Gaiety Theatre (male burlesque)
former male burlesque theatre in New York City, United States (1975-2005)
The Gaiety Theatre was a gay male burlesque theater in Times Square, New York City, for almost 30 years until it closed on March 17, 2005. The name on the awning over the entrance was Gaiety Theatre, but it was also called the Gaiety Male Burlesque or the Gaiety Male Theatre in advertisements. It was located at 201 W 46th Street, New York, NY 10036, on the second floor of the building that also housed what was the last Howard Johnson's restaurant in New York City. The Gaiety opened in late 1975 and closed in 2005 and was owned by Denise Rozis, run by both her and her younger sister, Evridiki Rozis.
The building has been demolished but was owned by the Kenneth Rubinstein family (Rubenstein Klein Realty) for many years until it was sold to Jeff Sutton's Wharton Acquisitions. The Howard Johnson's restaurant closed later on July 8, 2005, at midnight, after having been open for 46 years.
This theatre was not the same Gaiety Theatre that was across 46th Street at 1547 Broadway, which did house burlesque, including Minsky's for a time during its long history (1908–82). That Gaiety is probably best remembered as the Victoria Cinema, but its final name was Embassy 5, before the building was demolished.
A New York Times article published on April 24, 2005, about the closing of the Gaiety referred to “ … the lore that set the Gaiety apart from other clubs: the mainstream attention it attracted after photos of Madonna and some of the club’s dancers were included in her book Sex (1992). The cachet of visitors like John Waters, Andy Warhol, and Shirley MacLaine, and the club’s unrivaled ability to survive, despite the strict zoning laws instituted during the Giuliani administration, thanks to a location just outside a restricted area.”
Blogger Andy Towle said: “The Gaiety opened its doors on a winter night in 1976 and consistently attracted an interesting mix of young hustlers, businessmen, tourists, and celebrities on the DL to its pleasantly dingy, boxy room with its small stage and sparkling curtain.”
The Gaiety survived Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's intense drive to close adult related venues in the mid-1990s.
The public source identifies “Gaiety Theatre (male burlesque)” as former male burlesque theatre in New York City, United States (1975-2005). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gaiety, Theatre and male.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5517008. Authority coordinates are 40.759, -73.985. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005, 1975, 1547 and 1908.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gaiety Theatre (male burlesque)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.