Jared Nangle. Earlier that week, we connected on a dating app over our shared interest in BDSM and needed a place where we could be loud and shielded from prying eyes or ears.
Though only two blocks down from Chelsea Market, this patch of the Meatpacking District was lightly peopled. There were few nearby attractions at the time: Street-level retail units in the surrounding buildings stood empty, and many more people used the Gansevoort Street High Line entrance several streets away near the Whitney Museum than the gloomy stair around the corner. Would P hurt me? Or worse: Would I be kidnapped from my corner or left for dead in a shady hotel room? Would I return to my apartment covered in bed bug bites?
I pinned my location on Google Maps and texted it to a friend, just in case. P approached my corner from the south. He was tall, slim, with a sculpted face, at once skeletal and boyish. He was dressed shabbily in some battered-looking work wear, boots with paint flecks on them.
We crossed over the empty avenue. The three-story, wedge-shaped brick building still sits on a triangular island dividing the West Side Highway from Tenth Avenue, but because the hotel entrance was located on the less exposed side, patrons could not be seen coming and going. There was next to no signage, and the only indication that you were in the right place was the discreet vinyl lettering printed on the awning above the front door.
Box shrubs shielded the entryway. The frosted glass double doors opened into a small lobby area furnished with a plush bench, an oversized photograph of the Statue of Liberty, and a vending machine stocked with snacks, lube, and condoms.
