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New York-- "West Side Sex Piers" is the title of a photo exhibition at Uzi N.Y. Gallery (120 Avenue C, Manhattan; 212-420-8103) running through October 31st, and the name isn't metaphorical. "Sex Piers" shows the work of three artists: Alvin Baltrop, Ivan Galietti, the Uzi gallery's eponymous Uzi Parnes. "Each has captured a unique view of the gay demimonde that flourished in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the crumbling piers that lined West Street," Parnes declares. "As each pier was torn down by the city, another would be broken into and turned into a Mecca for nude sunbathing and everything that came along with that. The photographs present three very different views of the crumbling structures and stunning young men who frequented them." Alvin Baltrop is the "black Gay Daddy of the East Village." He spent the 70s creating, in the words of Kelly Cogswell (www.thegully.com-- a great les-gay e-zine) "graceful studies of beautiful young men in the deteriorating surroundings of the piers. There were gay men artists, voyeurs, young homeless boys.... There was great generosity and love and horrifying violence. Al photographed that too: the corpses of the queers pulled too often from the river." Ivan Galietti worked with Frederico Fellini, Jack Smith, & David Wojnarowicz. "His photos of the piers' ravaged beauty conjure up the paganism of ancient Pompeii," opines Parnes, who is an Israeli-American performance artist, film maker, and gallery impresario. Uzi N.Y. is open Wednesday through Saturday, 3-7pm, and on Friday & Saturday also from 8-10pm-- as well as by appointment.