The Paradise Garage Retrospection; My first time at the Club

 

How was I introduced to the Paradise Garage, 

I guess like a lot of folks I went there and fell in love with the soul of the club.
Hello, my name is Ralph Curtis and welcome to my Blog.

When I got out of the Marine Corps in’82, I returned home and landed a job at Mount Sinai Hospital. I had no idea of what career direction to take, but I knew that the Corps set my standards high and I wanted to do something great.

Working at the Hospital about a year, when a childhood friend of mine, Peter Munoz invited me to come and party at this night club where he worked. I had never gone to a club in Soho before so I thought this would be an awesome night out. There was a young woman named Elizabeth, who worked with me at Mount Sinai whom I wanted to date, so I invited her and one of her friends, Kim, to join us.

On the Subway ride downtown, Kim slipped us something to move the night along in the right direction lol, this was a first for me so don’t judge, besides it was the 80’s.

We climbed out of the subway on Houston and turned the corner onto King Street, it was about 0300 Saturday Morning and the line to get in was down the block. We took our place in cue and inched our way to the door. Kim kept asking me if I was sure my name was on the guest list because she knew, this was a private club, you had to be a member, come with a member, or be on the guest list. This was the only way to get in (that’s it that’s all).

We finally got to the entrance of this 2 story parking garage and the three of us filed through that small door in the front of the building. Kim had been to this club before so she knew what was going on, but this was definitely a learning experience for Liz and I as we had no idea of what to expect.

As we walked into this small concrete entry way I noticed the interior wasn’t fancy it was very sparse in fact, they had a nice little design going on that carried an industrial intimacy, you really didn’t notice how cramped it was. From where we stood, I could hear the music pounding on the floor above me and man, did it sounded like the place was hopping. I spoke to the gentlemen at the front door (Noel) and told him who I was and that I was a guest of Peter’s. He looked my name up on the list, smiled and welcomed us into the club.

The three of us exited the front entrance office, made that left turn and started to walk up this long ramp. The change in atmosphere of that cramped room, to this huge ramp was personally expansive, like being packed in a small tin can, then suddenly being set free. It was right about this time, whatever Kim had given us was kicking in and a feeling of weightlessness was taking over, I was ready to Fly.

We walked up the middle of this ramp and on both sides of us were these runway lights at the base of the walls. These lights were on a chase pattern going from the bottom of the ramp to the top, literally showing us the way in. As we climbed the ramp the music was getting louder and more vibrant. We got to the ticket booth and paid our way, then handed the tickets to the gentlemen at the doors as we walked into the club's front foyer.

The moment we passed through those doors into the foyer, we were hit by a solid wall of sound, we stood there for a moment amazed at the music vibration. I had been to Rock concerts before, but this, THIS was whole new level of sound. There were people inside moving about the foyer, talking, dancing, everyone was dressed in various forms of spandex, sweats and shorts, very 80s, very stylish, very underground.

The foyer itself was an open space, the lighting in the room was fantastic and gave the space a warm and cozy feeling.

Off to my left I could see flashing of lights reflecting off the walls and I knew the dancefloor was around that corner… it was calling. We gave up our coats to the coat room and headed to the dancefloor.

The entrance to the dancefloor from the foyer was via a wide low ceiling passageway, and as we passed through this darkened tunnel the flashing of the dance-floor lights pulled us in. The space ahead of us was packed with people all dancing, the lighting filled the expanse, and the music was off any scale I could imagine. It was loud, unbelievably loud, but it wasn’t distorted or painful to my ears, it was immersive, like I was being wrapped in a blanket of sound from head to toe. The three of us danced, and the music made it effortless, Kim just kept saying, "I can't help myself".

We danced for what seemed like hours on end and at no time did the dancefloor empty out, people were all around us on all sides moving, folding, bending, spinning and jumping. This was completely a different experience than any club that I had ever been to, and I was completely hooked.

The music that was coming out of that DJ Booth was amazing, some songs I recognized as late 70’s R&B and some disco, also there was a mix of music that I didn’t know then but would later come to know it as “House Music”.

We ended up leaving the club sometime Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t tired even though we danced all night long, but we were starting to come down off of what Kim had donated to us and it was getting early, we needed to vacate. Funny thing is even when we exited the club, there were still people on the dancefloor going at it like the night just started, truly an amazing experience.

This was truly a Dance Club.

~ Ralph Curtis ~