All language subtitles for S01E08 - The King of Swing

-Not so long ago,

New York City had an open
and vibrant sex club scene.

-The '70s was a window
of just sex, sex, sex.

-There were clubs that you could
go to every night in the week.

But there was only
one Plato's Retreat.

-I died and went to heaven.

I mean,
it was like the garden of eden

only a million times better.

-It was in the middle
of the heart of Manhattan

where people could come to
live out their sexual fantasies.

-It was very comfortable
to be naked.

In fact, it was uncomfortable
not to be naked.

-So I went back out to the pool,
dove right in.

Then when I came up for air,

I could see
these men jerking off.

The sperm was just coming
like an arch over me.

-Plato's Retreat was born under
the insatiable libido

of a former fast food manager,
Larry Levenson.

-He had a whole bevy of women
who brought him to orgasm

15 times within 24 hours.

-Inside his sex club,
Levenson helped give the decade

its nickname

as the swinging '70s.

-Plato's Retreat.

Located in the Ansonia Hotel,
is a unique club open

to freethinking adult couples.

We offer a...
-But soon sexual liberation

would give way
to criminal investigations.

-Manhattan's famous swingers
joint was busted last month

on a prostitution rap
this after city...

-People who enjoy free sex
are often pushed to the margins.

And at the margins,
you're finding drugs.

You're kind of getting
this darker shit.

-Soon, Plato's Retreat
would become

the king of swing's last stand.

-He took a very serious beating.

I don't know about almost dying,
but it's pretty close.

-He told me that I'm going away
for a little while.

An eight-year sentence
was unheard of.

-It's the last days of disco.

Disco was the whole vibe
at Plato's.

And disco is over.

-Somehow, the king of swing
had lost his throne.

♪♪

♪♪

-In 1977, "Star Wars"
was in theaters and disco

was all the rage.

In New York City,
there was a blackout,

a serial killer captured,
a nightlife

to match the drama of it all.

-It's three in the morning
and still at Studio 54,

people crowd the doors.

-And for those looking for more
than drugs, disco,

and a chance to hook up,

there were places where that
chance could become a certainty.

Sex clubs.

-I come here quite often, yeah.

About once, twice a week,

you know,
whenever I can get out.

-There were clubs that you could
go to every night in the week

and we just kind
of had a schedule.

So on Tuesday night there was
an S&M club.

On Thursday night,
the Hellfire Club was big.

-Hellfire, of course.

There you had this guy
who was literally the doorstep.

He just loved to be stepped on.

You'd like literally wipe
your feet on his back

and you'd go in.

-The gay bathhouses were places

where you could
go see Bette Midler perform.

-♪ You alone can...♪

-Then take off your towel
and go to the moon.

-Back in the '70s, I started
writing for Screw magazine.

I was sort of like
the Ralph Nader

of the sex business,
giving ratings to each place,

warning you which places
were going to rip you off,

which places went out of their
way to make you feel at home.

They would get cocks for like,
you know,

one cock is a bad rating,

two cocks is average, three
is a little above average,

four is spectacular.

-In 1977, a new club opened

called Plato's Retreat.

What made this one different
was Plato's was for couples.

-When Plato's opened,
we were kind of shocked.

Plato's was the first really
big open on premise swing club.

-Located in Manhattan's
Ansonia Hotel,

Plato's charged couples $25
to enter and engage

in a sexual behavior
many associated

with bored married couples
at the local country club.

-Swinging was your parents' sex.

Older people, married people,
suburban people, Republicans.

It was -- it was not so cool.

So Plato's came along
and made swinging more cool.

-On a Saturday night

there would be maybe
a thousand people there.

-At Plato's Retreat,
it was just about going for sex.

You weren't even
going to make small.

-Four cocks for Plato's.

They always
remained a four-star place.

-And behind New York's
hottest sex club

was 41-year-old
Larry Levenson.

-Larry Levenson was just
a lovable doll,

and I loved him so.

-He was like a Labrador
retriever, you know?

He was just like a big, happy,
overweight, schlubby guy,

but full of happy,
positive energy.

-I described Larry
lying on top of a woman

after he had
just come as a beached whale.

-Larry would come out with
his bathrobe and nothing under

and he'd open up
like this to them

and show them, you know,
his little thing had.

-He was a these, them,
and those kind of guy.

-He had a very thuggish voice,
very nasal.

You could say he was
a smooth talker,

but he really didn't have much
to talk about.

