Nelson Sullivan with his faithful companion, Blackout.
 
I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening conversing with a brilliant historian and a delightful guy by the name of Robert Coddington. Robert is an accomplished Queer studies scholar and archivist for the late Nelson Sullivan, a video artist who captured hundreds, and maybe thousands of hours of NYC’s nightclub and drag scene during the 1980s. Wigstock, Limelight, Michael Alig and the club kids, the drag scene at Boy Bar, the infamous “outlaw party” at the Times Square McDonalds immortalized in Party Monster, the Pyramid Club, early Dee-lite performances… I could go on and on. Nelson documented it all, a permanent fixture on the club scene with his ever-present camera: If Nelson wasn’t there videotaping the action, you knew you at the wrong party.

I knew Nelson, and when I was 21, in 1986, I rented a room for about six months in the ramshackle house he leased at 5 Ninth Avenue, smackdab in the middle of New York’s now trendy meatpacking district. (Today it’s all about high fashion and boutique hotels, but back then, it was patrolled by tranny hookers and smelled like… rotting carcasses). Nelson’s house was a whirlwind, creative environment complete with a very colorful cast of characters. When I moved out, soon after Ru Paul, Larry Tee and Lahoma Van Zandt made their move to New York from Atlanta and moved in to 5 Ninth Ave. It was that kind of place.

Nelson Sullivan created an ultra important historical archive that has yet to be recognized in this country—which is a real shame—although it has been exhibited in many places outside of the US on a museum level. Not to be deterred, Robert Coddington and Dick Richards (Nelson’s friend since childhood) have put together a growing online video archive called The 5 Ninth Ave. Project on YouTube. You can visit the archive here.

Below. club kids at one of Susanne Bartsch’s parties at Bentley’s. Note Leigh Bowery snorting amyl nitrate:
 

 
The most fabulous and glamorous drag queen of all, International Chrysis, performing at Boy Bar on St. Mark’s Place sometime in the mid-80s with Perfidia and Cody Ravioli
 

 
Nightlife “supergroup” Shazork (who I thought were amazing) featuring Lady Bunny, a pre-Dee-lite DJ Dimitry, Sister Dimension and Hattie at the Pyramid Club performing “Rock On.”
 

 
And least but not least, one of Nelson’s favorite subjects, the TWISTED drag queen “Christina,” who Nelson discovered dead after her suicide in the Chelsea Hotel shortly before he died himself, of a heart attack on the 4th of July, 1989. Christina was played by Marilyn Manson in the Party Monster film directed by Dangerous Minds pals Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Watch this clip and tell me that Manson wasn’t robbed of a best supporting actor role. He got her down perfect!
 

 
A Visit with Christina part II here.

Fenton Bailey’s treatment for a TV documentary about Nelson Sullivan nicely explains Nelson Sullivan’s pivotal role in preserving a big chunk of NYC nightlife history (Funtone)