New York club nights are similar to bodega sandwiches: everything’s drunken bliss one minute, the next it’s gone stale or been binned completely. But one East Village spot that has outlasted everything — from Studio 54 to the Beatrice Inn — is the Pyramid Club. First opening its doors in 79, the Pyramid Club was an alternative to the era’s mega danceterias, a home base for the village’s struggling musicians, drag queens and visual artists looking to define their own scenes.
Despite its unassuming interior and rock-bottom drink prices, the club boasts an incredible history: it hosted RuPaul’s first ever New York show in 82, Madonna’s first AIDS benefit, and even Nirvana’s first New York performance. Today, 101 Avenue A is just as alive and well. The delightfully dingy top floor hosts nightly non-stop 80s dance parties (you can even jump up on stage and scribble your New Order requests in a notebook), while downstairs is thumping industrial house. Pyramid draws everyone from club kids to Chelsea boys, and unlike the Boom Boom Room, your outfit won’t make or break you. Sway and Limelight come and go, but Pyramid is forever.