From 1968 until 1985, a number of gay leather bars and sex clubs operated in this former market building in the Meatpacking District.
The most legendary was the Mineshaft, a popular sex club that opened in 1976 and became one of the most famous such spaces in the world, but was forced to close in 1985. It became the first gay venue shut down by the City as part of its then-controversial AIDS prevention measures.
