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Divorced veteran swinger Larry Levenson opened the sex club Plato's Retreat in New York in September 1976. Angry landlords forced Levenson to move from seven other locations before he settled in the basement of a rundown residential hotel Ansonia on the Upper West Side. He paid rent of $100,000 a year on 24,000 square feet. Plato's became the most celebrated swing club in the world. On an average night, over 200 couples stopped by. Before he opened Platos, Levenson, born in the Bronx, was collecting unemployment checks. A former McDonalds manager, he borrowed $150,000 to open Platos, probably from shady sources. With his partner Mike Ross, Levenson hoped to open a string of sex clubs around the country. Around 1979, Levenson accidentally gave the IRS the correct set of books and he was jailed for 40 months, beginning in 1981, for tax evasion. For his collossal blunder, Levenson had every limb in his body broken. On November 22, 1985, the New York City Health Department closed Plato's down for prostitution and failure to get an occupancy permit. (What Wild Ecstasy by John Heidenry, p. 360) Levenson began making his living by driving a cab. He was estranged from his three grown sons. Ellis Hellican writes in the 1/31/99 Newsday about recollections of Levenson by writer Jon Hart: "He didn't seem well," Hart said. "He was heavy. He was breathing hard. He was a little standoff-ish at first." But slowly the older man seemed to warm up. "We drove along. He started to tell me his story. The club. Going to jail for taxes. Having sex with 30,000 women..." "For him, Plato's was paradise," Hart said. "It was couples-only. There was no pressure. You'd come in. You could relax. You could hang out. You could have something at the buffet. You could dance. If you didn't want to get undressed that was fine. If you did, even better. Take a dip in the pool. "The way he told it, it really wasn't even about the sex to him. It wasn't about the money. It was this big community of people, and Larry was the host." As Levenson drove and talked, passengers got in and out of his cab. Many of them seemed quite fascinated by the driver's bawdy tales. Several people seemed reluctant to get out of the cab when they had reached their destinations. The meter was still running. But they wanted to hear more. "He loved driving the cab. He loved interacting with the people of New York. When he was at Plato's, it was, `Here are the cubicles. Here's the orgy room. Here's the hot buffet.' Now he was hosting people in his taxi. He was happiest behind the wheel." At the beginning of this month, Larry Levenson checked into the U.S. Veterans Administration Hospital in Manhattan. He'd been suffering with diabetes. His heart valves were seriously clogged. The doctors told him he needed a triple bypass. Despite his fragile health, he hadn't lost his smile or his wink. 10/98 By Mark Kramer Larry Levenson--once famed as The King of Swing--is enveloped by sounds of Gotham’s Saturday night swirl as he holds forth from his regular booth at the Market Diner on 11th Avenue and 43rd St. Once upon a time, Levenson’s orgy club Plato’s Retreat offered the ultimate in on-premise eroticism. Levenson would subsequently suffer a series of reversals---the padlocking of Plato’s, a federal prison stretch, et al--leading to his current occupation as a taxi driver. Levenson, speaking via cell phone, relives last week’s party “celebrating” the 30th Anniversary of Al Goldstein’s weekly porn tabloid Screw. The signal carrying Levenson’s voice is commingled with clattering dishes and and the chirp of overcaffeinated nightbirds. “Back when I had Plato’s, and Al Goldstein had just won his Kansas obscenity case, I donated my club. Free of charge, I gave a party for Al, his friends, his employees, the jurors in the trial....everyone. I regarded Al Goldstein as my friend. ”So here I am at Al’s party last week. I’m with my lady friend Candy deLarouche. We go back a lot of years, back to the swing days. But we’re just good friends... ”As we’re walking in, Al’s Midnight Blue cable-TV camera crew comes over to interview me.. And their question is, “Why does everyone hate Al Goldstein? And I’m like, “I’m not going to say anything negative about Al Goldstein. He invited me to his party and he deserves that courtesy, at the very least. Then Ron Jeremy, who’s the MC, said he’d like to bring me up on stage. He says to Al, “I know you’re going bring Larry up on stage and introduce him.” And Al says, “This is my party. It’s not Larry’s party.” I thought he was kidding. I said to him, “You’re kidding, right? You can’t be serious.” And Al says to me, “This is not your party. This is my party.” I mean I really thought he was kidding. He wasn’t. I was mortified. My date was mortified. I said, “Candy, let’s get the hell out of here.” We had to walk the whole length of the club, and each step of the way Candy’s coming more and more unglued over this. Finally, she broke down. She started screaming, “Al Goldstein is a piece of s---! Al Goldstein is a piece of s---!” I was embarrassed. For her. For myself. Ron Jeremy was looking down in shock. I tried to get her out of there. Again and again, she screamed, “Al Goldstein is a piece of s---....” The arrival of Levenson’s dinner brings our interview to a close, but not before Levenson confirmed reports that the Screw fete unfolded in a nearly celebrity-free zone ornamented with a weary passel of B-listers including Larry Flynt, Professor Irwin “The Foremost Expert” Corey, Candida Royalle, Robyn Bird, and Al “Grandpa Munster” Lewis. No Guccione. No Hefner. No ACLU nabobs. Summarized The King of Swing: “Goldstein hasn’t got a friend in the world." From the underground tabloid "The New York Ace" March 1, 1972 "Al Goldstein's America" "WHAT DO I STAND FOR? I am committed to nothing save the protection of my own ass and were the F.B.I. to offer a proper stipend I would turn testimony on you quicker than a politician in heat..."
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