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A listener note. This episode contains transphobic language and transphobic violence.

Nowadays, if you go to Times Square right in the heart of Manhattan,

you go to see the bright lights and to get your picture taken with Spider-Man.

You go for the Lion King or celebrity wax figures or Ripley's Believe It or Not.

But this is 1999 and New York is practically a different city.

Times Square is still flashing with light, but it's full of strip clubs and adult movie theaters.

You can hire someone to go back to your hotel room with you as long as you pay cash in advance.

You can score some heroin or you can get mugged.

It's edgy, it's dangerous, but girl, it's definitely exciting.

New York City Nightlife was amazing.

42nd Street was alive with strip clubs and go-go dancing.

They had the trans working at show center, the men dancers working at show palace,

the females working at show world.

In 1999, Nikki is just a young trans girl from Hoboken, New Jersey.

Tonight, she wants to go dancing.

So she heads to tunnel, a legendary club on the river in Chelsea.

Built in a former railway station, the place is home to hip-hop DJs, club kids, and drag queens.

The dance floor is long and narrow and it's got these crazy high ceilings.

If you're in heels, you've got to watch where you step because the old railway tracks still run the length of the floor.

Anyone who's anyone is here, the whole place is throbbing.

Nikki can feel the music pulsing in her chest.

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