Summer in the city: Edmund White on sex and dancing in 60s New York

The hot summer of 1967 was full of cruising and drinking, sleeping on roofs, and listening to music late into the night

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There was a hit song in the 1960s by the Lovin' Spoonful called Summer in the City all about how the days were hot and gritty, everyone looking half-dead, but the nights passionate and fun, full of sex and dancing. That was certainly my experience of the summer of 1967, an especially hot one when New York became a tropical city full of cruising and drinking, of people sleeping without air conditioners on the cindered roofs of their buildings, sharing wine coolers out of Mason jars, and attending late-night horror movies. In the Village on Sixth Avenue and West Third Street, there was always a pickup basketball game going, the beautiful shirtless bodies slathered in sweat.