-Is this the most successful
you've ever been

as the president
of Plato's Retreat in your life?

-Yes, no question about it.

-That was Larry's life,
basically.

He was swinging day and night.

-I'm Michael Levenson.
Larry Levenson was my father.

My parents got divorced
when I was 6.

I can't say he was
the "model" father,

but, you know, he had
a hard time being a father.

And he's not the only one
in the world that's like that,

you know.

-Before Larry got involved
in swinging,

that was a regular guy.

-He was a former manager
of a McDonald's in Brooklyn.

-I believe he sold ice cream
in Coney Island.

-He just had odd jobs.

He was just doing
whatever he can.

He was unemployed a lot.

-But one night his ordinary life
changed forever.

-He met a woman in a bar

and she brought him home
for the evening.

And in the morning
he heard someone come

in the front door and he goes,

"Who's that?" And she goes,
"That's my husband."

And now he's freaking out like,
"What do you mean?"

Goes, "Oh, don't worry.
We have an open relationship.

We're swingers."

-All of a sudden, he came with
some people. They hooked up.

And his friends said
you want to come to swing party?

Something like that, he said,
what's a swing party?

-It changed his life.
It was a new side of him.

-Larry started throwing his own
small swinger parties

in lofts around the city.

-He had a dream to have a big
on-premise swing club.

He just saw that
the time was right.

-His parties grew and grew.

Clearly,
there was public demand.

Larry believed he could be
even more successful

if he had a permanent location.

He secured financing
from a well-connected caterer

in Brooklyn
named Frank Pernice

and first
opened a spot in Manhattan.

Within a few months,
he took over a sprawling space

in the basement of the Ansonia,

once the home of a gay club
called the Continental Baths.

Plato's was the right place
at the right time,

inspiring a song
by jazz musician Joe Thomas.

-♪ At Plato's Retreat ♪

-Plato's even had
a TV commercial.

-♪ The pleasure and the fun
will keep you feeling young ♪

♪ It's for you ♪

-♪ It's for you ♪

-Plato's Retreat,
located in the Ansonia Hotel,

is a unique club open
to freethinking adult couples.

We offer a relaxing...

Larry Levenson had gone
from working at McDonald's

to serving up sex
to swinging couples

that New York's
hottest pleasure palace.

-You walk in the place
and there's this big like

dance floor, but there's
two people over there.

And while it's a nightclub,

there's two girls going down
on each other over there.

And it didn't matter.

People were dancing and partying
and doing their thing.

-There was the hot tub.

There was the Olympic-sized
swimming pool

stretching out
before you lit from the bottom.

-And then there was
that rancid buffet

almost too close to the damage
always freaked me out.

-I remember liking the food
at Plato's.

They had a great buffet.

-The food was usually brought
in these massive tinfoil trays.

-They had a sneeze guard,

but they
did not have a penis guard.

The part where you would
reach your hands in

was just about genital level.

-Of course, somebody's balls
might leave their impression

in the chopped liver.

♪♪

-The music is blasting from
the disco and it was amazing.

I was a deejay.
Thank you. Thank you.

And I was the manager
there at that time.

-As you entered to the right
was the mat room.

Yeah, the mat room.

Just a big space

full of mattresses
and writhing bodies.

-We had a mat room that had four

or 500 couples
all wrapped up together.

-You could not have any clothes.

You couldn't have anything
to enter the mat room.

You had to, you know,
abandon hope

all ye who enter here.

-It was sort of like
the sex version of Studio 54.

-Studio 54 was
the cocaine-fueled,

celebrity-filled nightclub that,
along with places like Plato's,

created
a vibrant nightlife scene

that lured aspiring artists
to the city.

Artists like Donna Ferrato
who arrived in New York City

in the 1970s with dreams
of becoming a photographer.

-I was young then.
I was in my late 20s.

I got my first big assignment
to photograph in Plato's Retreat

from "New York Magazine."

It was an important
opportunity for me.

So when I went to the club,
I took these pictures,

shot another two rolls,
and then after that,

I put my camera in the locker
and my clothes

and went back out to the pool,
dove right in,

and I went under water
the length of the pool.

Then when I came up for air,
I could see these men

who were all standing
on the edge of the pool

and they were jerking off.

When I came up
and I saw them there,

suddenly they were coming.

The sperm was just coming
like an arc over me.

And I was thinking,

oh, that's the money shot
and where's my camera?

