Shadowed Sanctuaries: The Mafia’s Complicated Role in Queer Nightlife

Across the country, June is recognized as Pride Month, celebrating LGBTQ+ communities in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a pivotal moment in the fight for gay rights and liberation. Our neighborhoods have held a longstanding, deep connection with the queer community, having served as hubs for bars, restaurants, clubs, theaters, and community centers that catered to gay audiences.

Following Prohibition, organized crime maintained a strong grip on New York City nightlife. The Mafia, especially the Five Families (Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno), exerted influence over bars, nightclubs, and restaurants across the city—especially in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.

Simultaneously, queerness of all kinds remained criminalized in much of the United States throughout much of the twentieth century, forcing LGBTQ+ people underground. Beneath the jazz clubs, speakeasies, and bars of our neighborhoods formed an unlikely relationship between the Mafia and LGBTQ+ communities. The Mafia, seeing an underserved and profitable market, stepped in to run LGBTQ+ venues when legitimate business owners, who would face legal ramifications for doing so, would not. In doing so, they provided essential gathering spaces—though often under exploitative and precarious conditions.

Today, we take a closer look at two LGBTQ+ establishments once linked to organized crime.

Sea Colony

From 1955 through the 1960s, at 48-52 Eighth Avenue in the West Village, sat Sea Colony, one of Greenwich Village’s most popular lesbian bars. In 1950 Sea Colony opened as a restaurant, but transitioned into a full-time bar and club for women by 1955, as recalled by Lesbian Pulp Fiction authors Ann Bannon and Marijane Meaker in their recounting of their visits to the establishment. Owned and operated by the Mafia, Sea Colony still fell victim to many police raids.

Sea Colony attracted mainly white, working-class women who identified along the “butch”/”femme” spectrum. (“Butch” lesbians expressed more masculine behaviors while, conversely, “femme” lesbians were more feminine presenting.) Preston Mardenborough, a male bartender who worked at the Sea Colony in the 1960s, recounts the bar’s spatial dynamic, with butch lesbians occupying the backroom and femme lesbians congregating up front by the bar’s main enterance.

Butches were at heightened risk for being subjected to police brutality. During the 50s and 60s, it was illegal in New York City to dress in clothing associated with the “opposite sex.” Moreover, there was a “three article” rule stating individuals could be arrested for wearing three or more articles of clothing that were traditionally associated with the opposite sex.

The bar featured three main rooms and spaces with only one entrance and exit, and minimal windows to the outside world. The first room featured the front door, the main bar, some seating, and two single-stall restrooms where Mafia owners enforced strict rules—one woman could use the restroom at any given time to prohibit any sexual activity.

The second room was behind the bar and was where customers could enjoy table service. Behind that was the “salacious” third room where the illegal dancing transpired in the back of the bar. When the bar got raided (often weekly), a red light would flash in the back room, signaling for the women to stop dancing and rush to the tables.

82 West 3rd Street

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, this unremarkable rowhouse, just south of Washington Square Park, was home to a series of Mafia-owned and connected establishments, all of which catered to LGBTQ+ patrons. 

In the early 60s, 82 West 3rd Street was better known as the Pompier Restaurant, and was the site where Gambino crime family associate Eddie DeCurtis conducted much of his business. 

By 1968, the Pompier Restaurant closed with a new bar, Tenth of Always, swiftly taking its place. Still a hangout spot for young gay men, Tenth of Always was a “juice bar” for teenagers, owned and operated by a different Gambino associate, Nicholas DeMartino. And it was quite the popular spot — openly gay pop art icon Andy Warhol was known to frequent Tenth of Always. It was here that Warhol encountered Candy Darling, a transgender icon who went on to become a Warhol Superstar and a muse for the Velvet Underground. Allegedly, the mafia coerced and recruited Tenth of Always’ young male customers into prostitution. The venue shut down in 1971 following DeMartino’s arrest for operating illicit gay bars.

In 1972, the space took on a new life yet again under businesswoman Elaine Romagnoli who opened the lesbian nightclub Bonnie & Clyde on the ground floor and the accompanying Bonnie’s Restaurant on the upper level. While there is some confusion regarding the Mafia’s connection with Bonnie & Clyde, it’s obvious Romagnoli was heavily involved with the bar’s success. The club became a disco haven featuring a pool table, an all-female staff, and tabletops laminated with photographs of women. The club was especially popular among African American women. The club was an ideal ten-minute walk from the Gay Activist Alliance Firehouse located at 99 Wooster Street, making it the prime hangout spot for members after weekly meetings, art exhibitions, and parties. Bonnie & Clyde’s closed in the early 80s, but its legacy continued through Elaine Romagnoli’s other clubs and bars, like the Cubby Hole (still open) and Crazy Nanny’s.

At a time when queer people were criminalized and mainstream venues shut them out, places like Sea Colony and 82 West 3rd Street offered rare sanctuaries—however flawed. As we celebrate Pride Month and reflect on how far we’ve come, it’s vital to remember these complicated histories—where resistance and exploitation often existed side by side—and to honor the courage and resilience of the LGBTQ+ communities who found ways to thrive, even in the shadows.