Dapper Dan, designer

In the mornings, I’d walk along 125th Street to the store, which I opened in ’82. I’d make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. More likely than not, I’d have to go downtown to the garment center to get some fabric or trimming. If it was a Thursday, I’d be rushing to get all my work done, because that was the night I went dancing. There was a popular Puerto Rican dance club, Ochentas, and across the street from that was an Afro-Cuban spot, Club Broadway. I didn’t smoke or drink, and when you don’t do those things, you need an outlet. I’d dance until about two in the morning and then I’d go back to work. I knew so many people in Harlem, I kept a second apartment in the Bronx, where I tried to be unseen. But I had a new Mercedes-Benz, and I’d leave it in front of the store when I was in Harlem so people knew they could reach me.

Cornelia Guest, actress

Four days a week, I was studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute down on 15th Street. Back uptown, Mortimer’s restaurant was a huge place for me. It was social, the Upper East Side ladies. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs. Sometimes we’d have lunch. If you wanted fancy, you’d go to La Grenouille. If you just wanted to grab a sandwich, you’d go to Burger Heaven. If I were going out that night, I’d go see Garren to fix my hair. And then off we’d go! I’d go with Andy Warhol, or to dinner and then to Studio 54 afterwards. The city was different then. You could order a pizza anytime. Now nothing’s open after 11.

Crazy Legs, dancer

When I first moved to Manhattan I was eager to get back to the Bronx as often as possible, so I would go to the Pathmark on 207th Street and pack bags to try to make change. I would get some bus money, some pizza money, some soda money and some money to be able to get into a jam. At the end of the night I would walk all the way home. When I really started hanging out in Manhattan, the primary place for my crew was Rock Steady Park [Happy Warrior Playground] on 98th and Amsterdam. Afterward, we’d go to a club. Broadway 96 [Club Broadway] was more geared to black and Latino youth and that was definitely a wilder place. You would have Rock Steady Crew and Zulu Nation on one side of the room, and this notorious gang called the Ball Busters on the other. The Roxy was on Fridays, when the party was Wheels of Steel, which initially started at Negril in the East Village. I was 16 when we started going to the Roxy, and my guest list was 100 people, and we were kind of like the ornaments on the tree.