-As Donna's photography career
took off,

she made several more trips
to the club.

-I had these white boots
that I always wore

because they had
a kind of rubber bottom.

The place was just, like,
literally swimming in sperm.

Sperm was everywhere.

You had to be careful
because you could get crabs

so easily off the cushions.

And I didn't want to slip
in the sperm either.

So I was always wearing a towel
and my -- my white boots.

-The thing that stood out in
my mind about Plato's Retreat

was the smell of cleanser
like Comet or Mr. Clean.

It was masking
the smell of old sex.

You know, most people
go to places, gee, oh, man.

I can any woman I want, not me.

I'm going,
this does not smell right.

-While the rules said only
heterosexual couples

and single women were allowed
inside, Plato's made exceptions.

Reportedly, Sammy Davis Jr.
and the cast and crew

from the recently launched
"Saturday Night Live"

would drop by.

If celebrities
actually participated

it would have been
behind closed doors.

Plato's became the place where
suburban couples could hang out

with porn stars like Ron Jeremy
or Sharon Mitchell.

-I started performing
in the adult entertainment

industry in 1975.

Larry Levenson was
a good friend of mine.

-With lines around the block,

Plato's Retreat had brought
Larry Levenson some fame,

some money, and what
he most desired -- lots of sex.

-He had made a bet that he could
come 15 times

in one day within 24 hours.

So we set up a whole contest.

He had a whole bevy of women
who participated

and brought him to orgasm
15 times within 24 hours.

During the break,
he was getting a blowjob.

We called him
the Great Splatspee.

-There were kind of alcoves.

People would couple off
and go to him.

Larry would have
his separate alcove,

and I'm sure Larry
had his pick of the litter.

-As he told me, he would fall
in love every time he had sex.

Well, this is a man who was
having sex 10 times a night

and he was capable of it.

He became the king of swing.

-He called himself
the king of swing.

No one gave him that name.

He just thought that, you know,
he was actually a king.

-But heavy is the head
that wears the crown.

Owning a sex club in New York
in the 1970s had its challenges.

-Do you see yourself
as a sexual pioneer or a sleaze?

-And for Larry Levenson,
the problem started at home.

-Swinging is predicated on
the idea that you're married,

that you're partner swapping,
that you're wife swapping.

-Mary was his live-in girlfriend
that he met at Plato's.

-We realized
we can make our own...

-How much of it she actually
enjoyed was very questionable.

-Are you married?

-Strictly monogamous
relationships, in a sense --

-You don't hear me.

-In a sense, David,
we are married.

-Partners were required
to get in,

but Larry acted like
the single guys

they kept out.

-It was the swinging '70s,

a climax in the sexual
revolution helped along

by greater access
to birth control

and newly confirmed rights
for women around abortion.

-The Supreme Court made their
ruling and the Supreme Court

it's the law of our land.

-There was a profound shift
in attitudes around sex,

and there was no better place
for couples to explore

this new sexual frontier

than at the New York City
swingers club Plato's Retreat.

It was where one woman
took sexual liberation

to new record breaking heights.

-You're going to attempt
to do how many in one evening?

-Well, I'd say at least 75.

-There was a woman
named Tara Alexander.

She wanted to establish
a world record of how many guys

she could sleep with
in one night.

If you call that sleeping.

"Playboy" was there.

All the men's magazines
were there.

But it was
presented by "Screw."

It was called the Spermathon.

So I was sent to cover that
and write about it.

-Tara's husband, John,
kicked off the festivities.

-Ladies and gentlemen,
I'm John Alexander.

This is Tara Alexander,

who's going to attempt
to set a world record tonight.

-All kinds of people showed up
at Plato's for the spermathon,

and the guys were all
lined up with numbers,

most of them who probably
hadn't been laid for a while.

-They had hundreds of responses
of men

who wanted to participate.

And her husband was calling guys
up like, number 16,

come up, 17, 18, come on up.

And she was doing
like two to four guys at a time

with her hands and her mouth

and her vag.

-Tara has just done 82 guys.

I've gotten tired
just watching her.

Feel like you
fulfilled your fantasy?

-No, I wanted more.

-By the end of the night,
she the number was a mere 83 men

that she had slept with,
with judges watching.

-Who was the last? Her husband.

-What would it take
to completely satisfy?

-John, probably.

-Her husband went last.

Tara's husband was the last guy
to stick it in.

And apparently it was just like
one big foreplay for them

to have this event for her.

