92nd Street Y (Y.M.H.A.)
The Young Men's Hebrew Association on Manhattan's Upper East Side, whose Unterberg Poetry Center has been since the 1930s one of the country's principal reading-and-lecture venues. Mailer read here on 6 February 1961; an administrator ordered the curtain down on him during the reading for obscenity, with Allen Ginsberg in the audience defending him. The episode generated a New York Times article (61.3a) and a mocking Time snippet (61.3b).
On 6 February 1961 Mailer read at the 92nd Street Y.M.H.A. and an administrator ordered the curtain down when some of his poems were judged obscene. Mailer answered: “an administrator is no judge of literature.” Allen Ginsberg, in the audience, defended him. The New York Times reported the incident the following day (61.3a); Time picked it up in its 17 February “People” column (61.3b).
The Awards/Events spreadsheet records a 60th-anniversary booklet about this reading (Awards, Events, Honors, 1990s sheet, no date) — confirming the episode’s lasting place in the Y’s institutional memory.
Stub; to be expanded as later Mailer readings at the Y are added.