Efrain John Gonzalez is a photographic artist whose talents have allowed him to document and publish the wild nightlife of New York City's underground fetish scene in its heyday. He had unique access to some of the kinkiest events all over the Meat Packing District when it was still full of red meat — before it was sanitized, cleaned up, and remade into the chic, ritzy district in lower Manhattan that it is today.
Gonzalez is now a fully-licensed NYC tour guide, and his fully-illustrated tours in the Meat Packing District and under the High Line take you back to the days of the ’80s and ’90s excess.
The Meat Packing District was once home to the sleaziest bars and underground clubs in the country. These include the infamous (and long-vanished) Hellfire Club, which started the scene in a hidden chamber under the cobblestones of Ninth Avenue; the Vault, whose mob history was made famous in a Village Voice exposé; the Anvil, where performance artist Ruby Rims wowed the crowds with her sexy antics; and Mother, a fetish club whose theme of kink and glamour changed every night.
Gonzalez will personally take you up and down the back streets and under the High Line where these clubs flourished, where hookers owned the streets and gay men had sex in the abandoned piers, and where dominatrixes walked their collared slaves in broad daylight. The tour is accompanied by a gallery of Gonzales’s rare and erotic images that he took of these places at the height of their fame.
Go here for more information on this unique New York City tour.