She got it on with her husband
better than ever.

That's one of my earliest
memories of Plato's.

-While some couples,
like John and Tara Alexander

were making the most
of swinging's golden age,

Larry Levenson
and his partner Mary

had turned the lifestyle
into a business.

They were the most well-known
couple at Plato's Retreat.

-Mary was
my father's girlfriend.

They were never married.

-Mary would be sitting with him
on this great big gold chair.

-Larry and Mary became
the face of swinging.

Appearing on talk shows,
advocating for the lifestyle,

and promoting Plato's Retreat
to television audiences.

-You write about Larry Levenson
and his girlfriend, Mary.

The question is, what do
they get out of group sex?

-Larry went on the Phil Donahue
Show to talk about Plato's,

bringing the concept
of swinging

into living rooms
across the country.

-We're going to talk about
swinging today.

-We promote social intercourse
and sexual intercourse.

Whatever you want to do,
you can do.

-And Mary provided
a woman's perspective

on swinging to the public.

Writing a column for "Partner"
magazine and going on TV.

-The wife was always supposed
to stay home

and not have desires
beyond her own husband.

This is a lot of nonsense.

-Here is this gorgeous, lovely,

articulate person,

and she is singing
the praises of this.

-Larry indoctrinated you.
-No, not Larry personally.

I came to the club
with another young man.

During that evening, I met Larry
and chased him ever since.

-I think she was crucial
to his success in a lot of ways.

-Publicly, Larry and Mary
promoted swinging

and took the club national
opening Plato's Retreat West

in Los Angeles

and hoping to franchise
the concept.

But privately, they were
playing a different tune.

-Larry didn't swing with her
as far as I could tell.

He used to brag about being able
to come like, I don't know,

15, 20 times a night,
just insatiably horny.

But I don't think
she was interested in

swinging in the club with him.

-Do you think Larry is faithful
to you out of Plato's Retreat?

-He can indulge in sexuality
any time he wants.

-Larry was in the back
in his room.

He had this huge room
all to himself

all done up with pillows.

They always have
a lot of women in there.

Mary was not
one of those women.

And I think Mary --
Mary got fed up.

-Are you married?
-No, we were I would say --

Strictly monogamous
relationships, in a sense.

-You don't hear me.
-In a sense, David,

we are married because I intend
to spend the rest of my life

with Larry,
whether he likes it or not.

-The whole swinger esthetic is
you must be a couple.

The couple is this unit,
they wouldn't normally

be separate, but Larry
was pretty much separate.

He was not usually with Mary.

Mary would be kind of wandering
around out on the floor.

I think she imagined
that they were going to be side

by side on the throne
and there was only one throne.

-My father, a lot of times
he would send Mary,

you know, home with a limo.

A lot of times because
he was there at the club

and she maybe
would want to go home.

-Many believe that Mary grew
resentful of Larry's

over-the-top lifestyle

and soon swung into the arms
of another man.

-The story, as I heard it,

was she was having an affair
with the limo driver.

-And at that point, she didn't
want to be with Larry.

At that point,
she wanted to be with this guy.

-Now, my father explained to me
what swinging was.

Swinging is just a sexual act,
but there's no feelings

when it comes to the sex.
It's just physical.

But there was feelings starting
to emerge with the limo driver.

That started the demise
of their relationship.

-We would go out to eat.

He became despondent,
a little sad.

Not his jovial self.

I think he knew there was issues
creeping up on him

and he just didn't want
to tell any of us.

-At the time, crime was rampant
in New York City

and Larry would find himself
to be a victim.

One night, while he was
driving home from the club,

two men jumped into his car,

robbed him, and left him for
dead in the middle of Queens.

-Some people think it was the
limo driver who hired somebody.

Some people may tell you
it was something else.

-No one was ever charged
and who was behind the attack

has been speculated
about ever since.

-He took a very serious beating.

I don't know about almost died,
but it's pretty close.

His legs were broken very bad.

-And soon his relationship
was also broken.

-My understanding
was that she left him.

-The king of swing
had lost his queen.

But neither the breakup
of his relationship

nor the breaking of his bones

would stop Larry from enjoying
the perks of owning a sex club.

-Larry came into Plato's
in a body cast in a wheelchair.

The cast was cut out around
where his crotch was,

so he was able to keep on.

-But for a beaten and battered
Larry Levenson,

things were only
going to get worse.

-In every place that has
really prominent sex clubs,

people who enjoy free sex
or who engage in sex work,

they are often pushed
to the margins.

