Getting In: NYC Club Flyers from the Gay 1990s, David Kennerley

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Getting In: NYC Club Flyers from the Gay 1990s

by David Kennerley (Editor), with a foreword by Michael Musto
Hardcover | July 1, 2025

Before social media. Before QR codes. Before the algorithm decided what you’d see. There was the flyer.

Getting In is a lush, unapologetic celebration of queer nightlife in 1990s New York City, told through more than 230 original club flyers rescued from sidewalks, pockets, and coat checks. Compiled by nightlife historian and club kid insider David Kennerley, this oversized hardcover captures a moment when dance floors doubled as sanctuaries and flyers were invitations to survival, sex, joy, and community.

Featuring legendary venues like the Roxy, Palladium, Limelight, Tunnel, Splash, Pyramid, and Sound Factory Bar, the book showcases flamboyant Club Kids, shirtless go-go boys, fierce drag queens, and graphic design that ranges from deliriously camp to starkly political. These flyers weren’t just promotions. They were statements, coded messages, and lifelines during the height of the AIDS crisis.

Interwoven throughout are sharp, funny, and deeply personal commentaries from over 40 figures who defined the era, including Michael Musto, Lady Bunny, DJ Larry Tee, Linda Simpson, Susan Morabito, Goldy Loxxx, Ernie Glam, and go-go icon Mark Allen. Maps, timelines, and cultural context anchor the visuals in history, showing how nightlife responded to grief, activism, pleasure, and resistance.

Part art book, part archive, part love letter, Getting In preserves a queer world that refused to disappear and danced anyway.