter End for $2. So you were getting a lot of people; a lot of jazz.

Yvonne Leybold

The Four Tops.

These were playing at Trude Heller’s?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah. It was pretty big.

Terry Hayden

It was small...

Yvonne Leybold

It was a small place, but it was cavernous.

Terry Hayden

Bell bottoms!

Yvonne Leybold

There weren’t bell bottoms. There were flares! A lot of wedgies. We used to wear water buffaloes. They were this sandal-type show with these big thick wedges made out of leather, and you wore them till they fell apart because they were so comfortable. They were so cool. They worked really well because we were still wearing hip-huggers and they made you sort of sway. And they made you look tall which made me happy! Midriffs were in back then...

Terry Hayden

Because we all had them back then!

Yvonne Leybold

Because I was still in the middle of that period where rock was still the thing, and I was into Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Terry Hayden

I was considered strange because I was trying to imitate them. Even the kids in my neighborhood weren’t into it. When Woodstock happened, a lot of the kids weren’t into any of that.

Yvonne Leybold

I went to Woodstock, right out of high school.

But Hendrix was more known in the UK at that stage.

Yvonne Leybold

Nobody knew about him then. You needed to really pay attention.

Terry Hayden

My parents were into Nat King Cole. They were music lovers. I grew up in a household were I would sing songs and didn’t even know where they came from: Bessie Smith, Chambers Brothers, Sam Cooke. But listening to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, that was different. I had this record player, it was a little box, I remember playing “Purple Haze” and Richie Havens.

Yvonne Leybold

Oh, a lot of Richie Havens. And Buffy Saint Marie.

Oh no, spare me...

Yvonne Leybold

Oh, I know, but then later we had Melanie. I really liked her. Then the later clubs I went to were the Dom, the Ice Palace....

Before we get on to that, let’s exhaust the possibilities of Trude Heller’s first.

Yvonne Leybold

OK. There were nights when they had their rock thing, and nights where they had their soul thing. I went to both, because I like rock, too. That was a lot looser, but it was the nights when they had the soul parties there that everything and everybody who could get in there was there. That was the Studio 54 of the late sixties, early seventies. Very lively.

Capacity?

Yvonne Leybold

Because it wasn’t as big as the Cheetah, maybe they could get 300 people in there. Maybe.

And the decor and layout?

Terry Hayden

It was wood. It looked like a ship, at least that’s how I remember it.

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah. It was like a men’s club type of thing. That’s what it reminded me of.

Like Nell’s?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah.

Terry Hayden

But not as nice as Nell’s. Wooden floors.

Good sound system?

Terry Hayden

Well, we thought it was good because it was so loud.

Yvonne Leybold

Exactly! Stereo made a difference, and mixers made a difference, I’m sure.

Terry Hayden

But as long as you heard that BOOM! BOOM! it didn’t matter whether it was tinny.

Yvonne Leybold

It was the beginning of people learning how to use the lights. The light shows and all that. It wasn’t like a lot of the rock clubs. At Trude Heller’s when they did the lights it was very psychedelic. Cheetah was trying to incorporate that and so was Trude Heller’s when they had their soul nights. You could see that they were trying to imitate one another and be a little more fierce than the other.

So Ice Palace. Is that the one on Fire Island?

Yvonne Leybold

Well, we had one in New York on 57th St. There’s a McDonald’s there now. That was a nice place. If I remember correctly it was all mirrors. They had these platforms that you danced on. When I was going there it was relatively gay, but I was going to other gay clubs prior to that. I used to go there Sunday nights.

Terry Hayden

Even though I went to these other clubs, I never went to Ice Palace. I went to Reade Street.

Yvonne Leybold

Reade Street was when we started out.

We’re getting ahead of ourselves here. You said you went to other gay clubs, but they must have been private given the time.

Yvonne Leybold

They were all private pretty much. You had to know someone.

Terry Hayden

Or a password.

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah, or a password. Ice Palace was private, meaning you had an invitation to go on a particular night or depending on what the theme was that night. You could bring a guest and they didn’t have to pay the full fee. You pay like half price. Then you signed up on a register if you wanted to become a member. They had a bar that I can remember.

