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stayed open until seven o’clock in the morning.
    We arrived at The Loft at a quarter past midnight, and for half an hour after that were the only customers there. Vince Aletti didn’t have to show an invitation to get into The Loft. The doorkeeper knew him and greeted him this way: “Hi, Vince, what’s happening?”
    The Loft is not like any other discothèque we’ve ever been
to. It is made up of two floors. The downstairs is a recreation area. It has sofas and a bar, where fruit juices, fresh and dried fruits, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and cookies are served without cost. Upstairs is where everyone dances. There are pretty, big balloons and paper streamers hanging from the ceiling. Above the dance floor, in a booth fashioned after an old Wurlitzer jukebox, is the disc jockey, whom we could see from below dashing around and arranging records. Vince Aletti told us his name was David Mancuso and that he was the proprietor of The Loft. Vince Aletti then led us up a narrow stairway to meet him.
    Vince Aletti disappeared.
    David Mancuso told us, “I have tried to make this place like a club I used to go to ten years ago called the Territorial Club, on 125th Street. I had just come to New York from Utica, and that club was just like what I thought a club in New York would be. It had a very warm and sincere atmosphere. The people were nice, the refreshments were nice. It was halfway between a bar and someone’s house.”
    At half past twelve, David Mancuso played the first record of the evening. He said it was a song called “Sweet Sixteen” and that it was written by the Diga Rhythm Band, which is headed by someone who was and sometimes still is the Grateful Dead drummer. People started coming in. Vince Aletti reappeared and said, “I feel like I’m on a receiving line, because everybody who comes in here I know them, and I’m just greeting people.” Then a song called “You Should Be Dancing” was played. Vince ran off to dance. Months ago, he told us that this was one of his favorite songs.

    By two o’clock, the upstairs was filled with dancing people. Downstairs had many fewer people, and we went down to get a look at some of the guests. Quite a few people were wearing track or jogging outfits in bright colors. We saw one man dressed in what appeared to be the uniform of an officer of the Royal Navy, a couple dressed as Bedouin Arabs, and one man dressed in white ladies’ platform shoes, white girls’ knee socks, white jockey shorts, and white undershirt. We went back up to the dance area.
    The record that was then being played wasn’t by any group we recognized. It was just the sound of drums—about what you would expect to hear in a documentary film about primitive people. All the lights were off and people were dancing and making funny noises in the dark. The lights went on and everybody cheered. Then they went off again and everybody laughed. Then the music changed to a song by a group called Double Exposure. We saw Vince Aletti, and he was dancing vigorously to Double Exposure’s song. He also danced vigorously to a song by a singer named D. C. LaRue and a song by the Emotions. He was less enthusiastic about a song by the Spinners called “Rubber-band Man.” He said, “I like it when the Spinners get into it, ’cause it’s kind of cute, but then it gets too cute.” Then the disc jockey played a song by a group called Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. It is now Vince Aletti’s favorite song, and when he danced he got so excited that he clenched both fists and thrust them into the air.
    â€” September 27, 1976

Notes and Comment
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    A friend of ours, a young woman from Antigua, was here in the States for a short visit, and since we hadn’t been to Antigua in more than ten years we asked her what things were like there.
    â€œIt’s just like up here,” she said.