Hudson River Piers where Skip's body was found. Our fictional Pier 53 lies about a block down from 14th St. and historic Pier 54, used by the Cunard Line.

The Charles Street Stationhouse had served the Village and nearby waterfront since the days when Teddy Roosevelt was Police Commissioner of New York City.

In the 1940s, 17 Barrow St. was a restaurant, with a big fireplace and candles all around, run by "Mamie" and very popular with gay girls.

The Page 3 was a gay bar that was in business 1954-64. Buddy Kent and Jacquie Howe were part owners. Sandra Scoppettone's Lauren Laurano, in Everything You Have Is Mine, talks about the Page 3 with its "nightclub-type tables, those small round ones that hold two drinks and an ashtray.”

Blackie Cole's place on Christopher St., when an apartment on Christopher in that block rented for about $100/month.

The fictional Candy Box Club is a composite of similar establishments of the period--down some steps and a bit down at heel. It is more or less on the site of the old Bon Soir Club, and borrows the phone number.

The Moroccan Village was at 23 West 8th St., a bit east of the Candy Box. In the late 1940s, the Moroccan Village was billed as "The Gayest Spot in the Village" and staged elaborate floorshows. The clientele was straight, Wall Street brokers, racketeers, the rich and famous.

In the 1940s, the Welcome Inn and MacDougal Tavern sat side by side on MacDougal St. between West 3rd and West 4th, where the NYU Law School is today. Beer was a dime. The Welcome Inn crowd was mostly femmes and younger girls, while dykes (butches) and the older crowd gravitated to MacDougal's.

Ernie's was a bar with a straight clientele but a very gay staff and atmosphere. Buddy Kent tended bar there until the cops had her removed when they found out she was a woman.

El's Bar was an afterhours bar (from 4 AM) for gay girls that flourished from about 1946-50, around the corner from Ernie's. It takes its name from the Sixth Ave. Elevated train that turned East across 3rd St.

Provincetown Landing was a popular lesbian bar and hangout that lasted into the 1950s, on the corner of Bleecker at Thompson St., only a few blocks away from the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal. 

The Howdy dates back to the late 1930s, when midtown operations featuring strippers and other risqué acts moved downtown to the Village, fleeing from Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's attempts to clean up Times Square. 

The Albert Hotel where Titanic has a room and shares a night of love with Tyrone. The Albert was a hotspot for illicit rendezvous.

The Bagatelle, now a Mexican restaurant called El Cantinero, was a lesbian bar and hangout well into the 1950s. Saturday night was the big night, and Sunday afternoon sessions were an added treat.

The Club 181, from about 1945 to 1953, on Second Avenue between 11th and 12th Streets, identified in 1948 in a book called New York Confidential (by Lee Morris, a columnist for the Hearst papers) as "the most notorious Lesbian night club in New York." Mr. Morris also informs us that "most female homos' hangouts are in Third Street."

The Club 82, at 82 East 4th St., opened in 1953 as the 181 closed. The 82, "The East Side's Newest Rendezvous," was under the same management as the 181 and inherited much of its personnel and style in floorshows. But it was never so elegant. Tourists flocked to the 82.