The Sanctuary
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Sanctuary was a discotheque in New York city which opened in 1969. It was located on West 43rd Street in a converted German Baptist church in the Hell's Kitchen area of New York. The altar was the deejay box. It closed after 1972 and its resident DJ was Francis Grasso. Other collaborators included Steve D'Aquisto and Michael Capello.
It was along with other locales such as the Ice Palace on Fire Island, the restaurant-discotheque Aux Puces one of the first modern nightclubs.
It evolved from a straight disco for white celebrities to a a population of almost entirely gay men.
As Peter Braunstein noted "The Sanctuary epitomized the post-Stonewall era, when gay men had won the right to dance intimately together without worrying about the police."
