Video Interview, Tony Mascioli, November 29, 2011
- KEVIN INVODINO: Can I move up a bit closer to him
- without being in the shot.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I think so.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: You almost had a gonging clock in there.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Ev, you could sit down
- or watch on the monitor-- whatever you want to do.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I'll stand over here in the corner.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Well, you don't have to stand here.
- (Unintelligible)
- And like I said, once we get into this
- and you want to answer something differently, just say,
- let me try that again.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: OK.
- KEVIN INVODINO: OK.
- We're rolling?
- CREW: We're rolling.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Here's a tough question.
- I need you to correctly spell your first and last name
- for me.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Anthony Mascioli, M-A-S-C-I-O-L-I.
- KEVIN INVODINO: We're going to start with the late 40s, early
- 50s-- that time period.
- Just tell me, what was Rochester like back then?
- What are your memories of Rochester back
- in the late 40s, early 50s?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, Rochester
- was actually a little bit of a swinging town.
- We had a Navy base near by at Geneva, so there was always--
- these guys used to come in, and downtown was very busy.
- There were actually a couple of nightclubs
- and one or two gay bars, even then.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Talk to me about it.
- Talk to me--
- (Laughter)
- (Unintelligible talking in background)
- KEVIN INVODINO: OK.
- We're gonna ask the same question again.
- Just talk to me about what Rochester was like in
- the late '40s, early '50s.
- You're a teenager, you're getting out there.
- Talk to me about what you were experiencing.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, downtown Rochester
- after the Second World War was very busy.
- That's where all the department stores were.
- People went shopping there.
- There was a nightlife.
- There were a couple of nightclubs for straight people.
- There was a couple of gay bars.
- Altogether, I at the time thought
- it wasn't very lively, because I was in a New York City
- frame of mind.
- But it was, when I look back on it, kind of fun.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Let's talk about the gay scene then.
- Back when you were coming out, what
- was the social scene for the gay community in Rochester?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: The social scene for the gay community
- was quite sub rosa, as was everywhere else at the time.
- I mean, the bars were--
- well, the public didn't even know about them.
- I mean, maybe some high school kids did.
- When I was in high school, there was a bar called
- the Rustic Bar on Front Street.
- And it was a notorious establishment only
- because, oh, my goodness, queer people went in that place.
- In fact, one or a few times, I went over
- with some buddies of mine, because I wasn't out yet,
- and we were just looking around from the outside
- and, sort of, sneering as people did in those days.
- But that closed, about, the time I got out of high school
- and came out.
- And that was replaced by Dick's across the street,
- which is in the middle of--
- well, it would be Rochester's answer to the Bowery.
- Front Street in that era was where drunks and down-and-outs
- were.
- KEVIN INVODINO: How did you find out about these places?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I found out about the Rustic Garden
- simply because it was an institution for high school
- boys to know something like that, that there was this queer
- bar downtown.
- And I simply--
- I don't know, just word of mouth, mostly.
- I was just waiting for the day when
- I would be able to go into these places, when
- I got out of high school and could get served.
- At that time, you could be served at 18.
- So I started going in there at, about, 17 and 1/2,
- but not the Rustic Garden.
- I went to Dick's.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Tell me what Dick's was like.
- What was it like--
- talk to me about your first experience of walking
- into Dick's.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, like everything else for me at that
- time, it was new and exciting to go into Dick's.
- But after all, it wasn't really anything like today's bars.
- It was really for drunks.
- That's really what-- it was originally for drunks,
- and then the owner decided that he was
- going to cater to gay people.
- And so there was a mix.
- It was, kind of, a crazy situation.
- But nevertheless, for a new person just coming out,
- it was all very exciting, and I met a lot of people there.
- KEVIN INVODINO: We're still talking about the late '40s
- and 1950s here.
- What was Rochester's general attitude
- towards gay bars or the gay scene?
- How did they react to it?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I don't think that the Rochester public
- really knew that there was a gay bar on Front Street
- and, later, on Clinton Avenue, the Glass Bar.
- Because first of all, the Glass Bar was a mixed bar.
- It was not completely gay.
- They had female strippers on top of the bar
- and a little three-piece trio playing.
- It was, kind of, fun and a very lively place.
- And it was a mix.
- You made do with the mix.
- It was, kind of, exciting, really.
- So that didn't bother them.
