Sex was Larry Levenson’s domain.
Because the owner of swank swingers’ lounge Plato’s Retreat, positioned contained in the Upper West Side’s Ansonia Hotel, he epitomized late Nineteen Seventies hedonism in NYC — and even made partner-swapping mainstream.
It was an unlikely path for the Bronx-born Levenson, an absentee father of three who had previously worked as the overall manager at a Brooklyn McDonald’s.
“Larry was only a dumb guy who lucked into becoming the self-proclaimed king of swing,” Josh Alan Friedman, the previous senior editor of sex tabloid Screw magazine, told The Post.
For his column, “The Naked City,” Friedman frequently reported on the wild hanky panky at Plato’s, which Levenson, then 41, had opened in 1977. A 12 months earlier, Levenson had been introduced to the approach to life after meeting a housewife at a cocktail lounge — after which, later at her place, her consenting husband.
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Soon, outlets akin to Time magazine were reporting on the louche lair at Broadway and 74th Street — and the married suburban habitués it drew. The rise of Levenson’s club was spectacular, but so was its downfall, brought on by alleged mafia ties, federal criminal charges and the eruption of the ’80s AIDS epidemic. The wild tale of his reign because the “King of Swing” is being revisited Tuesday at 9 p.m. as a part of Vice TV’s “Sex Before the Web” series, which explores the world of X-rated thrills before the proliferation of online sites akin to OnlyFans.
“Plato’s Retreat is a component of Latest York City’s history,” Levenson’s son Michael Levenson, 61, told The Post. “It was where everyone desired to be. It was an attraction that everybody desired to see — even in the event that they weren’t swingers.”
A clothed Richard Dreyfuss reportedly checked out the motion while residing on the Ansonia. And the club’s former security director once claimed to Page Six that John Wayne, Sammy Davis Jr., Paul Newman and Madonna were among the many celebrities who had dropped by.
But mainly it was hordes of heterosexual couples and single women — the one clientele permitted inside — who flocked to Plato’s after 10 p.m., feverish to shed their sexual inhibitions, and garments. Couples forked over $25, plus a $5 temporary membership fee, to realize access for 2.
Once inside, they were welcome to benefit from the lounge, which featured an Olympic-sized pool, a 60-person jacuzzi and the legendary “mat room” — where a sea of mattresses accommodated orgies.
“It was very comfortable to be naked,” remembers Dian Hanson, a Plato’s regular, within the documentary. “In actual fact, it was uncomfortable to not be naked.”
Guests undressed in locker rooms, where they got towels, which the club advised may very well be worn in quite a lot of ways to “telegraph their intentions, their preferences.” Only couples could enter the mat room — and so they couldn’t be fully clothed. Quaaludes were the drug of alternative, and while prostitutes were banned, that didn’t stop single men from bringing them to bypass the ban on bachelors.
“All of the porn stars were there. Sex was all the time within the air. And so they had an incredible buffet,” Friedman recalled.
The pot-bellied Levenson, who often donned a luxurious black bathrobe embroidered with the moniker “King of Swing,” would incessantly sit perched atop a throne to raised survey the steamy scene. He even took his sex-positive gospel to the Phil Donahue Show, where he explained that at Plato’s, “We promote social intercourse and sexual activity. Whatever you wish to do, you’ll be able to do.”
“He all the time desired to be this larger-than-life person,” Michael Levenson told The Post. Levenson divorced the mother of his children, Gloria, within the early ’60s when Michael and his twin hassle were 6. “He worked a number of odd jobs,” Michael said, “but once he stumbled upon success with Plato’s Retreat, being famous [in the world of swinging] consumed him.”
Levenson had secured the funds for his swingers’ club through a Brooklyn man named Frank Pernice, who was said to have connections on the planet of organized crime, in accordance with the Vice documentary. The situation within the Ansonia basement had previously been home to the Continental Baths, the gay bathhouse where Bette Midler and Barry Manilow kicked off their careers.
Within the ’70s, the mob had a heavy influence on the town’s sex scene, providing financial backing for topless bars, live sex shows in Time Square and the infamous 1972 porn flick “Deep Throat.”
“I feel Larry Levenson was a front man for Plato’s Retreat,” Friedman told The Post, “and that it was a mob joint like all the pieces within the sex business.”
Meanwhile, Levenson’s indulgences got here at a price.
In 1979, while in a relationship together with his live-in girlfriend Mary — who publicly touted the advantages of their swinging lifestyle, but, in fact, had grown weary of her beau’s many indiscretions — Levenson was robbed and brutally beaten in Queens. The ambush was believed to have been carried out by either the mafia or a Plato’s Retreat limo driver who was also Mary’s secret lover, in accordance with club regulars featured within the doc. 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 on tax evasion charges for skimming $2.3 million in club receipts. He ultimately served 40 months in Allenwood Prison in Pennsylvania.
While he was away, porn actor Fred Lincoln assumed the role of Plato’s Retreat manager. In 1980, after local residents complained about loitering and other nuisances, the club moved right into a large warehouse on thirty fourth Street.
However the relocation, together with tawdry theme parties like mud wrestling, foxy boxing and singles nights — which allowed straight bachelors to enter the club for the primary time — drove regulars away.
“There have been no women,” Hanson recalls within the doc. Meanwhile, as cocaine use within the early ’80s skyrocketed, the clientele swiftly shifted from swinging couples to sex employees and addicts.
Still, after Levenson received an early prison release in September 1984, he hoped to revive his ravaged realm. However the AIDS crisis had led to a city crackdown on sex clubs and bathhouses under former mayor Ed Koch. On Latest Yr’s Eve of 1985, Plato’s Retreat was permanently shuttered on the grounds of prostitution.
A despondent Levenson told an area news station, “We don’t allow prostitution on our premises. We never have and we never will.” He continued, “Plato’s Retreat is greater than only a club. It’s an establishment. It’s a monument to sexual freedom, and so they’ve set us back 50 years.”
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Levenson went on to spend the remaining of his life making fruitless attempts at reestablishing his swinger’s paradise while earning a living as a cab driver.
“He never accepted that Plato’s Retreat closed,” Michael told The Post. “He was depressed. Nothing else mattered to him but Plato’s Retreat.”
Levenson ultimately died of a heart attack at age 62 after undergoing quadruple bypass surgery in 1999.
“During his last days, there have been a number of people within the family who weren’t speaking [to him],” said Michael, who noted that he didn’t have a relationship with Levenson immediately prior to his death. “I feel he felt very alone.”
Their estrangement notwithstanding, Michael said, “I’m pleased with what he created.”
“It was the sexual Studio 54.”
