"We Started a Nightclub": The Birth of the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge as Told by Those Who Lived It

Performers, barbacks, doormen and DJs reminisce on the East Village club that galvanized New York's alternative scene

What Studio 54 was for disco, the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge was for the alternative scene of 1980s downtown New York. Located at 101 Avenue A, the Pyramid offered a mixture of cultures: from groundbreaking, irreverent theater and experimental music to "anti-drag" that challenged the norms of gender binaries. It began in 1981 when the East Village was considered a dangerous no m...