AFTR/IMG · ROOM · PARADISE-GARAGE · CONF VERIFIED
Paradise Garage
Overview
The members-only, no-alcohol club where Larry Levan's decade-long residency on Richard Long's custom sound system fused disco, soul and proto-house into the 'garage' sound, for a primarily Black, Latino and queer dancefloor.
Paradise Garage occupied a 10,000-square-foot former parking garage at 84 King Street, leased in 1977 by proprietor Michael Brody and built (unusually) around a single resident DJ, Larry Levan, who had apprenticed under Nicky Siano at The Gallery and played the Continental Baths before following Brody downtown. Funded in part by Mel Cheren of West End Records and opened to members after a year of 1977 'construction parties,' it ran on the Loft model: membership-only, no alcohol, free juice and fruit, and an all-night floor that often went past 10 a.m. The sound system, designed and endlessly re-tuned by Richard Long & Associates, its custom bass cabinets nicknamed the 'Levan Horns', was considered the best in the city, and Levan's marathon Saturday sets ('Saturday Mass') across disco, soul, gospel, dub and the earliest house records gave the room's sound a name: garage. Its primarily Black, Latino and queer crowd treated the dancefloor as devotional space, and the club hosted GMHC's first major AIDS benefit ('Showers') in 1982. Battered by the epidemic and by Brody's own illness, the Garage closed in 1987 with a roughly 48-hour 'Last Party' (September 26–28); Levan died in 1992, his and Cheren's papers are now held at NYU's Fales Library, and the building was demolished in 2018.
Oral histories & archival media
A night on the Garage floor
Were you a member of the Paradise Garage? We're seeking recorded memories of the room, the system, and Saturday nights with Larry Levan.
Record a memoryArchive plates
Plates fill in as scans clear rights
Sonic profile
Cultural role
DJs, promoters & people
Larry Levan
Resident DJ of the Paradise Garage · The defining residency; the club was built around him. Born Lawrence Philpot; died 1992, age 38.
Michael Brody
Owner · Sole proprietor; leased and built 84 King Street around Levan.
Mel Cheren
Owner · West End Records co-founder and partial backer; author of the memoir 'My Life and the Paradise Garage.'
Richard Long
Designer · Designed and continually re-tuned the sound system (the 'Levan Horns').
Sharon White
First woman to headline both The Saint and the Paradise Garage · First woman to headline the Garage.
Nicky Siano
DJ behind The Gallery; early Studio 54 selector · Levan's mentor at The Gallery, lineage connection, not a Garage resident.
François Kevorkian
DJ · Central to the era's sound; exact Garage role needs review.
David DePino
DJ · Longtime Levan associate; exact tenure needs review.
Judy Weinstein
Promoter · Ran the For The Record DJ pool; direct Garage role asserted in oral histories, needs review.
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Parties & residencies
Saturday Mass
Informal name for Levan's signature Saturday-night residency.
Construction Parties
1977 fundraising parties in the Grey Room that financed the build-out.
The Last Party
~48-hour closing party, Sep 26–28, 1987 (Wikipedia gives a formal Oct 1 date).
Showers
April 1982, GMHC's first major AIDS fundraiser, held at the Garage.
Tags
Related rooms
The Loft
1970–2016 · NoHo
The Gallery
1973–1977 (founding date contested; Wikipedia gives Feb 1972) · Chelsea, then SoHo
Shelter
1991–present (6 Hubert St → midtown → 150 Varick; later roving) · Tribeca
Better Days
1972–1990 · Hell's Kitchen / Midtown West
Sound Factory
1989–1995 (original room) · Chelsea
Vinyl
c. 1995–2004 · Tribeca
Continental Baths
1968–1976 · Upper West Side
The Saint
1980–1988 · East Village