Paradise Garage — New York

Paradise Garage at 84 King Street in SoHo operated from 1977 to 1987 as one of New York's most influential nightclubs — a members-only space on a custom-built sprung dancefloor with a sound system designed by Richard Long that remains a benchmark in club acoustics. Resident DJ Larry Levan's ten-year residency produced the genre now called garage house and influenced virtually every DJ who came after him. The club was predominantly Black and gay at a moment when those identities were under severe social and political pressure, and the Garage's Saturday nights were among the most significant cultural events in late-twentieth-century New York.

Madonna's connection to the Paradise Garage was part of the network of downtown New York club culture that formed her early audience and shaped her aesthetic. Producer Jellybean Benitez brought tracks from her 1983 debut album to Larry Levan before the official release, and the Garage's dancefloor became an early testing ground for her music. She performed there on multiple occasions in the early 1980s, including at Keith Haring's birthday party in May 1984. The club's emphasis on physical, communal, ecstatic dancing was the environment for which her early records were designed.

Paradise Garage closed in 1987 when its lease expired, and Larry Levan died of heart failure related to drug use in 1992 at age 38. The building at 84 King Street, a former public parking garage converted into a club space, still stands in the Hudson Square neighbourhood. A New York City LGBT Historic Sites Project plaque has been installed at the address. The Garage's influence on dance music — house, garage, and the entire lineage of electronic club music — is as significant as any recording studio in the history of popular music.