Sex was Larry Levenson’s domain.
Because the owner of the elegant swingers salon Plato’s Retreat, positioned in the Ansonia Hotel on the Upper West Side, he epitomized the hedonism of late Nineteen Seventies New York and even made partner swapping mainstream.
It was an unlikely path for Bronx-born Levenson, the absentee father of three who previously worked because the CEO of Brooklyn McDonald’s.
“Larry was only a dumb guy who was lucky enough to turn out to be the self-proclaimed king of swing,” Josh Alan Friedman, former editor-in-chief of sex-table magazine Screw, told The Post.
In his column “The Naked City”, Friedman repeatedly reported on wild wipes at Plato’s, which Levenson, then 41, had opened in 1977. A 12 months earlier, Levenson had learned about this lifestyle after meeting a housewife over a salon cocktail—after which, later, her consenting husband.
Soon stores like Magazine they reported on the louche den on Broadway and 74th Street – and the married regulars of the suburbs that attracted. Levenson’s club’s rise was spectacular, but its fall was just as spectacular, fueled by alleged Mafia ties, federal criminal charges and the Eighties AIDS outbreak. Vice TV “Sex Before the Web” that explores the world of adult thrills before web sites like Only Fans became prevalent. (The Vice TV app is accessible to stream with Hulu+ live AND fuboTV subscriptions.)
“Plato’s Retreat is a component of New York’s history,” Levenson’s son, Michael Levenson, 61, told The Post. “It was a spot everyone desired to be. It was an attraction that everybody desired to see – even in the event that they weren’t swingers.”
Dressed, Richard Dreyfuss reportedly checked the motion while living in Ansonia. And the club’s former security director once told Page Six that John Wayne, Sammy Davis Jr., Paul Newman and Madonna were among the many celebrities who busted in.
However it was mostly hordes of straight couples and single women – the one customers allowed in – who flocked to Plato’s after 10:00 p.m., frantically shedding their sexual inhibitions and garments. Couples spent over $25 plus a $5 temporary membership fee to get access for 2.
Once inside, they may use the lounge, which had an Olympic-size swimming pool, a 60-person jacuzzi, and the legendary “mat room” – a sea of mattresses that housed orgies.
“Being naked was very comfortable,” Plato’s regular Dian Hanson recalls in the documentary. “It was actually uncomfortable not being naked.”
Guests undressed in the locker rooms, where they got towels, which the club advisable may very well be worn in alternative ways to “send their intentions, preferences”. Only couples could enter the room with mats – they usually couldn’t be fully clothed. Quaaludes was the drug of alternative, and while prostitutes were outlawed, that did not stop single men from bringing them along to avoid the bachelors ban.
“All of the porn stars were there. Sex was all the time in the air. And so they had an important buffet,” recalls Friedman.
The chubby Levenson, who often donned an opulent black bathrobe with the moniker “King of Swing” embroidered on it, would often sit atop the throne to raised observe the steamy scene. He even took his sex-positive gospel to the Phil Donahue Show, where he explained that in Plato, “We promote social and sexual activity. Whatever you ought to do, you possibly can do it.”
“He all the time desired to be this above-average person,” Michael Levenson told The Post. Levenson divorced his kid’s mother, Gloria, in the early Sixties when Michael and his twin were 6 years old. “He did a whole lot of odd jobs,” said Michael, “but one time he stumbled upon the success of Plato’s Retreat while being famous [in the world of swinging] swallowed him up.”
Levenson secured the funds for his swingers club through a Brooklyn man named Frank Pernice, who reportedly has connections in the world of organized crime, based on the Vice documentary. Ansonia’s basement site was previously home to Continental Baths, the gay bathhouse where Bette Midler and Barry Manilow began their careers.
Within the Nineteen Seventies, the mafia had a huge effect on town’s sex scene, financially supporting topless bars, live sex shows in Time Square, and the infamous 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat.
“I believe Larry Levenson was the frontman of Plato’s Retreat,” Friedman told The Post, “and that it was the Mafia, like all the pieces in the sex business.”
Meanwhile, Levenson’s pardons got here at a price.
In 1979, while in a relationship together with his girlfriend Mary – who publicly touted the advantages of their swinging lifestyle but was really weary of her boyfriend’s many indiscretions – Levenson was robbed and brutally beaten in Queens. The ambush is believed to have been carried out by the mob or Plato’s Retreat limousine driver, who was also Mary’s secret lover, based on the club-goers featured in the documentary. Levenson was left with two broken legs.
More trouble for the swinging mogul got here in 1981, when he was sentenced to eight years in prison for tax evasion for extorting $2.3 million in club proceeds. He eventually served 40 months at Allenwood Prison in Pennsylvania.
During his absence, porn actor Fred Lincoln took on the role of manager of Plato’s Retreat. In 1980, after local residents complained about vagrancy and other inconveniences, the club moved to a big warehouse on thirty fourth Street.
However the move, complete with cheesy themed parties like mud wrestling, fox boxing and singles nights – which allowed straight bachelors to enter the club for the primary time – has scared away the regulars.
“There have been no women,” recalls Hanson in the documentary. Meanwhile, as cocaine use skyrocketed in the early Eighties, the clientele rapidly shifted from swinging couples to prostitutes and addicts.
Still, after Levenson was released early from prison in September 1984, he hoped to rebuild his ravaged kingdom. However the AIDS crisis led to town cracking down on sex clubs and bathhouses under former mayor Ed Koch. On New 12 months’s Eve 1985, Plato’s Retreat was permanently closed as a consequence of prostitution.
A depressed Levenson told a neighborhood news station: “We do not allow prostitution on our premises. We never have and we never will.” He continued: “Plato’s Retreat is greater than a club. That is an establishment. It is a monument to sexual freedom, they usually’ve taken us back 50 years.”
Levenson spent the remainder of his life fruitlessly attempting to restore his swingers paradise while making a living as a taxi driver.
“He never accepted the closure of Platon’s Retreat,” Michael told The Post. “He was depressed. Nothing else mattered to him but Plato’s Escape.
Levenson eventually died of a heart attack on the age of 62 after undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in 1999.
“During his final days, there have been many individuals in the family who didn’t speak [to him]”said Michael, who noted that he had no relationship with Levenson immediately before his death. “I believe he felt very lonely.”
Despite their alienation, Michael said, “I’m happy with what he created.”
“It was the sexual Studio 54.”