- And the place on Front Street--
- I don't think most Rochester people even knew about or cared
- about such a location.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Were there other places
- where gay men could socialize, you know, in the 1950s,
- other than the bars?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: No, in the 1950s,
- essentially, for social life, you really needed the bars.
- I mean, I don't think there were--
- to my knowledge, there were no clubs or anything like that.
- It was strictly a bar situation.
- There were no baths that I know of, certainly not in Rochester.
- There might have been baths in New York City,
- or big cities like that.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Let's talk a little bit more
- about some of the specific bars.
- You talked to me once about a bar called The Oasis.
- I remember something about a back room, that experience.
- Talk to me about The Oasis.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, sure.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Talk to me about the back room,
- and why the back room was so important.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: There was a bar in Rochester,
- right after I got out of high school in 1948, that
- was a short-lived place.
- It was called The Oasis on South Avenue, a little bit
- south of the Rundel Library.
- And what made this place unique was
- that men could dance together in the back room.
- This was quite unheard of in that particular era.
- That was illegal, and it had to be done very secretly
- in the back room.
- In fact, there were times when we
- had to stop dancing when there was
- a possibility that the plainclothesmen might
- be coming in there.
- But I can't recall exactly why, but it didn't last very long.
- They must have shut it down.
- KEVIN INVODINO: So that brings me back to some of the secrecy
- that you still have to, kind of, go with back in those days
- about not being gay.
- I mean, there was some sort of stigma,
- where if you had to dance in back rooms.
- Did you ever feel any negative attitudes
- from the general society about who you were, or ever
- feel that you really needed to hide who you were?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Yes.
- In that era, I felt that I had to hide who I was.
- And I did hide who I was.
- I mean, I just did what--
- you know, I dated and I did what was expected to do.
- I certainly didn't come out to my parents.
- That came a little bit later, that kind of thing.
- So yes, everything was very secretive.
- KEVIN INVODINO: There's another place where you
- talk about the Manger Hotel.
- What was that place like?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: When things got a little bit better--
- I would say, it would have been in the '50s when
- there was a hotel in Clinton, near Main Street, called
- the Seneca.
- Later, it became the Manger.
- And the Manger Hotel--
- take that out, the mango.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Take it out.
- You start over.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Let's see.
- Start all over.
- You have to start the question again.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Talk to me about your experience
- at the Manger Hotel.
- What was the Manger Hotel, and what was it like to go there?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: There was a very nice hotel in Rochester
- after the war, on Clinton near Main Street,
- called the Seneca Hotel, which became the Manger Hotel.
- And the Manger Hotel had a bar which was, again, another mixed
- bar, but primarily, it was a very sub rosa gay situation
- there.
- There was a lot of cruising going on at the Manger.
- Yeah.
- And then, there was also a rather sophisticated
- little place for a short while on East Avenue,
- called the 44 and 1/2.
- And they had wonderful singers, and they
- had a female vocalist, Jeri Southern, one
- of my favorites of that era.
- She actually appeared there.
- It was that kind of thing.
- And it was all very New York and very wonderful.
- That lasted a couple of years, because people used to go out
- to those kinds of clubs.
- And then, there was a place on Gibbs Street,
- across from the Eastman Theater, called the Town and Country,
- which was, as I recall, part-restaurant, part-bar,
- and run by gay people, which was unusual also for that period.
- And it was very popular with the upper-class gay people.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Was it a fun era?
- Was it an exciting place to go to?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Yes.
- First of all, apart from the excitement,
- which is nonexistent downtown today, it was fun.
- Because first of all, when you're first coming out,
- everything is fun.
- And I think part of the fact that it all
- had to be so secretive actually added, not detracted,
- from the glamor and romance of it all.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Well, you're certainly not--
- you certainly don't have the usual coming-out story.
- I mean, most men and women coming out-- you know,
- they tried to hide it for a very long time,
- but you never really had a problem with it.
- You just, kind of, immersed yourself into the scene.
- And how do you think that that was possible for you?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, I had to go to--
- it was possible for me to keep my secret
- because I went to New York City, and that's
- probably the reason I was so anxious to get away from here--
- was that I wanted liberation and freedom, which
- is exactly what I did.
- At nineteen years of age, I took off.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Well, let's talk about New York a little bit.
- Why was New York so different than what you were
- finding here up in Rochester?
- From the way you talk, there was a social scene here
- in Rochester.
