Sex, Swingers & The Mafia: Inside Notorious Plato’s Retreat

Sex was Larry Levenson’s domain. As the owner of swank swingers’ lounge Plato’s Retreat, located inside the Upper West Side’s Ansonia Hotel, he epitomized late 1970s hedonism in NYC — and even made partner-swapping mainstream. It was an unlikely path for the Bronx-born Levenson, an absentee father of three who had previously worked as the general manager at a Brooklyn McDonald’s.

*Inset: Larry Levenson and his girlfriend, Mary. Hero: TV host George Urban, better known as Ugly George.*

“Larry was just a dumb guy who lucked into becoming the self-proclaimed king of swing,” Josh Alan Friedman, the former senior editor of sex tabloid Screw Magazine, told The Post.

For his column, “The Naked City,” Friedman regularly reported on the wild hanky-panky at Plato’s, which Levenson, then 41, had opened in 1977. A year earlier, Levenson had been introduced to the lifestyle after meeting a housewife at a cocktail lounge — and then, later at her place, her consenting husband… read more >