Efrain Gonzalez Chronicled NYC’s Seedy, Glorious West Side Nightlife (Gothamist)

New York City photographer Efrain John Gonzalez says he’s “not a professional photographer, just OCD.” He describes his work as telling “a story of people finding the path to their souls, finding their bliss with piercings, branding, cuttings, tattoos, latex, implants, leather, and a whole lot of radical sex and sexuality.” Throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, while working various jobs (including driving a cab), Gonzalez took thousands of photographs of New York’s seedier nightlife, at bars, restaurants, and sex clubs in the Meatpacking District and the West Village.