You said something about passwords. What do you mean?

Terry Hayden

You had to know a word to get in. If you were a member you’d know. Either you’d get a call, or it would be that word for a month and it would be on your card. So you would give that word, whatever it was, and bring yourself and your guest.

What kind of words?

Terry Hayden

I remember one of the words being “psychedelic,” but it could be anything. Just a common word like “banana.” A word that nobody would have thought of. That’s what made you think you were really hot, because you knew this word.

What music did they play at Ice Palace?

Yvonne Leybold

Soul music and what’s seen as classic R&B today. A lot of dance-gospel.

Terry Hayden

Sly & the Family Stone was pretty prevalent at that time. And there were a lot of concerts at Madison Square Gardens and we used to sneak in. We found a way in. So he was adding a soul-rock aspect to everything. Would he be considered R&B today?

Oh, yeah.

Yvonne Leybold

I liked my rock music. And I liked my soul music, but I was also going to a lot of salsa clubs. I remember going to the Huntspoint Palace. Talk about huge. The place was gigantic. They had maybe two or three salsa bands in there. I would go there Sunday nights. I’d do maybe the Wednesday and Friday at either Trude Heller’s or Cheetah, depending on what was going on there. Then if I didn’t do Sunday at the Ice Palace, I would go to Huntspoint Palace in the Bronx. Soon as you got off the subway at Huntspoint, it was right across the street. Mainly Latino and black people. They had a DJ there also.

The Loft?

Yvonne Leybold

The Loft wasn’t the Loft when we were going there. It was Reade Street.

Reade Street was Larry Levan’s thing, the Loft was another place entirely.

Yvonne Leybold

I went to the one on Prince Street later. The first one I remember you and I going to was Reade Street.

Terry Hayden

We practically lived there.

Tell me about Reade Street then.

Yvonne Leybold

Do you remember the parachute? That was the most vivid thing. It was an old parachute that they used to cover the ceiling.

Terry Hayden

Balloons.

Yvonne Leybold

Lights. A huge, huge warehouse.

Terry Hayden

Those were my best days.

Yvonne Leybold

Those were our best days, absolutely. You had to walk up all these stairs because it was on the top floor. They didn’t have a liquor license.

Terry Hayden

That was the best thing about it.

Yvonne Leybold

That place was so big it had what we considered, or was called, the runway. All the kids from Alvin Ailey would come and dance there.

What’s Alvin Ailey?

Yvonne Leybold

A dance school. They had this runway where everybody was doing vogueing. It was on that second floor where you sat down. Because they didn’t sell liquor, you snuck in your own booze. But we didn’t, because we were smoking too much pot and doing too many drugs to bother.

Terry Hayden

And we drank their spiked punch.

Yvonne Leybold

Right. And we drank their spiked punch.

Terry Hayden

LSD! Different fruit punches, but it was spiked.

Yvonne Leybold

You got water, tea, coffee, bread, juice, fruit. It was a spread.

Terry Hayden

And you definitely needed a password to get in.

Yvonne Leybold

Or you had to become a member to get in there.

You said it was two floors. Top floor and the one below? Do you remember how many floors the building was?

Yvonne Leybold

It was definitely a walk-up. I was going to say three or four.

Terry Hayden

I was there the day they closed it. But we would get there about 11 or 12. And we never left before six or seven.

Yvonne Leybold

I can remember sometimes not leaving there before noon.

Terry Hayden

Danced till you were out of it. Then stop and go for a sleep.

Yvonne Leybold

Then you got up and danced some more.

Terry Hayden

At the end of the night they would release balloons from the ceiling, and you’d be like dancing among these balloons at the end.

Yvonne Leybold

The only way they were getting us out of there was to send in the fire department! All of a sudden you’d see these men coming up there with their hats and their hatchets. I thought, “Aw shit man, where’s the damn fire?” So you’d go some place else and you’d be too stoned to realize. You’d think it was Halloween or something because people used to dress up depending on what the theme was that night. Everybody dressed up in something different. I remember, because it was very, very gay, which very much impressed me at the time, guys were wearing bells on their legs and on their ankles and wrists. Nobody was wearing shirts. Everybody wore shorts. I remember going there dancing topless a couple of times. I remember having sex there a couple of times!

