He remarks that Madonna, who at one time lived locally, used to dance under it. “This was the actual disco ball that hung in the club when we opened,” says Menjo’s Manager Tim McKee. On the dance floor, between a rainbow flag and a larger-than-life representation of a male organ, there hangs a tattered disco ball. on a recent Thursday, a small crowd has already gathered at Menjos, an iconic gay club that’s been on Six Mile Road near Woodward since the early 1970’s. They moved northward, he says, mostly to Ferndale. “I just turned around one day and it was like everybody was gone, all my friends were gone,” says Piazza. But eventually, he felt the neighborhood change. Piazza remembers eight bars, two gay-friendly bookstores and two restaurants. “You took your latest friend, your bathing suit… On a day like today there would be 40 people.” “It was where you went to show off for the season,” Piazza says.
Photo: Two men on the “Green Beach” in Palmer Park in the summer of 1980.