The Monster

Overview

Founded in 1982 by Joe Scialo and Charlie Rice on the ground floor of a 1929 building that once housed El Chico (a legendary Spanish flamenco supper club) The Monster is one of New York City's oldest continuously operating gay bars, anchoring Sheridan Square with a piano lounge on the main floor and a basement dancefloor for more than four decades.

The Monster occupies the ground floor of the Shenandoah Tower at the corner of Grove and West 4th Streets, a 1929 building whose walls still carry the original murals of flamenco dancers commissioned for El Chico, the celebrated Spanish restaurant that drew Frank Sinatra, Ingrid Bergman, and Tony Bennett before closing in 1965. After a spell as El Avram (Mediterranean and Israeli cuisine, belly dancers), the space sat available for rent in 1982 when Joe Scialo, a native New Yorker of Italian descent who had already built a gay nightlife institution on Cherry Grove, Fire Island (opened 1969 or 1971; sources vary slightly) and added a Key West outpost in 1975, was drawn in by its spiral staircase and the bones of a room built for performance. Scialo and his domestic partner Charlie Rice signed the lease, opened The Monster that year, and in 1985 expanded by purchasing the adjacent former bookstore and removing the dividing wall to create the current footprint. The bar's name derives from a mythological Griffin sea serpent referenced in its logo and a carved figure displayed in the window. The Monster's spatial split (piano lounge on the main floor, basement dancefloor (the 'Bassment') below) proved durable because it served two distinct social registers: the piano bar, where Martin St. Lawrence anchored a residency of more than thirty years (ongoing as of 2023), and the club below, where DJ nights and 'Tea Dances' gave the bar its dancefloor identity. The Sunday afternoon Tea Dance (carried over from the Fire Island Monster's sand-floor disco tradition) became what the venue claims is the longest-running such event in New York City. Resident DJs including Johnny Dynell (a veteran of the Mudd Club, Danceteria, and Area who made The Monster one of his rotating homes), Michael Wilson, and Holly Dae sustained the basement's music programming across decades, with SPUNK (founded by Dan Tobey and Luis Gomez) anchoring Saturday nights. During the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s, The Monster served as one of the West Village's informal community anchors. Joe Scialo was conspicuous among bar owners of his era for keeping HIV-positive staff employed through visible illness (a practice Charlie Rice later described as a form of guardianship) and the venue was a financial benefactor of the Gay Men's Chorus, supplied a bus to SAGE (the gay and lesbian seniors organization) for the annual Pride march, and underwrote Heritage of Pride's liquor license for their Pier 54 annual dance. At the bar's commercial peak it was sometimes described as a rival to Studio 54, drawing Andy Warhol, Bette Midler, Alan Cumming, and RuPaul among its notable visitors. Joe Scialo died November 20, 2004, of emphysema, at age 69; his ashes are reportedly kept above the bar. Charlie Rice continued operating the venue, with Dan Tobey subsequently taking on management responsibilities. Village Preservation recognized The Monster as a 2023 Village Awardee for its four-decade contribution to LGBTQ+ life in Greenwich Village. As an active bar the record remains open, but the core facts, 1982 opening, 80 Grove Street, Scialo-Rice founding partnership, piano bar and dancefloor configuration, are corroborated across multiple independent sources.

Oral histories & archival media

Archive plates

Plates fill in as scans clear rights

Sonic profile

Cultural role

DJs, promoters & people

Follow a name to see other rooms they connect to

Parties & residencies

Tags

Related rooms