Terry Hayden

She was a wilder girl than I was.

Yvonne Leybold

I was a beast!

Terry Hayden

I didn’t even know they were gay.

Yvonne Leybold

There were a lot of straight guys there, too.

Terry Hayden

It was just people, you know? That’s how I relate to it.

Yvonne Leybold

Do you remember the first time we went there, with this particular guy who was so uptight? We were waiting in this room to get in because they hadn’t opened up yet. He sat there very stiff and quiet, so I told him to loosen up. And I heard somebody say, “Don't say it’s gay so loud, they may not wanna go in.” I thought, “Please.” When we finally got in there there was this mad rush to get in and hear the music and to start dancing. That’s all anybody wanted to do.

Terry Hayden

Prior to going to Reade Street, you got dressed to go the Cheetah. My biggest thrill was being able to go in my overalls. And then in most of the clubs you’d have to wait for somebody to ask you to dance, you know: wallflowers. You go to Reade Street, and you’re dancing by yourself, dancing with guys, dancing with girls. The music is moving you and you just doin’ your thing. That was what was so phenomenal to me. I remember having to walk to that damn 6 train and we could barely walk. It must’ve been near Spring Street.

Yvonne Leybold

I’m sure if I took a walk over there, I’d know. It was a block away from the water.

Terry Hayden

It’s really gentrified now.

What did that area look like?

Terry Hayden

Totally warehouses. Meat market. Factories.

Yvonne Leybold

There was nothing and nobody there.

Terry Hayden

It was around the time when a few people starting buying lofts to live in illegally. A lot of artists would buy a space.

When did Reade Street start?

Terry Hayden

I started going in ’73 or ’74.

Yvonne Leybold

It really had taken off by ’76.

Terry Hayden

I was still in high school, working at the telephone company.

Yvonne Leybold

I met her she was 17-years-old. I was 21.

Terry Hayden

She was my idol! She was going out!

Yvonne Leybold

I was goin’ out. We lived in the same neighborhood.

Terry Hayden

I’d say to my mom, “This is Yvonne. Can I go out with her?” Two little Catholic school girls.

Where were you living?

Yvonne Leybold

122nd and 2nd Avenue. Spanish Harlem.

Terry Hayden

It’s still Spanish Harlem. It’s still there.

Yvon Leybold

Still the same.

Terry Hayden

There was a period in 1977 when I would be petrified of walking around there. It’s a lot better today.

Yvonne Leybold

It was a wild west atmosphere.

Drugs?

Terry Hayden

A lot of kids were doing PCP, and they were trippin’ and never coming back! And that would perpetuate a lot of the negative things going on in the neighborhood. I remember the first time I had angel dust. I think we were at the telephone company.

Yvonne Leybold

The first time I did it I was sitting in a park and I saw things zig-zag.

Terry Hayden

It was really weird. We were working on the 12-4 shift on the doctor’s answering and information service. And people would call up and say their babies were sick!

What’s it like?

Terry Hayden

I thought it was a nice high. You hallucinate.

Yvonne Leybold

I couldn’t understand why people would get addicted to it, but then I was doing a lot more drugs prior to meeting her. I did a lot of acid.

Terry Hayden

I had a side of my family who sold a lot of drugs. Being raised by my mother, I was very hesitant at first, even before smoking marijuana.

What does PCP smell like?

Terry Hayden

Sweat. Pungent.

Like poppers?

Yvonne Leybold

No, that’s totally different.

Terry Hayden

You know when it gets a little funky? It smells like body sweat. I remember coming home one night on the train and I said to my boyfriend at the time, “We have to get out of here,” because I just felt like jumping on the tracks.

Yvonne Leybold

You have to get air, because everyone who comes on the train has a very weird look on their face. Looking at you. And you’re bordering on paranoia and being high at the same time.

Terry Hayden

“What’re you lookin’ at?!”

Yvonne Leybold

And acid was good back then. It wasn’t really speedy like now. Those delicious deep belly laughs. THC was my favourite at the time.

THC?

