Levan and Knuckles took their musical passion from Mancuso's Loft and began playing it at the Continental Baths, a gay bathhouse that most famously acted as the launching pad for Bette Midler's career. These early 70s private afterhours parties we lovingly assembled by the host and a network of dedicated dancers within the New York gay community, including Levan and Frankie Knuckles (the "godfather of house music," who tragically passed away just weeks before the Larry Levan Street Party). One queer not in question is David Mancuso and his infamous Loft party-marked by almost all authors, including Manuel-Garcia, as ground zero for the start of disco, gay or otherwise. "But as house turns into acid-house turns into techno and all of the other sub-genres, somehow queer folks slip out of the established narrative and disappear." "Nobody is really denying that disco emerged out of queer nightlife," Manuel-Garcia clarifies via e-mail. Author Luis Manuel-Garcia recently went deeper than most in his extensive article on Resident Advisor, An Alternate History of Sexuality in Club Culture, a hefty online article that surprisingly became one of the international techno portal's most widely read pieces. The depth one can delve into the history of gay dance music is only limited by how deep one wishes to dig. A subculture that, as the first rays of gay rights began to shine out of the closet, gave birth to the dance music culture that now goes around the globe. It was, seen through the hazy filter of history, as clear a view of dance music's roots as one will ever see. A substantial percentage of those assembled at the Larry Levan Street Party were gay. Look again and the multi-racial make-up of the audience not only skewed black and Latino, it was almost exclusively made up of minorities-and not just racially. With an average age well over 30 (over 40, even), this was clearly a party for adults. Whether experienced in person or virtually, one thing quickly became apparent about the Larry Levan Street Party: This was not your typical dance music crowd. Hundreds of revelers descended on King Street that Sunday afternoon, while thousands more tuned in online to watch the live stream of dancers shaking and strutting in the sun to the vintage sounds of underground disco played by Levan disciples François Kevorkian, David DePino and Joey Llanos.