- What were you finding in New York
- that you couldn't find here?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I found in New York City--
- I just was a New York City lover at the time, as most people
- that age are.
- I was just taken with the theater and everything
- it had to offer.
- It wasn't just about gay life.
- I thought I was going to be a playwright at the time.
- And that was the place to be at that time.
- All the arts were focused right there, not much
- of anywhere else.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Well, let's talk about 1960s.
- And let's move into the 1960s when you were really, kind of,
- situating yourself in New York.
- When did you actually get into the bathhouse business?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I got into the bathhouse business
- after ten years of having just regular--
- I was a regularly employed guy.
- And I got into the bathhouse business in 1974
- in downtown-- in lower Manhattan,
- in the Financial District, with a small bathhouse
- called the Wall Street Sauna.
- KEVIN INVODINO: And talk to me about the Wall Street Sauna.
- Talk to me about what my experience
- would be if I were going there for the first time.
- You know, what was it like?
- What was the atmosphere like?
- You don't have to get too graphic about what
- was going on in there.
- But you know, what was the saunas and the bathhouses
- providing for the clientele?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: You have to give me a minute on that.
- Is that possible?
- KEVIN INVODINO: Yeah, I asked you a whole lot of questions
- all at once.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Yeah, because I don't know.
- I really don't-- it's not as if we're really talking to each
- other, and I don't know how to answer that.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Well, talk to me--
- if 1974-- I'm a young guy who grew up in New York,
- and I'm gonna go to the Wall Street bathhouse.
- What was it like walking into a place like that?
- What would be my experience, aside from going into a room
- and having sex?
- You know, talk to me about the actual atmosphere of the place.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Excuse me.
- You may want to delete this.
- I don't know how to--
- but when we opened the Wall Street Sauna,
- we did it with $9,000.
- So it was an extremely limited budget.
- This was not a fancy establishment,
- as opposed to the other many bathhouses
- at the time going on in New York City.
- We had to do all the work ourselves.
- We had to buy used lockers from a health spa that
- was going out of business.
- So it was a pretty basic place, but nevertheless there
- was nothing else like it downtown for people
- who were in the business area, who really didn't have
- too many opportunities any other time of day or any other place.
- So it caught on rather quickly, by word of mouth.
- KEVIN INVODINO: I wanna ask you this.
- Why did you get into the bathhouse business?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Now, that one, I don't know if I can answer.
- You have to coach me on this.
- We got into the bath--
- we got into-- this is off-screen, please.
- We got in there, because I knew what the cruising situation was
- downtown.
- I don't know how to answer that on camera.
- KEVIN INVODINO: But I guess what I'm
- getting at is, was it just a business decision for you,
- or do you think you were providing
- the gay community with some sort of social element?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: No, the primary motivation
- was business.
- KEVIN INVODINO: OK.
- 1960s, 1970s-- the gay scene, the gay community
- was changing a bit from what it was in the '40s and '50s.
- Can you talk to me about some of the changes
- that you were seeing in that time period?
- Were they becoming more visible, more vocal?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, prior to Stonewall,
- which was in 1969, during the '60s,
- a lot of those gay bars in New York City
- were still owned by mysterious forces.
- We used to call it the syndicate.
- Nobody knew who owned these places.
- And then, finally Mayor Wagner--
- because there was going to be a World's Fair in 1964,
- he wanted to, quote, clean up the city.
- And one of the things he did was close every single bar
- in the city of New York.
- And from then until Stonewall, we
- were living in a bit of a Nazi Germany gestapo situation.
- Most of the bars were closed.
- If a bar was open, there was a policeman in uniform right
- inside, at a table, and you had to sign your name.
- And you were not supposed to leave with anybody
- that you didn't enter with.
- This was a pretty grim situation.
- So the cruising started going on in hotel bars
- and in, sort of, mixed places during that period.
- And then, well, up until the Stonewall situation, then,
- of course, everybody knows that there was a revolt.
- And gay people started running these businesses themselves,
- and the raidings stopped.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Talk to me about the '70s then.
- The '70s were pretty free-thinking,
- pretty liberated.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, the '70s,
- following that Stonewall and everything else that
- was going on all over the country,
- were completely liberated sexually.
- I mean, New York City was at its zenith of sexual freedom.
- All kinds of things were going on.
- And bathhouses were going-- about, ten of them.