Yvonne Leybold

It was marijuana, but it came in a pill. A pink pill. We used to pop them in the bathroom and then go to the club.

Terry Hayden

The first time I did it was in school. I did THC and it changed my personality. It just makes you aggressive. You don’t give a good hoot.

When were you first aware of who the disc jockey was? Like at Reade Street, for example.

Yvonne Leybold

Through different people.

Terry Hayden

Or just being there. It was so much better on certain nights. You knew who was playin’. What was Larry's name?

Yvonne Leybold

Larry Levan.

Terry Hayden

But he had other people that would play with him.

Yvonne Leybold

I don’t remember.

Terry Hayden

I wanna say Michael...

Michael Cappello?

Terry Hayden

I think so. I never knew the surnames.

[I name some names, ending with Nicky Siano at the Gallery.]

Terry Hayden

I went there! [Laughter] That was a loft also. I was going to the one at Mercer, because my girlfriend lived on 9th and 6th and we’d walk there. There were a lot of dancers at the Gallery. Young kids, you know?

What did it look like?

Terry Hayden

It was different from Reade Street. I liked Reade Street better. Reade Street had a freer air about it. It was like going to a carnival. The Gallery was a huge space as well, but people went there to meet people, so your attitude was a little different also. Dancers, artists, actors, ballet and jazz dancers. Lots of Asians, Latinos. Chinese, Japanese.

Yvonne Leybold

Before people gave it that name, disco, they started taking the music and bastardizing it. Their version of disco was white and straight. Our version of disco was gay. Because that's what we knew. Once you went to a gay club, who the hell would go to a straight one?

Terry Hayden

Reade Street was the definitive gay club. No mistake about it.

Yvonne Leybold

Absolutely.

Do you think people were going there conscious of the fact that it was Larry Levan playing there?

Yvonne Leybold

You weren’t conscious of the fact that it was gay or something, but I’m not sure how much bothered them. But you always saw people there who were straight and didn’t know what they were up against. They were very tense and uptight. Once they had a glass of punch...!

Terry Hayden

Yeah, once they had a glass of punch or realized you were there to party.

Yvonne Leybold

There was a very free and open atmosphere. When AIDS came in it was like a shroud. It changed everything. It made everybody so damned sad, because everybody had been happy. They had a place to go. They had a place where they could be amongst their own.

Terry Hayden

And have fun.

Yvonne Leybold

And have sex.

Terry Hayden

But not just intercourse all the time. Making out. You go and you’re high and you’re horny.

Yvonne Leybold

Very free! That’s what I loved about it.

Terry Hayden

But AIDS changed all that.

Yvonne Leybold

It made me so sad.

When did Reade Street close?

Terry Hayden

I remember the day it closed.

Yvonne Leybold

I was wearing Chinese silk pajamas, little slippers with seashells on the shoes. I went to meet friend of mine who was a fire adjuster and I was going there to get drugs. I used to get sheets of this stuff they used to take. I would get them and sell them to my friends.

Terry Hayden

The fire department closed it. They announced: “This is it. We’re sick and tired of coming.”

Yvonne Leybold

It was noon. Bright sunny summer day. Hot.

Terry Hayden

I wanna say the first time I went to the Garage was Halloween ’77, because I’d just had my daughter in the August. That was my very first time going. It closed about a year before the Garage opened, when Reade Street closed. I remember sayin’, “Where do we go now? Where do we go next?” Then I heard they were gonna open this place called the Garage.

Did you go to any other places: Soho Place, Flamingo, Continental Baths?

Yvonne Leybold

I went to Continental Baths. Let’s see, this was before or during Bette Midler having her shows there. It was not a very big place that I can recall. There was a little stage. There were tables. It was pretty chic. It had a swimming pool, steam room, showers. I wasn’t impressed by it, really.

It’s being portrayed as a fuck palace. Was there a lot of sex going on there?

Yvonne Leybold

I think there was a lot of sex going on, before Plato’s Retreat opened.

Terry Hayden

Oh, so that’s where Plato's Retreat was!

Yvonne Leybold

I liked some of the orgy rooms, some of the private rooms they had.

What were the orgy rooms?

