Strip Clubs
As told by Gary Lee Boas

In the late 70s to the mid 80s, I was in New York pretty much any time I could get the hell out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Obviously, New York had Broadway, movie premieres, award shows, parties…all the stars came there. So as a collector, it was the place to be. I had people who I could stay with, so I would live off of five dollars a day. I didn’t care if I slept on the floor or on a couch or in a plant. I was in New York.

Film was the one thing I’d allow myself to have. But I didn’t take many pictures. I took one or two of each thing and that was it. I had my limitations, but I made due. I spent most of my time waiting to catch people at stage doors before and after plays. While I was waiting, I would just hang around in the Broadway area. Sometimes this was half the day, and at night, there was always two or three hours to kill.

The porn thing sort of just accidentally happened. When I was going from one theater to another, I would pass these two gay strip clubs, Show Palace and The Follies. Show Palace was on Eighth Avenue at 42nd Street, and the Follies was on 47th Street for the longest time, and then it was on Seventh Avenue at 48th, right next to Popeye’s Chicken. Those were my two favorite things, Popeye’s Chicken and cock, so I had that corner covered.

The outside of The Follies was just sort of bland. If you didn’t know it was there, you might even just pass it. But Show Palace had a little marquee saying who was appearing, and they would always have a major porn star as their featured draw to get people in. Each star had a one-week run, so there would be a new name dancing each week. Because I was working at a porn store/head shop in Lancaster at the time, I of course knew who these people were, so it became like waiting at another stage door.

Right across the street from Show Palace was Show World, which was the bigger, straight version of Show Palace. Show World had movie booths downstairs, and girls in cages upstairs. They also had a stage where female porn stars would perform, like Annie Sprinkle, Edie Williams and Vanessa Del Rio. So soon I was outside their stage door as well, and I got to know everyone there.

While I would stand underneath the marquee at Show Palace, I would get to know the other strippers, and the other people working the gig, and we would start talking, and before I knew it, they were like, “Oh just come on in.” So this became my hang out spot. I would stop there at least once a day, whenever I was in New York, for maybe five or six years, until it was no longer there.

I think I first got sucked inside when I went to see David Ashfield—his real name was Jay—who ended up becoming my good friend. I didn’t really know his work, but I knew his name. I was walking by Show Palace one day and I recognized the name David Ashfield on the marquee. I proceeded to stand out front, sort of like watching, because I wasn’t 100% sure what he looked like. He wasn’t that famous where he actually had a billboard and advertising. It was just his name on the marquee and an 8x10. And finally when he came out, I remember taking his picture, and him just being very friendly, and we just connected and hooked.

Jay mesmerized me, and before long, he became my unspoken lover. When I first hanging with him, he was staying at this horrible motel, a pigpen right off Eighth Avenue in a sleazy part of New York, like on 49th Street, in Hell’s Kitchen. When we started going back there and fucking around and everything, and I started sleeping with him at night, there, and waking up in the day, he actually said, “I gotta get away from you.” Because he was getting so connected hanging with me, it was like, “I enjoy being with you so much, I’ve got to go to work and make some money”.

Back then, it was a little bit different, because the porn business was still very intriguing to people. It was established, but not enough that people knew how to make a name for themselves. Most of the names were made in California and not really in New York, so anybody who was a porn star usually came from LA, and danced in New York. The other strippers there were like beefy, hunky guys out of work, or hustlers just doing the stripping scene to make something look a little legit. I’d say about half of them prostituted themselves.

Pretty soon, I made friends with both the managers of the Show Palace. I liked them and they liked me. I wasn’t jaded, and I wasn’t one of the strippers that they had to deal with. Half the time with the strippers, they would look at me and flip their eyes and go, “Oh, Christ, what next?” I listened to their songs of woe, about, you know, so-and-so was on a coke binge, or this one wasn’t going on for whatever reason…I think I was a fresh breath of relief. A lot of times I would run and get them a sandwich or coffee, or something they wanted from the outside. I was like their unpaid Boy Friday.

The Show Palace wasn’t dirty, but it was basically a tile floor—almost like a cold atmosphere, really. The stage was really tacky with horrible carpeting and track lighting. And half the time, they didn’t know if there was going to be someone there to work the spotlight, so one of the other strippers had to work it—Christ, sometimes I worked it. It was so haphazardly run, because they were dealing with this street mentality, where, you know, someone showed up for work or they didn’t. And with the star, they certainly got that act down—they would know not to pay them until the day their engagement was up, because if they paid them before that, half the time they wouldn’t show up, or there was always some kind of fuck up.

There was an admission to get in, and I never had to pay. But every time I went to the door I was never sure. If I knew a dancer, if I knew a star, there was never any question. I’d stand out front and wait until they’d leave between shows, and photograph them and get their autograph. And then, if it was somebody that intrigued me, I’d go back again for a second round. Next thing you know, it was like, “Oh, did you come and see the show?’ And I just played this ‘No, I’m shy’ routine, and it was like, “Well, come on in, I’ll take you in.” And next thing you know I was in. Then I was more known to be associated with the stars, and then the others embraced me a little bit more better, thinking, ‘Well, this guy, he don’t fuck around, he just don’t come in with Robbie who’s stripping this week, he comes in with Lance.’

Although the performers were supposed to be there as dancers, a lot of them couldn’t dance. So if you couldn’t dance then you would just make sure you got your dick hard, and bounced it around more, and used the time by simulating masturbation or fucking the mirror. I made it a point to sit way, way in the back because sometimes, since they worked tips, some performers were more aggressive about going out in the audience and teabagging people’s heads and shit like that. And every once in a while, somebody I knew who was dancing would come out and work the fuck out of me—just because they knew I was nervous—they knew how I felt about that. Or, they would just totally avoid me because they were busy working people they knew they were going to get tipped by. It was one or the other.

Back then I wasn’t photographing for any other purpose than capturing the moment. I had no idea I could be photographing for magazines or anything like that—it was solely for my own perversion. But even then, I wasn’t aggressive enough to say, “Oh, can I see your cock?” or “Would you mind…” If they did anything, they did it because they wanted to do it, not because I talked them into it. They all trusted me and liked me. They knew. They knew I was from the country.

And after a while, some of them ended up coming down to Lancaster to visit me. Since they had to dance eight shows a day and twelve on the weekends, a lot of them would get burned-out, either from working so hard or overindulging in drugs. So when they would be done dancing for the week, they would come down to my house in Amish country to recuperate.

And yeah, it was a turn on, you know of course, for my ego. Like I said, my whole life, even to this day, nobody ever came up to me and picked me up because they found me attractive. It was always the personality or something else that brought them to me. So it was sort of neat to hang around these people that everybody else wanted, and then be with them. I’m trying to…I was going to say I wasn’t sleeping with them, but half the time I was.

And a number of them would want to come with me to stage doors over the years. I’d say, “Well, I’m gonna go over and meet Marlo Thomas,” and they’d say, “I’ll go along with you.” So a lot of them went to meet stars with me, which was always funny in a way, because I’d be taking pictures of Marlo Thomas and Jay together, and other porn stars with other celebrities, and I just found it amusing, mixing the two calibers of celebrities there, knowing that one had no fucking clue that the other person just got done teabagging somebody.