The Pyramid Club

East Village

New York City

Art & Culture | Bars | History

Legendary 80's Club Still Going Strong and Worthy for a Fun Step Back in Time

Pyramid Club 80s Dance east village nightlife

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About The Pyramid Club

& why it made the Carpe City list

A self-described “Time Zone of Music History,” this 80s bar has some storied history, from Madonna to Wigstock.
The legendary Pyramid Club opened in 1979 and became a home of the avant-garde, countercultural, and perhaps most notably, drag performances.
The club was a hangout for famous drag performers like Lypsinka, Lady Bunny, and RuPaul, whose first New York City show was at the Pyramid Club in 1982.
During Labor Day Weekend 1984, Lady Bunny’s drag show went on into the wee hours, then spilled out into Tompkins Square Park and thus the annual end of summer drag party coined the Wigstock Festival was born. More about Wigstock below!
Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry dropped in the Pyramid to do a feature on the club for MTV, and Madonna appeared at her first AIDS benefit at the club.
Both Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers played their first New York City concerts here.
Today, the Pyramid Club is a meeting ground & mecca for music lovers of ’80s, Punk, Goth, New Wave, Alternative, Brit & Synth Pop.
In 2012, The Pyramid Club received landmark status as part of the East Village/Lower East Side Historic District.

Carpe City Trivia

The Pyramid Prost!

The space on the ground floor of 101 Avenue A originally housed a German-American social and banquet hall known as Kern’s Hall. Just one of many centers of German-American life in the East Village, the space hosted community events, including an 1879 dinner celebrating the completion of Tompkins Square Park.

More generally, for many decades, the East Village was called Kleindeutschland, or “Little Germany.” The German immigrants who lived here made up the largest German-speaking community in the world outside of Berlin and Vienna, contributing in significant ways to the vibrant commercial and cultural life of the city. In fact, German immigrants introduced lager beers to New York City, forever altering the city’s drinking landscape.

Drag at the Pyramid Club, Home of Wigstock

The Pyramid Club used to host experimental drag performances, one of a few spaces that gave drag performers free-reign to be completely original in their art and personas.

The Pyramid Club also hosted themed drag competitions, including “Outer Space,” “Trailer Park,” and “The Civil War.” Performers went wild with those themes, and this free-creativity captured the attention of bar regulars like Madonna, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Cyndi Lauper, and many more.

One night in 1984, after the “Queen of the Pyramid Club” Lady Bunny gave her performance, she and a group of drag queens stumbled, drunk and delighted, across the street to Tompkins Square Park for an impromptu public drag performance. Thus, Wigstock! Its first audience was just a few homeless people, but in the years that followed, Lady Bunny’s annual tradition became famous, attracting crowds. Wigstock took a break between 2001 and 2017 but returned in 2018 to great fun and acclaim.