Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1985. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - November 23, 1985
Jeffrey Schmalz
Although no sexual practices linked to the spread of AIDS were observed there, city officials said, the prostitution was first reported by undercover inspectors from the Department of Consumer Affairs who had been sent to the club in search of such practices.
City officials have been under increasing pressure from homosexual-rights groups since Nov. 7, when they shut down the Mine Shaft, a homosexual club, under new state powers designed to combat AIDS, acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The groups have accused the city of using the powers to single out homosexuals.
As a result, what would otherwise have been a routine prostitution case -the order to close Plato's Retreat, a heterosexual club at 509 West 34th Street - wound up the subject of an unusual 7:30 P.M. news conference at City Hall.
Koch Supports Action
Top officials, including First Deputy Mayor Stanley Brezenoff and the city's Corporation Counsel, Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., said they wanted to show that they were just as quick to move against a heterosexual establishment as a homosexual one. They added that they expected to serve papers on Plato's Retreat and shut it down by early this morning.
"I am delighted," Mayor Koch said in a statement dictated to his office from Japan, where he is on vacation. "We will not permit premises to be used for prostitution or high-risk sexual practices, whether they are heterosexual or homosexual."
Legal Papers Released
City officials obtained the order to close Plato's Retreat from Justice Stanley S. Ostrau of State Supreme Court in Manhattan after arguing that the establishment was a base for prostitution, and therefore a public nuisance, and that it was occupying the premises without a certificate of occupancy. The judge ordered all concerned parties to appear for a hearing on Tuesday Just as city officials did when they announced the closing of the Mine Shaft, they released more than a hundred pages of legal papers on Plato's Retreat, including affidavits by inspectors and police officers containing graphic accounts of sexual activities inside the club.
According to the affidavits, two undercover consumer-affairs inspectors visited the club on Nov. 4 to determine if sexual activities linked to the spread of AIDS - anal intercourse and fellatio - were being committed there. The inspectors reported no such activities but did report being approached by prostitutes.
Prostitution is out of the jurisdiction of the inspectors, and the matter was referred to the police. Undercover police officers visited the club and also reported prostitution taking place. Four people identified as prostitutes were arrested.
Reached by telephone at Plato's Retreat last night, Larry Levenson, one of the owners, said of the order to close: "It's a setup. We have no prostitution on these premises."
"Because of politics they're closing us down," he added.
Until 1980, the club was in the basement of the Ansonia Hotel, at 74th Street and Broadway.
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