Larry Levenson
{{Short description|American club owner (1936–1999)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Larry Levenson
| image = Larry Levenson.jpg
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = 1936
| birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.
| death_date = January 23, {{dya|1999|1936}}
| death_place = New York City, New York, U.S.
| other_names = The King of Swing
| occupation = Club owner, swinger
| years_active =
| known_for =
| notable_works =
}}
Larry Levenson (1936 – January 23, 1999) was an American club owner who founded the swingers club Plato's Retreat.{{Cite web|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-29-ca-swing29-story.html|title=The Swinging '70s: Retreating to Plato's|first=Gary|last=Goldstein|date=March 29, 2009|work=Los Angeles Times | access-date = April 3, 2025}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/22/nyregion/new-york-observed-fantasy-island.html|title= New York Observed; Fantasy Island |first=Jon |last=Hart|date=September 22, 2002|work = The New York Times | access-date = April 3, 2025}}{{cite web|title=The Romans Did It, and Now . . .|author=Bachrach, Judy|date=February 23, 1978|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1978/02/23/the-romans-did-it-and-now/df3e3b20-70ac-4d9d-92b8-d0d4d6d2794d/|work=The Washington Post | access-date = April 3, 2025 |url-access = subscription}}{{Cite web | author = Hayden-Guest, Anthony | date = December 20, 2020 |url =https://avenuemagazine.com/larry-levenson-platos-retreat-nyc-nightclub-history-notorious-new-yorker/|title=Larry Levenson and Plato's Retreat, the Notorious Swingers' Club of NYC – The Founder of the 1970s Sex Club Is Remembered by an Occasional Visitor to His Establishment | work = Avenue | access-date = April 3, 2025}}
Biography
Levenson started working in the service industry but encountered the swinging life and found a new calling. He opened his first swingers club in a basement of a small hotel on East 23rd Street, and soon moved to The Ansonia, replacing the hotel's basement Continental Baths. His goal was to bring "to the straight world the liberty of the gay clubs."
In 1980, he moved the club's location again to West 34th Street and announced his intention to create a chain of Plato's clubs.
Levenson was sentenced to eight years in prison in 1981 for tax evasion.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/07/10/nyregion/the-city-sex-club-owners-get-8-year-terms.html|title=The City; Sex Club Owners Get 8-Year Terms |date=July 10, 1981|work= The New York Times | access-date = April 3, 2025}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/02/06/nyregion/the-city-owners-of-sex-club-indicted-in-tax-case.html|title= The City; Owners of Sex Club Indicted in Tax Case|date=February 6, 1981| work = The New York Times | access-date = April 3, 2025}}
After the closing of Plato's Retreat, he worked as a cab driver.
He died in 1999 after quadruple bypass heart surgery.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/25/classified/paid-notice-deaths-levenson-lawrence-larry-king-of-swing.html|title=Paid Notice: Deaths Levenson, Lawrence Larry King of Swing.|date=January 25, 1999| work = The New York Times}}
Levenson was featured in the 2008 documentary American Swing.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/movies/27swin.html|title=Where the Action Was|authorlink=Stephen Holden|first=Stephen|last=Holden|date=March 27, 2009| work = The New York Times | access-date = April 3, 2025}} Nicknamed the 'King of Swing', he claimed having sexual relations with 10 different women in one night, and once won a bet against Al Goldstein that he could ejaculate fifteen times within a twenty-four-hour day.{{cite book |last=Friedman |first=Josh Alan |author-link=Josh Alan Friedman |title=Tales of Times Square |date=1993 |publisher=Feral House |pages=98–124 |chapter=Pecker Full of Miracles |orig-year=1986}}
References
{{reflist}}
Filmography
- American Swing (2008), directed by directed by Matthew Kaufman, documentary about the 1970s phenomenon of swinging at Plato's Retreat in New York City
External links
- {{IMDb name|0505271}}
- {{findagrave|133547453}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levenson, Larry}}
Category:Date of birth missing
Category:20th-century American businesspeople
Category:American business executives
Category:American people convicted of tax crimes
Category:American prisoners and detainees
Category:Businesspeople from Manhattan
Category:American hospitality businesspeople
Category:Deaths from complications of heart surgery
Category:American organization founders
Category:People from the Upper West Side
Category:Swinging (sexual practice)
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