One New Yorker said: “Why go and stand in a bar and get drunk to get picked up? Waste of time.” Of course the impact of sites such as Gaydar and Manhunt is not restricted to New York.

However, the bars are still hopping. On a Sunday night, the G Lounge in Chelsea is a hubbub of pecs and pearly white teeth, and go-go boys straddling the bar. Chelsea may still be popular, but there is a fledgeling and friendly gay scene, bordering the theatre district, in Hell’s Kitchen.

A gay night in a neighbourhood Brooklyn pizzeria, too, recently made headlines in The New York Times — both for taking root in that area (in the old days this was a macho neighbourhood) and for being on a Monday night. The Lower East Side and East Village remain popular for those seeking a wilder and scuffed-around-the-edges night.

The city’s smarter hotels are embracing a gay upscale crowd. The Gansevoort in the Meatpacking District hosts Garden of Ono on a Sunday night — when I went, it was windy, cold and filled with the kind of label-obsessed screechy queens that make you want to turn straight immediately.

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Down the street, in contravention of the no-dancing thesis, is a thumping mega-club in the basement of the Maritime Hotel, which was like stepping back into the mid-Nineties, with pumping house music so loud you couldn’t hear the bisexual Christian with the big arms next to you tell his life story.

Otherwise, says a former dance floor veteran, there is always the Chelsea-boy’s staple, Splash, once famous for its models suspended in water tanks and now the one place in the area with a decent-sized dancefloor.

Another friend recommends The Hose in the East Village on Saturday nights as “the new cool place (for alternativemainstream scruffy intellectuals trying to look like bluecollar workers)”. The same crowd is usually found at Snaxx at West Side Tavern on Friday nights. The Eagle bar’s “beer blast” is a reliably great Sunday early evening hangout.

Whatever the querulousness around dancing, New York excels at neighbourhood bars. Late one Sunday night, in search of just a good jukebox, I alighted on the appropriately called Cubbyhole on the Chelsea/Village border.

For years (or whenever I walked past) it seemed to be lesbian-only, but not tonight . . . so I charged up the jukebox with dollars and danced to Kylie and Scissor Sisters. The regulars looked askance but sweetly joined in.

So dancing isn’t completely over in New York. It’s just DIY. Or go to the Stonewall and pay rightful homage to the drag queens and hustlers who made it possible in the first place.

Tim Teeman flew to New York with Virgin Atlantic (0844 8747747, www.virgin-atlantic.com) which has flights from £312

Away gay

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