The Roxy - Awesome Photos From 1990s Mega NYC Skate Club

New York City after dark in the ‘90s was an ecstatic fever dream fueled by club kids’ outrageous fantasies, and as house photographer for Peter Gatien’s four iconic clubs, Steve Eichner had a ringside seat for all the action. To celebrate the October 20 release of “In the Limelight: The Visual Excess of NYC Night Life in the 90s,” Eichner’s new book with Gabriel Sanchez, Patch takes you back to his old stomping grounds. Our latest club-hop stop circles back to Eichner’s pre-Gatien career shooting for the Roxy, a rolling rink turned nightclub where he first earned his spurs.

Steve Eichner was just a starry-eyed kid with big dreams when he packed up his camera gear in his hometown of Long Beach, Long Island, and set up his first NYC photo studio at 27th St. and 11th Avenue. But those dreams didn’t take long to manifest. Auspiciously located just blocks away from the Roxy on West 18th St., the studio put Eichner within shooting distance of one of the hottest clubs in town. Though he’d already started documenting NYC nightlife for Manhattan Lifestyles magazine, his career really took off when Roxy owner Gene DiNino rolled out the red carpet and gave Eichner access to every VIP nook and cranny.

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“Roxy was my first love as far as mega clubs go,” says Eichner, who paints a vivid picture of the crazy scene he captured in many photos. “Roller skaters would whiz around while Madonna blasted from the sound system and a drag queen soared high above the dance floor in a swing wearing a formal gown and pink roller skates.” Meanwhile, up in the VIP area, where supermodels like Naomi Campbell popped champagne with rock stars like Michael Stipe, Eichner snapped fabulous in-the-wild celeb shots. One standout photo in the book shows Debbie Harry in full Munch “The Scream” mode, screeching her lungs out in a skintight red sequined sheath.

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Famous throughout Manhattan for its gay Saturday dance parties, the Roxy welcomed gender benders of all persuasions on any given night, which could sometimes get a little tricky for the house photographer. “I remember going into the bathroom as a young buff dude and getting hit on by the men in there,” Eichner recalls with a grin. “It was flattering but not my bend.” And whenever he whipped out his camera on the dancefloor, even the recently rebuffed were happy to let Eichner document their fabulousness through his lens.

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So were the Club Kids, who were just then emerging as a dominant force in NYC nightlife. “The Roxy introduced me to Club Kids like Screamin’ Rachel, who brought house music from Chicago to New York and became a close friend,” recalls Eichner. “Really Denise, Richie Rich, James St. James and other Club Kids of that era dressed up every single night of the week. They pranced around in the most creative, outrageous, outlandish, upside down costume-y kind of outfits they could think of, drinking Absolut and cranberries they got for free with drink tickets, hoping to get photographed.”

With eye candy like that, Eichner was happy to oblige. He snapped golden boy Marlon in a skimpy yellow loin cloth, captured a gorgeous male hunk painted tribal green from head to toe, and snapped the ever-photogenic Really Denise being fed a big bunch of grapes, Roman orgy-style. And the Roxy was just the on-ramp for all that lay ahead of Eichner in the ‘90s club scene.

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“All these clubs were the breeding ground for so much culture,” says Eichner, who loved being able to revisit that fertile period while working on ‘In the Limelight.’ “The era I captured in the book was an extremely experimental time: a petri dish, a primordial slime of musicians and designers and artists and LBGTQ. It was a cultural revolution.”

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All photos are by Steve Eichner and can be seen featured in his new book called "In The Limelight - The Visual Ecstasy of NYC Nightlife in the 90s"

Steve Eichner is a legendary nightlife photographer. After his tenure in the clubs, he worked as a staff photographer for Women’s Wear Daily for nearly two decades. His photographs have been published in Vogue, The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, Rolling Stone, People, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, Details and GQ.

Check out more from the series below:

- Club USA - Dazzling Photos From 1990s Glitziest NYC Club

- The Limelight - Stunning Photos From 1990s Favorite NYC Nightclub

- Palladium - Fab Photos From 1990s Most Futuristic NYC Club

- Tunnel: Wild Photos From 1990s Most Creative NYC Club