Yvonne Leybold

Well, they had these huge rooms that they were not using. They had mirrors all over the place. Mattresses everywhere. It was like one big huge mattress. And on the floors there were satin sheets. And you had a towel; they always gave you a towel. You took off all your clothes, but if you wanted to wear shoes, you could do. Some mules or something like that. And the orgy room was pretty much, you invited yourself in on whatever couple or couples were there. And had a really good time.

This was Plato’s Retreat?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah.

Did they spend much money on it?

Yvonne Leybold

I don’t recall it being much better looking than CB.

Were people at CB for the sex or the music. Or both?

Yvonne Leybold

I think they were going there for both. They had pretty good entertainment there, aside from Bette Midler.

Did you ever see her?

Yvonne Leybold

She’d do her little cabaret thing.

Was she just playing with Barry Manilow at the piano?

Yvonne Leybold

I don’t remember Barry Manilow. But it would be her with, maybe, some backup singers. And she would be out there doing her little show. Singing songs. Tryin’ to get the people all hyped up. I thought it was a nice place and all but really if you’d been there a couple of times, you knew what to expect, so...I didn’t think it was all that.

What music did they play at Reade Street?

Terry Hayden

It was music we’d never heard before.

Yvonne Leybold

We’d never heard gospel music in a disco before. That was like, “Oh yes.” You heard gospel music in a church or on the radio, but not...

Terry Hayden

Gospel music played to a funky beat.

Do you remember which acts?

Yvonne Leybold

Edwin Hawkins Singers. Larry had a way with music, and whoever did the lights, the atmosphere, he had a way of working all that in.

Terry Hayden

You felt comfortable at Reade Street, even the people that felt uptight when they got there. Once you got there and realized you were not going to get hit on, that it was strictly the music and having fun, you felt free.

Yvonne Leybold

Today’s clubs don't even touch it.

Terry Hayden

They made money, but they were not focused on making money.

Yvonne Leybold

They were focused on an atmosphere where you could be free and be yourself.

Terry Hayden

The Garage was more focused on making money.

Yvonne Leybold

Reade Street was about atmosphere.

Terry Hayden

They didn’t even try and get a liquor license. The food, the water, the tea... That’s it. That’s what you got. And if you wanted a little buzz, they told you it’s spiked. Don’t misunderstand me, the Garage was a nice place, and for the lack of having anywhere else to go, but it wasn’t Reade Street.

Yvonne Leybold

It got a little too urban for me at a particular point. I thought they were pushing the gays out, and making it more urban and mainstream.

Urban meaning what?

Yvonne Leybold

Urban meaning bridge and tunnel people started to come. Brooklyn, Bronx and Queens started to come, because they never really did that before.

Terry Hayden

It was underground.

Yvonne Leybold

It was very much underground. You had to know someone to go there and you had to go more than a couple of times even before they’d consider having you as a member.

Terry Hayden

That was Reade Street.

Yvonne Leybold

The Garage was a nice place to go to but it was not Reade Street at all. But there are not too many people around that remember Reade Street. There aren’t too many alive to talk about it today.

Do you remember what it was like around the time people started getting sick and AIDS didn’t have a name yet?

Yvonne Leybold

Prior to Sylvester dying I just kept hearing about this illness that a lot of gay men were getting. They weren’t saying what it was. “What’s with this gay cancer thing? Why don’t they give it a name?”

Terry Hayden

It was very mysterious.

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah, very hush hush. People were getting sick and not knowing why and we thought maybe, well, we did a lot of drugs on that dancefloor, the music encouraged you, the atmosphere encouraged you, that whole openness encouraged you.

You thought maybe it was to do with the drugs?

Yvonne Leybold

That’s what I thought. I thought, “Maybe it’s too much drugs.”

Terry Hayden

I had a girlfriend who died in ’81 or ’82. Nobody knew what was going on. She got sick and was dead within six months.

Yvonne Leybold

I saw friends of mine who had different growths on their body, and skin lesions and they still didn’t have a name for it. If someone was ill, they’d just say, “Oh, so and so’s sick.” But they wouldn’t say what it was.

Terry Hayden

And you knew by how they said sick what they meant.