- And there were sex clubs and sex bars, pretty wild
- up until AIDS hit in 19--
- I think, '81.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Let's take it from there, then.
- What changed in the '80s?
- How did attitudes change?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: When AIDS arrived on the scene,
- it was quite a mysterious thing.
- I mean, they were blaming it, of course,
- as you know, on poppers.
- And they didn't know what to--
- anything they could reach.
- And of course, the authorities started
- closing the bars, one by one.
- And plus, gay people, even if they were open,
- weren't going to go anyway.
- Nobody knew exactly what was going on.
- There was really, like, a terror in the atmosphere.
- And things just declined until some drugs
- came along and a little more sanity entered the picture.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Talk to me a little more
- specifically about the AIDS crisis
- and the shutting down of the bathhouses in New York.
- Tell me what you were experiencing
- in that time period.
- What were you afraid that was going
- to happen with your business?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, the bathhouses
- were being shut down, one by one.
- No explanation as to--
- I mean, the explanation, of course,
- was sexually transmitted diseases.
- But one never knew which club was going to be next.
- And the East Side Sauna continued in operation,
- but we were required to have health people
- from the Gay Men's Health Crisis giving tests and counseling
- there.
- KEVIN INVODINO: While this was all going on-- and of course,
- you're trying to safeguard your own business--
- were you involved in any of AIDS activism?
- Were you involved with the Gay Men's Health Crisis,
- in helping get the word out, or--
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: No, I was not personally
- involved with the Gay Men's Health Crisis,
- other than being a volunteer for some blood-testing work.
- KEVIN INVODINO: I want to jump way forward to modern times,
- then.
- You know, you've seen a lot over the past four or five decades,
- and how the gay communities have changed
- over the past fifty years.
- What do you think is maybe some of the challenges
- that we still have to confront as far as gay people in today's
- society?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I have to think about that one.
- Give me a moment.
- Now, this is-- what would you think I should say there?
- KEVIN INVODINO: I don't want to put words in your mouth.
- Let me ask you a little differently.
- Did you ever think we'd be coming
- as far as we have, in terms of gay liberation
- and in terms of gay marriage?
- You know, if you can, kind of, just capsulate your past fifty
- years, what do you think about the gay community now?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, I think the gay community has
- made extraordinary progress.
- Even if I think about it in terms of my life,
- I'm no longer in the shadows, so to speak.
- Everything is wide open.
- I think it's fabulous that people
- can be more or less who they are, with a few exceptions,
- of course.
- Not everybody's out.
- But they're coming out, and it's just
- changing the whole mentality of the straight.
- And I think the straights and the gays
- are mixing now in bars and at parties.
- It's quite a different picture from before,
- when it was all segregated.
- It's just fabulous.
- KEVIN INVODINO: If you were to give advice to young adults who
- are maybe just now thinking about coming out of the closet,
- from your experience, what would you tell them?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I would tell them the same thing--
- I would tell anybody wondering whether they should come out
- the same thing I told myself.
- There wasn't any question in my mind,
- because I knew that I was gay, and then I
- knew that pursuing any other way of life would have made me
- and those around me unhappy.
- And I would suggest that anybody who
- has a gay inclination follow through with it.
- KEVIN INVODINO: I'm gonna take you way back to the beginning
- again.
- I just want to make sure that I've got some good coverage
- on the early years.
- You're just coming out.
- You're going down to Front Street.
- Describe for me Front Street.
- Describe for me what it was like,
- walking down Front Street, looking at the Rustic Garden.
- What was going through your mind and your experience back then?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Front Street looked,
- in the late '40s and early '50s, nothing like it does today.
- There were buildings on both sides of warehouses
- and all kinds of--
- you really didn't even know there was a river there.
- Because even Main Street, where the bridge is on Main Street
- now, there were buildings there, too, on both sides.
- And on Front Street, on the riverside,
- that was all buildings, facing out to the river in the back.
- It was pretty shabby, pretty shabby.
- No respectable person would have any business there.
- It was for bums, really, derelicts, and unfortunately,
- gay people at that time.
- KEVIN INVODINO: When you were down on Front Street--
- and I'll say, cruising the street
- or whatever, did you ever wish that there was a better place
- to socialize, a better place for gay people to go?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Oh, sure we wished,
- when we were going to Front Street,
- that there was a better place in there.
- There was, eventually.
- When the Manger opened their bar--
- the Manger Bar and the Glass Bar--
- that's where I preferred to chew.