And at the margins, you're doing
things like finding financing

from people in the Mafia.

You are finding drugs,

you're kind of getting with it
this darker shit.

-In the 1970s, New York
was nearly bankrupt

with garbage-filled streets
and subways covered in graffiti.

-In the late '70s,
New York City was foreboding.

It was really grimy
and gritty and dirty.

-It was the period when New York

was considered very dangerous
and out of control.

-All kinds of wild people
just wandering around,

homeless people, drug addicts.

It was pretty great.

-It was also a time when the mob
had more influence in New York.

Gangland shootings of bodies
on the streets

and in the headlines.

The Mafia controlled businesses
throughout the city

to help launder money,
and they financed pornography,

like the classic film
"Deep Throat,"

which reportedly made millions
at the box office.

-We didn't even call it porn,
honey.

We called it
adult entertainment.

Back in the day, it was run
by the mob in New York.

-The whole sex business
in the '60s and '70s

was one way or another
mob financed.

-The mobsters were kind of nice.

You know, nobody ever
asked me to for the job.

That was the job.
Unlike the legitimate industry.

Everywhere I looked, somebody
was trying to get in my pants.

-Organized crime didn't just
bankroll pornography.

They had a hand
in topless bars,

sex shows,
and shops in Times Square,

and sex clubs
throughout the city.

They were making money
where legitimate banks wouldn't.

-Everything was controlled
by the mob.

All the gay clubs were done
by the mob or the peep shows.

-The Mafia controlled
pornography,

movie theaters, gay bathhouses.

They were everywhere.

-They were even rumored to be
in Plato's Retreat.

-I can't prove it,

but I would almost be sure
that it was a mob-owned joint.

And it was mob money that
they put up to construct it.

I believe Larry was a front man
for Plato's

and that there was mob funding.

-Larry Levenson had partners.
He was not a sole owner in fact.

These partners were undisclosed
and they were silent partners.

One was an individual
named Frank Pernice.

-Frank was the kind of guy
you didn't turn him down.

You know,
he'd only ask a favor once.

And if you didn't do it once,
he'd just write you off.

-Frank Pernice got a 10% cut.

Frank Pernice had connections
to organized crime.

We always assumed that the 10%
was a mafia tax

on Plato's Retreat.

-The mob was known to fund clubs
similar to Plato's

or demand payoffs.

But Larry Levenson didn't seem
to have a problem

with the Mafia families.

He had one with Uncle Sam.

-Plato's Retreat had failed
to file corporate tax

returns in 1977, '78, and '79.

-Peter Sudler was an assistant
U.S. attorney

in the Southern District
of New York.

-It really started out
as a routine case

until a very curious
event happened.

During the audit,

an employee of Plato's Retreat

had mistakenly
given the IRS agents

what amounted
to a second set of books.

-Many clubs in New York,

whether it was
Plato's Retreat or Studio 54,

had two sets
of financial records.

One set kept a record of what
the club was really earning.

The other set was for the IRS
and showed much less revenue

so the owners could skim off
the difference

without ever paying taxes.

Once the government got eyes
on Plato's real set of books,

Larry Levenson was
in serious trouble.

-They were making millions
of dollars, believe me,

for a skimming case
this was gigantic.

It's one thing to skim 10%
or 20% of your receipts,

but when you start
skimming 80%,

then it's really problematic.

These people were very,
very greedy.

-Larry was not paying his taxes
and it was too easy

to see how much money
the place was bringing in.

-I think they just wanted
to nail him

because he was a public figure
of swinging.

-Almost 50 years earlier,

the government brought down
Al Capone for tax evasion.

Some people believe the feds
were using the same approach

to shut down
Larry Levenson's Sex Club.

-Of course, it felt like the
government was cracking down.

I mean, all of a sudden,

you've got people
cracking down on swing clubs.

You got people literally
trying to clean up Times Square,

which who the...thought
would ever happen.

-This case did not start because
the government decided

to shut down swingers clubs
in New York City.

It had nothing to do with that.

This case started
and ended with the fact

that the second set of books

was discovered in the course
of a routine IRS audit.

-Soon, the federal agents
were swinging a search warrant

in front of employees
at Plato's Retreat.

In February of 1981,

Larry was indicted
on charges of tax evasion,

and his trial began
a few months later.

