How punk band the Ramones memorialized this infamous NYC gay cruising spot

If you were to visit present-day 53rd Street and Third Avenue in New York City, you’d see a Duane Reade and TD Bank amongst towering corporate buildings, and of course, and a Starbucks.

But back in the 1970s, the intersection was part of The Loop, an area “where young male hustlers [hung] out and older men [cruised] to buy sexual favors.”

The fact that such an explicitly LGBTQ+ cruising spot could exist in Manhattan (and so many avenues away from the neighborhood later known as Hell’s Kitchen, at that) is a testament to a bygone and much seedier New York City.

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