Caught up with a co-worker recently who is a bit older than me and we reminsiced about all the great places to go dancing in the city back in the days of yore. I have good memories of dancing all night at the Limelight, Danceteria, and the Roxy. I didn’t drink back then, and I just had a blast being out, dancing, sweat for hours. She’s a bit older than me so she remembers going out in strapless jumpers and being sandwiched on the dance floor, again, for hours, not drinking, dancing, sweating. I believe she mentioned the Palladium, but I can’t remember the other clubs she mentioned. She grew up in a strict Christian home but still went dancing all night and took the subway back at 6 a.m. (She’s nearly sixty or sixty-five now, so this was fun to hear.)
We also gabbed about how our teachers in school used to dress. My typing teacher and violin teacher in school were fabulous dressers, though I could not appreciate it at the time. My typing teacher dressed as if the 1950s had never left, and the wardrobe she had was true vintage, probably the same stuff she wore when it was actually the 1950s. In our 1980s high school, she would shout directions “F! G! F! G!” (now my local subway lines) over the sound of thirty kids typing those letters, her poodle skirting swaying with every letter.
Then there was Ms. Grasso who had a killer wardrobe. First of all, her hair was white and went past her armpits, and she prepped like the old Farrah Fawcett style with wings on both side of her heads. She’d wear bright suits with high heels, kimonos, accordion-pleated silk dresses and she had a variety of rhine-stone studded cat-eye glasses. In the suburbs, she was a freak, but when I look back, I whistle in appreciation. (Well, I don’t whistle really. Just appreciate.) She went to Julliard and hung out in the West Village the 1960s. That’s pretty cool! But in my high school, if you were seen talking to her willingly in public, your rep was toast. Ha ha ha ha.