[ Gavel bangs ]

-Larry's defense was that he did
not believe

that he was required
to file income tax returns

because Plato's Retreat
was a so-called not for profit.

-Larry Levenson is telling
everyone that Plato's

is a nonprofit organization.

He says it on TV.

-We are definitely
a nonprofit corporation.

-Now wait a minute, Larry.

-Just wait a minute.
I'm telling you.

Every dime that comes
into Plato's Retreat

goes back into the club.

-It was a $2.3 million
tax evasion

that supposedly my father tried
to explain

that Plato's was
a non-profitable organization.

I don't know.

-Larry was the only defendant
to take the stand.

-I think that he had
an element of bravado.

He'd become somewhat of
a celebrity

because of this club,

and maybe he thought
he could lie his way out of it.

Maybe his codefendants

had to put
some kind of a defense on

and he was the person
that had to do it.

But whatever it was,
it didn't work.

His testimony was ridiculous

that Plato's was a not
for profit organization.

Nobody on a jury
ever understood that theory.

-Larry Levenson was found guilty
of tax evasion

and sentenced
to eight years in prison.

-He told me,
well, here's a deal.

I'm going away
for a little while.

And it was kind of a shocker,

an eight-year sentence
back in 1980

or something like that,
was unheard of.

-These defendants received
what up to that time had been

a very,
very stiff jail sentence.

That was a big sentence back
then for income tax evasion.

-Larry Levenson retreated
to federal prison.

Suddenly, Plato's had lost
the king of swing.

-The thing about Larry
going away, it wasn't the same.

You know, all those couples
that swung with Larry,

that hung out with Larry.

You know, people would
come there just to see Larry.

-Everybody
was getting in trouble.

I mean, everybody was getting
busted for one...

thing or another.

-And what happened
next had people

desperately retreating
from Plato's.

-Nobody I knew who had been
going there from

the sex industry
and having a good time

was going anymore.

Nobody wanted to go.

-In 1981, the owner
of New York's hottest sex club,

Larry Levenson,
was in jail for tax evasion.

But Plato's Retreat wasn't
the only club playing fast

and loose with the IRS.

Peter Sudler also
prosecuted Studio 54.

-Studio 54,
skimmed probably over

all of its life $5 million.

-But unlike Studio 54,
which closed in 1980,

Plato's Retreat stayed open
while Larry Levenson

served out his sentence at
Allenwood Federal Penitentiary.

-What are you going to do
when you get out?

-I'll carry on as when I left.

-We're going to have an orgy
room here in Allenwood.

-We have one already.

-Meanwhile, back in New York,

Plato's wore out its welcome
in the Ansonia Hotel.

-The city gave so many problems
to the owner of the hotel,

they were given fines for this
and fines for that.

So finally, the owner
came to us and said,

You know what?
Yous got to get out of here.

-The club's new location
was on 34th Street.

-Plato's Retreat announced
the grand opening

of a 65-foot swimming pool.

-I remember the second version
of Plato's giant warehouse

on 34th Street.

I did get naked one night

and jumped
in the pool with a porn starlet.

-It was cavernous and very cold
and industrial.

There were no doors, so there
was no privacy in the rooms.

It wasn't the scene

that many women
would really feel good about.

-And it was now
under new management.

-When Larry went away,

Fred Lincoln
took over as manager.

Fred Lincoln was a great guy,
but he had a different esthetic.

He was a porn producer,
porn director.

He had been an actor.

I believe he was in one
of those classic horror films.

Third house on the left.

-Hey, stick around a while.
I don't bite.

-He just ran it differently.

-In the bigger space,

Plato's operated
more like a business

and tried to draw
a bigger crowd.

-We started having
mud wrestling,

but it was just such a mess.

Everybody had to clean up mud
all over this and that.

So let's go to the oil.
We did the oil.

It was cleaner. It was no mess.

-There was foxy boxing and dance

shows by porn stars
like Sharon Mitchell.

-We used to dance to
Led Zeppelin

and we used to have
real knives in our mouth

and we used to cut
the clothes off each other.

We knew the art of striptease,

and we didn't cut the last strip
off our tits or our pussy

until like the last
three minutes of the show.

It was so much fun
and we got paid really well.

-We had S&M nights.

We would have like
a mistress come out

on a dance floor in a disco.

-Plato's, the renowned couples
only swingers club,

even tried singles nights.

-The world's most famous private
couples club

has a new Monday night policy
that allows single men to come

and spend the entire evening
any Monday night.

