(Images by Matthew Rettenmund)

It was in November that I first reported on the impending closure of Les Hommes, a rare surviving gay adult store on NYC's Upper West Side. After a series of setbacks with a long-simmering deal to sell the building at 217-B W. 80th Street, the business abruptly informed its employees on August 27 that the day had been its last.

A sign went up August 28 informing patrons that Les Hommes was Les Kaput.

The building — where legendary porn director Toby Ross once lived — is small, and my understanding is it would be hard to raze it and create a taller, more lucrative structure for condos. It would appear it will be used as a living space (it was cleaned out beginning the 28th) with a possible new dry cleaner or other business on the first floor. (A former dry-cleaning business shuttered there previously.)

Les Hommes had been in business continuously since 1979. Its brother store, the Unicorn in Chelsea, closed years ago.

Businesses like this, which initially sold porn and provided buddy booths for gay patrons, have been driven to near nonexistence by Giuliani-era laws that resulted in the sale of nonsexual videos and other pointless restrictions, and by the public's increasing reliance on hookup apps. Les Hommes was a trip — literally, considering the steep stairwell to its second-floor digs.

Gay history in transition here.