Yvonne Leybold

There was a weird atmosphere in some of the bars I was going to like the Limelight, the Monster. I was going to Better Days which was basically black.

I started smoking marijuana by the time I was 11, I was pretty hardcore into the marijuana and pills by the time I was 14; 16 or 17 I was doing all the LSD I could get my hands on. Orange Sunshine, Purple Haze, Microdot. I loved Microdot. Like I said, it was pure. Opium, blotter.

Terry Hayden

Oh, the blotter was nice.

Yvonne Leybold

Smoked a lot of opium. I was surprised to have had healthy kids!

I thought they were going to be born with one eye; or missing a leg or something! The last time I had did LSD I had become pregnant. I used to do it every single weekend. I remember when I was pregnant with Juan and carrying the one, and some friends of my kids’ father came over with this tin of Orange Sunshine. And it was so beautifully orange and neon, I was so mad I had to leave the house, because I wanted it. I said, I can’t stay here while you guys do this.

What do you remember about Better Days?

Yvonne Leybold

Very black, very soul-y. Young black gay men. A few old men would come in and actually pick up the younger guys. There’d be transvestites. I remember the Gilded Grape, which was a very big TV place, that I used to go to on a weekends for the shows. That was at the time that AIDS had broken out. The Ruby Slipper was another TV place I used to go to. I liked those places. I like being around those people. They were just real.

When Saturday Night Fever came out I was so disappointed. That was a waste. When those clubs came about; that was what white people knew as disco. But disco was already popular. Even the Bee Gees. Larry played the Bee Gees. He helped make them famous. I’m sorry. He worked Donna Summer too.

What Bee Gees songs do you remember him playing?

Yvonne Leybold

“You Should Be Dancing.” He played the Trammps.

Terry Hayden

Oh, now that was good. Churchy!

Which Trammps stuff? “That’s Where The Happy People Go”?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah, that was Reade Street. Then later on, “Disco Inferno.” He played this song, I think it was called “Daylight.” I don’t remember the name.

How many people did Reade Street hold?

Yvonne Leybold

Much more than it was supposed to.

Terry Hayden

300 people, easy.

Yvonne Leybold

Oh, more! 400. They hooked it up really nice.

What did it look like?

Yvonne Leybold

One floor was the main floor; the disco area. That was huge.

Terry Hayden

The drinks and the fruit.

Yvonne Leybold

The drinks and fruit was downstairs; where they had the bathrooms and where you sat and lounged around. That’s also where they had the runway where people could dance. Two floors.

Terry Hayden

See, that was fun then.

Yvonne Leybold

These kids don’t even know what fun is!

What do you think is different between then and now?

Yvonne Leybold

The openness. They’re not having fun. They don’t know how to have fun anymore. They’re uptight.

Segregation?

Yvonne Leybold

Lots of things.

What day was Reade Street open?

Yvonne Leybold

Saturdays.

Terry Hayden

But there were also people who had lofts and on the Sundays after Reade Street had closed, they would do tea dances. So you’d go in there at 12 o’clock. You start rockin’ and it was 11 o’clock at night before you got out.

Yvonne Leybold

I remember I partied Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I’d have to sleep at work the rest of the days.

So, the Garage. What was it like the first time you went in?

Yvonne Leybold

I thought it was a great space.

Terry Hayden

I thought it was a great space, but my hormones were raging, I’d just had a baby, so I walked in and was just not having it. I’d just had Janine. To me, people were not having fun. Maybe I didn’t go with the right people.

Yvonne Leybold

I lost a few years when that AIDS thing came in, because I moved to Middle America. Terry and I had lost touch with each other. We had a ten year hiatus. Life took over. Just as I was about to go, Mudd Club had just opened up and people were talking about this sickness. There was a lot of gay bashing then. Drugs were rampant then. We went to the Loft, but it was too young. Reade Street had more mature crowd.

[Yvonne tells story about going to the Palladium in the eighties one night when Larry Levan was DJing there.] They said, “Larry’s here.” I go, “You’re kidding me.” So I went right across to the booth. I was wishing you were there with me. I was just amazed that Larry was still alive.

Why?

Yvonne Leybold

Because he had been out there. He was fucking around.

