SEXIS WRONG

Inside the Cave
The Rise and Fall of Plato’s Retreat
Jon Hart
In the late evening of September 23, 1977, a new era was
in full swing. Captain John, a muscular motorcycle entrepreneur,
took his date, Debbie, a perky, brunette Rutgers chemistry
major, to opening night at Plato’s Retreat, an X-rated Disneyland
in New York City, where heterosexual couples came
to fulfill their most fantastic fantasies. As they descended
the steep, mirrored stairwell, disco blared from DJ Bacho’s
turntable. A scene reminiscent of a Roman orgy was already
underway. Under pulsating lights, semi-clad couples ground
against one another. By the pool and the mammoth Jacuzzi,
couples fondled or had sex in plain view. Meanwhile, a Hells
Angel–type sat attentively in front of the orgy room, guarding
a sea of flesh.
“It was very natural there,” recalls Captain John, who says
that Debbie hooked up with a New York Mets pitcher that
evening. “We ended up swinging with several different couples.
From that point, we were hooked.”
Following Woodstock, before “safe sex,” there was a club
called Plato’s Retreat, the most famous swingers’ club ever
to exist. After opening in the majestic Ansonia building’s
basement on Broadway and 74th Street, dozens of imitators
spawned across the country, and thousands of customers,
from Hollywood stars to regular folk like Captain John and
Debbie, headed to its cavernous confines.
“Everyone wanted to see Plato’s,” recalls Howard Smith,
who covered the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll beat for the Village
Voice. But after nine years of business, jealousy, greed,
and, finally, disease conquered “the cave.” It was an enigmatic
palace of excess. Here is its story.
Perhaps it was fitting that a caveman of sorts, Bronx native
Larry Levenson, created Plato’s. “He was shallow intellectually,”
recalls pornographer Al Goldstein (founder and, until
2003, publisher of Screw), who was once so close with
Levenson that some mistook them for relatives. “He never
read a book, never went to a movie.” Outside of their overfed
pastrami physiques and sexual pedigrees, Levenson and
Goldstein were quite different. While Goldstein, something
of a Hebrew Hefner, perused Kafka, Levenson, a junior-college
graduate, barely cracked a comic book.
Twice-divorced, at least twice hauled into court for failure to
pay child support for his three sons, Levenson, a former Mc-
Donald’s manager, was hawking soda and ice cream on the
beach at Coney Island before Plato’s. “He didn’t have a pot to
piss in,” barked his future Plato’s partner, Frank Pernice.
One night, though, Levenson got lucky. At the Golden Gate
Motel’s cocktail lounge, a seedy locale in Sheepshead Bay,
Brooklyn, Levenson met Ellie, a voluptuous, married housewife
who introduced him to a different life: subterranean
swing clubs like the Underground and the Botany Talk House,
where Madonna used to gig. After the initial, first-name-only
introductions, Levenson, Ellie, and several couples retired
to a Spartan, New Jersey high-rise apartment, where they
tossed their clothes in the corner, rolled with one another,
and snorted amyl nitrate.
“We’d swing the entire weekend,” recalled Levenson. In that
environment, Levenson thought, everyone is honest with one
another. There’s no cheating. Unfortunately, this new lifestyle
was also extremely inconvenient. “It was tough to find parking,”
groused Levenson. “By the time we got to swinging, it
was two in the morning.”
Eventually, Levenson expedited matters by using just one
venue for the entire evening. Hosting floating parties, Leven-
INSIDE THE CAVE 71