-It was like getting on
the train at rush hour.

You know, all those single guys,
It was horrible.

-They were just desperate.
That's a very bad sign.

-This was all the clubs.

We walked into the Hellfire Club
and there were no women there.

There were just a whole lot of
men walking around masturbating.

And as soon as we walked in,
they all turned towards me

like zombies
because they saw a female.

A fully dressed woman
had walked in

and they just turned towards me

and started violently
masturbating,

hoping something
was going to happen.

-It's now the 1980s, so along
with the single men

came something
even more destructive.

-Cocaine just sort of permeated
the whole space

with all the aggression
that comes with that.

People often think of cocaine
as a sex drug,

but it's not really a sex drug.

So you get people, you know,

sitting over
in the corners doing coke

and not engaging
as they had before.

There wasn't that warm,
fun loving camaraderie,

that also included sex

as there had been
at the Ansonia.

-And the new location also
attracted more women

who saw sex as a business.

-All the women were sex workers.
All the men were single.

And any actual legitimate couple
who went in there

and tried to have sex
was just surrounded

by a bunch of masturbating men
trying to intrude.

-The formula doesn't work if
you have a bunch of single guys.

-But as Plato struggled
to recapture

the magic of its early days
at the Ansonia,

the dethroned king of swing
is about to mount his comeback.

-The king returned. Let's look
in at Plato's and take a trip...

-After serving almost
three years,

Larry Levenson was
getting out of prison.

-I could probably
give you the exact date.

September 22nd, 1984.

It was a Wednesday.
I had to go pick him up.

That weekend we had
a huge party for him.

I am more than proud
to present for the first time

back here in 32 months,

the man responsible
for creating a Plato's Retreat,

the king of swing,
Mr. Larry Levenson!

-The king is back.

Welcome to Larry's night
at Plato's Retreat.

-When Larry came back, things
just started all over again

like it never ended.

Larry came in and it picked up,

and boom,
everybody started going crazy.

It was great.
Everybody was happy.

-I think he tried to make up
for lost time.

I think he was just trying

to just like party
every single night.

And that's when I think he got
mixed in with the wrong people.

Let's not be naive about it.

I mean, it's New York City
in the '80s, too,

with drugs all over the place.

I just think
he fell into a bad place

trying to catch up
for lost time.

-Just as Larry Levenson
was getting back

in the swing of things,

New York nightlife was being
forced to transform once more.

And this time, the changes
can mean life or death.

-We were starting to hear
rumblings in Manhattan

about a disease
that was affecting gay men.

-I've lost 74 close friends,

and of course,
I've known a lot more than that.

-But fear and ignorance
are two major obstacles

in trying to deal
with the deadly

and still spreading
disease, AIDS.

-In those late '70s,
nobody worried about sex

being so lethal.

It was really
the advent of AIDS

that people started
to understand

how dangerous sex could be.

Sex could kill you.

-His throne as the king of swing
was under threat

because of the AIDS crisis.

AIDS changed
the entire situation.

-Larry Levenson was
the front man for New York's

most popular sex club --
Plato's Retreat.

But by 1985, his club
was once again in peril

this time, it wasn't the Mafia
or the federal government

that threatened Larry's kingdom,
but sex itself.

-The clubs had, you know,
the mask of the Red Death.

People we knew were dying.

-Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome or...

-The AIDS crisis had dimmed
New York's

once bright nightlife scene.

At first, Larry Levenson
went on the offensive.

-He publicly, multiple times,

said that straight people
couldn't get it.

-No, sir, I'm sorry.
I beg to differ.

-The way that Larry approached
the AIDS crisis

was incredibly ignorant
and dangerous.

-And unconvincing to many of
the swinging couples

who once let it all hang out
at Plato's Retreat.

They were no longer
willing to risk it.

-The people who were going were
single men with sex workers

and the braver edge
of the suburbanites.

And it just didn't work.

-Mayor Ed Koch
took steps to stop

the spread of AIDS
across New York City.

-By protecting the rights
of a minority

we further secure
the majority's rights.

-And in the crosshairs
where the city sex clubs.

First the gay bathhouses
and then Plato's Retreat.

-Tonight, the city closed
Plato's Retreat,

that notorious heterosexual sex
club on Manhattan's West Side.

-On New Year's Eve of '85,

they came basically at 4:00
in the afternoon and said,

you're not opening tonight.

They shut us down.

-The reason they gave us
for prostitution.

-Do you promote
from prostitution here?

