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Photos: Efrain Gonzalez Chronicled NYC's Seedy, Glorious West Side Nightlife

By

Ben MIller

Published Mar 24, 2014

Modified Mar 24, 2014

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The whole area of the West Side Highway between Christopher St. and 14th St. was the sex workers' domain; they would work there at night...If you drove your car up the West Side Highway, they would be walking up the street, flashing parts of their bodies.

 

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By

Ben MIller

Published Mar 24, 2014

Modified Mar 24, 2014

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New York City photographer Efrain John Gonzalez says he's "not a professional photographer, just OCD." He describes his work as telling "a story of people finding the path to their souls, finding their bliss with piercings, branding, cuttings, tattoos, latex, implants, leather, and a whole lot of radical sex and sexuality." Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, while working various jobs (including driving a cab), Gonzalez took thousands of photographs of New York's seedier nightlife, at bars, restaurants, and sex clubs in the Meatpacking District and the West Village.

"These were abandoned areas," he told us, "There was nothing there. You could photograph it and make interesting pictures. All the places and people and organizations that I used to photograph are all gone, so what I'm trying to do now is find some way to use, and make public, these images." Gothamist is proud to publish a small selection of Gonzalez' photographs, alongside his reminiscences of what he photographed. For more images (many NSFW), and books for sale, visit his website.

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