From 1980 to 1988, The Saint wasn’t just a nightclub — it was a universe unto itself. Built inside a converted planetarium on East 6th Street, it became the most technologically advanced and exclusive gay dance club in the world, where sound, light, and ecstasy merged into something almost spiritual.
The club’s annual Rites parties — Rites of Spring and Rites of Winter — were legendary: all-night celebrations that blurred the line between ritual and revelation. Thousands of men danced beneath a spinning planetarium dome, surrounded by lasers, fog, and the best DJs of the era. It wasn’t just nightlife — it was transcendence.