Terry Hayden

That’s a nice way to say it!

Yvonne Leybold

He was such a nice guy. He didn’t need to be doing that.

Doing what?

Yvonne Leybold

Didn’t need to be doing heroin or anything like that. People were just dabbling. Even Keith Haring. I went to a couple of parties at his space with this guy who was a graphic artist also. I just thought, “Gee, none of you needs to be doing this.”

It’s been said there was a heroin culture towards the end of the Garage.

Yvonne Leybold

Well, yeah. Perhaps that was my turn-off. Because that’s not what we remembered the whole thing being about.

Did you ever go to Le Jardin?

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah.

What was it like?

Yvonne Leybold

Straight. Straight and white. Everyone was trying to be like the Loft, the Gallery, Reade Street.

In Reade Street were there famous people going?

Yvonne Leybold

Chaka Khan. She was always there. Was she ever! When she came in the place would stop!

Terry Hayden

She had a body.

Did they ever have performances at Reade Street?

Yvonne Leybold

No, just DJs.

Any other celebs?

Yvonne Leybold

Rick James.

Terry Hayden

Teddy Pendergrass. This was at Reade Street.

Yvonne Leybold

But they were very low key. It was not like Studio 54. They came to party. They’d just finished some recording session and they wanted to get loose so they came down.

Yvonne Leybold

But they were very low key. It was not like Studio 54. They came to party. They’d just finished some recording session and they wanted to get loose so they came down.

Studio 54, then? A lot of people said it fucked everything up.

Yvonne Leybold

I think it did. There were other places before that were like that. When it first opened, I was like, “Oh what a welcome sigh of relief.” Maybe here’s a place we can all go to that was going to be like what Reade Street, the Loft and Gallery were like.

Terry Hayden

But above ground.

Yvonne Leybold

Yeah. It wasn’t so bad the celebrities being there. They weren’t the problem. They were having fun. You walked in there and you saw Liza Minnelli drooling. I would be like, “I want some of that!” And I would see Andy Warhol all of the time.

So if they were not the problem, who or what was?

Yvonne Leybold

Well, it was good to start with. After that it started to get tired.

Terry Hayden

People had agendas.

Yvonne Leybold

It was never as good as Reade Street.

Terry Hayden

Nothing was as good as Reade Street.

Yvonne Leybold

That’s definite.

Terry Hayden

I guess because it was a mature crowd having a great time. Nobody bothered you.

Yvonne Leybold

The punch was always spiked. Someone was always passing a joint around. Someone gave you a bowl of hash, OK? Somebody’s passing around the opium pipe. Somebody’s handing out the blotter. You either came with your stuff, or you met someone there. It was very free and open. I would go to some of these places and I would dance topless. It was hot in there, but it was so much fun that you wanted to take your clothes off! When I saw those gay guys in there with BBDs and bells around their legs and in rows dancing, I was panting. I was fucking panting! And the women, too. “If I’m going to die I’m gonna die here, with these people.” It was like that. When you went to one of those places, you’d never want to do to another straight bar. That’s what I thought.

Terry Hayden

This is making me so sad!

Yvonne Leybold

It was the same when AIDS came in. I thought, “My god, all those people that I knew.” All these people. Gone. Wiped the fuck out. Who do we talk about these times to now? They just don’t exist. They are not around to relive the memory anymore. If they are, it’s by sheer will and luck. It would be so nice to run across someone who has these memories. Do you remember this? Do you remember that? It’s a sad thing.

Terry Hayden

From the medical perspective research was not going on. Not like today. I can’t believe we still don't have a cure. The party ceased.

Yvonne Leybold

The party stopped. I couldn’t go to bars. I couldn’t go anywhere. I was just too involved. With the people who were dying around me. I said I would be there and so I was there. When my sister was diagnosed with being HIV positive, she totally lost it and committed suicide. She just simply decided: “I’m not living like this.” What we all thought or knew would be her way out. I knew back then after everyone had dropped dead around me, they’ve got, not exactly a couple of cures, but treatments and therapies. I said to her: “You have a chance.” But she wasn’t taking it.

This interview was conducted in 1999. © DJ History