- I really didn't like to go to Front Street.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Hey, Ev?
- Am I missing anything?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Just Tony, talk to Kevin
- a little bit about your family in terms
- of what it was that you didn't want them to be hurt by?
- Or you know, growing up, you weren't really harassed
- by anybody, but you weren't open in your family
- about who you were.
- You had to go outside with your feeling, to find that freedom,
- to find the freedom.
- Did you (recording ends and resumes)--
- if they knew you were gay?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Am I ready to answer?
- KEVIN INVODINO: Yes, answer it to me
- like I just asked you that.
- Talk to me about your relationship with your family,
- and talk to me about what that relationship was
- like, particularly when you were coming out as a gay man.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Growing up in the '40s,
- my relationship with my family was good.
- But I had a very strict Italian father,
- and I really wouldn't have had the courage
- to say anything to him.
- I didn't want to--
- my mother was a very sensitive lady.
- And in that era, it would have been too much of a shock
- to try to tell them that.
- I kept everything I did very secret.
- I used to pretend I was going on dates.
- I even had my mail going to friends' homes--
- and telegrams and things that I was-- in those days, people
- sent telegrams.
- And it was all very, very secret and sub rosa.
- KEVIN INVODINO: So do you feel in some sense that going out
- to the clubs or the bars--
- did you ever feel like you were leading a double life?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: I definitely felt like I
- was living a double life, yes.
- But it was worth it, I think, primarily
- in the case of my mother, not to hurt her feelings,
- and I was afraid of my father.
- KEVIN INVODINO: So what were you finding out
- in the social circles that you were afraid to expose
- to your parents?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, I was afraid to expose to my parents
- the fact that I was gay, and that I was seeing men and not
- really girls.
- I mean, I just didn't feel they had to know that.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Did you ever find
- that in the social circles, wherever you were going--
- was it almost like a second family for you?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Oh, very much, yes.
- Growing up in social circles then
- was very much like having a second family.
- KEVIN INVODINO: And what was that second family
- providing for you other than having good times?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, support.
- support in the sense that I was, you know, gay.
- Actually, once in a while, I would stay away from the house
- and stay with them.
- So it was shelter, in a kind of a funny way.
- Yes, it was--
- I could be open.
- I could be myself totally.
- It was very relaxing, liberating.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Is that what you were looking for, Ev?
- EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.
- KEVIN INVODINO: OK.
- Anything else?
- EVELYN BAILEY: I can't think of anything.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Yeah, no, I really just wanted to, kind of,
- get the early years.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I think the story about your coming back, wanting
- to go into the army, and your father saving you
- from that experience is very interesting.
- Because that was the thing to do.
- When the war came, everybody went and enlisted.
- KEVIN INVODINO: What was that, like '48?
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: No, it wasn't '48.
- That was, I'm going to say, '50--
- It was the Korean War.
- Does anybody know--
- KEVIN INVODINO: Oh, that would have been '50, '54?
- EVELYN BAILEY: '52.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: It was around '52.
- It was around '52.
- KEVIN INVODINO: Just tell me a little bit about that, then.
- You went to New York briefly, came back to Rochester,
- was going to enlist in the army.
- Talk to me a little bit about that.
- ANTHONY MASCIOLI: Well, during the Korean War,
- the army was not enlisting.
- The army was drafting.
- And I got my notice to appear at the draft fort
- here in Rochester, because this is where I grew up.
- So I left New York City, came back to Rochester
- for my physical, fully expecting to go in.
- But my father--
- I had flat feet at the time, and they're now really bad,
- but they were bad then, too.
- And my father suggested that I go to the physical
- with some X-rays, some huge, old-fashioned kind of X-rays.
- I was a little embarrassed even to bring them there.
- But the doctors looked at them, and they
- looked pretty carefully and decided
- that I was 4F on the basis of those X-rays.
- And that really was a whole--
- that changed everything about my life,
- because suddenly, I was not going in the service.
- What was I going to do?
- So I went to Brockport State Teachers College,
- and from there to Columbia, thinking that I
- was going to be a playwright.
- But I didn't follow through on that,
- and got into the business world.
- Is that what you wanted?
- EVELYN BAILEY: I do.
- Yup.
- KEVIN INVODINO: OK.
- I don't need anything else.
- EVELYN BAILEY: I think we're set.
- KEVIN INVODINO: You did well.