-We don't allow prostitution
on the premises. We never have.

I always said we never will.

-Saying that there was
prostitution there,

which there wasn't
and people were, you know,

committing sexual acts
that could cause AIDS.

And that was the final straw.

-The AIDS crisis
had finally done

what Larry Levenson's
relationship problems,

the IRS,
and a prison sentence couldn't,

it shut down
Plato's Retreat forever.

-...Retreat never opened...
-When Plato's were gone,

it was like the worst thing
in my life.

You know, I was the happiest
person in the world,

and they took it
all away from me, you know?

Plato's Retreat is
more than just a club.

It's an institution.

It's a monument
to sexual freedom.

They set us back 50 years.

-My father was just, like,
went into a tailspin.

He was just, like, devastated.
That was his life.

Nothing else mattered
but Plato's Retreat.

He really thought
that he was the king.

-I just wanted to be left alone
to enjoy ourselves.

-It almost felt like the whole
swinging movement was over.

-The swinging woman
certainly died with AIDS

because people felt that
it was a sort of comeuppance,

and it was framed that way
in the Reagan era, especially.

-President Reagan was still at
the airport when he

was asked what schoolchildren
should be taught about AIDS.

-I think that abstinence

has been lacking in
much of the education.

-Is swinging
a dirty word today?

I would say yes, it is,

because it just seems
so passé and so old

and and kind of worn out like
Larry Levenson's penis.

-Swinging is quieter
and more private.

There was a sex culture then.
There is not a sex culture now.

There's nothing united,
certainly.

I think people, you know,
they have their little things

that they like to do
and people don't go out

and do it in public
so much anymore.

-Did we think
it would never stop? Probably.

I mean, who would have thought
that Times Square would

have been so drastically altered
and become Disneyfied?

I miss the old days very much.

I miss the old restaurants
and the peep shows.

-As for the king of swing,
he had lost his throne

and all the perks
that came with it.

-You know what?

As soon as Plato's closed,
they forgot about him.

They didn't know
who Larry Levenson was.

-Larry had come full circle.

He was once again
unable to hold down a job.

He struggled
with drug addiction, his weight,

and lived mostly alone.

-He couldn't get on
with his life.

He couldn't just like,
go get a job.

Go get a job. He didn't know
what to do with his life.

You know, he just didn't know
what to do.

It was just
a sad state of events.

-The last time I saw Larry down
in the New York subway and,

Larry? He's like, oh, hey.
Hey. How you been?

You know,
once a big sloppy kiss and --

and then he just starts
rattling on

about the new club
he's going to open.

It's going to be
like the old days.

It's going to be like
it was at the Ansonia.

-The last I heard, he became
a cab driver in New York.

-I think driving a cab
was something he enjoyed doing.

He met people,
you know, he got out.

And I think that was
that was really good for him.

You know, you have
conversation with people.

What do you do?
Well, I was Larry Levenson.

And, you know,
I owned Plato's Retreat.

-In 1999, years of sex parties
and drug use

finally caught up to Larry.

He died from a heart attack.

-At the end of his life,

the house he lived in
in Brooklyn,

he lived
in the apartment downstairs.

He was driving a cab.
He was overweight.

It just -- it wasn't
going to happen for him again.

He was a man who had a dream,
you know,

and started something
really big.

I do think he's responsible

for bringing
swinging out into the open.

-Plato's legacy is that Larry
was a very kind man

that gave folks
that wanted to swap partners

a kind of cool place
to do that.

And I think that's needed
for people that want that.

And I think that's a good way
to be remembered.

-Back in the '70s,
at the end of the night,

at four in the morning
or whenever they would close,

he'd come out and sing.

He'd croon a song.

It was called
"The Wonder of You."

-The song was made famous
by Elvis,

but the wistful way Larry sang

it helped close out
the night's festivities.

-And it was very surreal
to see him,

of all people doing that
and he was good.

-It was just a very fun time.

And I think people who remember

it are
just very grateful for it.

-I got married.
We did first hook up at Plato's.

-If it were still open,
I would go down and have,

you know,
a delicatessen sandwich there.

-No.

-I would say that Larry Levenson
helped a lot of people.

I think it's an important legacy
to look at

whenever someone
is doing something taboo.

-We all look back fondly
on our youth, don't we?

It was a lot of fun.

Whether you participated or not,
it was a lot of fun to be there

at Plato's.

-♪ The wonder of you ♪