Artist Inhwan Oh has memorialized Philly’s rich history of queer bars in an installation that highlights their importance as well as their fleeting ephemerality.
Titled “Where He Meets Him in Philadelphia,” the site-specific work is part of the featured exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, “The Shape of Time: Korean Art after 1989.“
It features the names of 36 queer bars and clubs that have existed in the city (find a partial list below). The names are layered atop one another on the floor in powder incense. They were also burned according to centuries-old rituals and meditative practices, though due to fire hazard restrictions, that action is displayed on a small monitor beside the piece.
“I focus on the relationship between my work and the audience,” Oh, who is based in Seoul, told Billy Penn. “I hope that through my work they can sense and think of the history, memories, emotions, and sensations of the gay community.”
For Bob Skiba, curator at the Williams Way LGBT Community Center and author of the Gayborhood Guru blog, the burning process spotlights the short-lived existence of many of Philly’s queer cultural spaces.
“Although we think of them as signposts in a city, gay bars come and go. They are ephemeral,” Skiba said. Philadelphia’s last lesbian bar closed in 2021. “We build culture where we can and when we can, knowing that it might be gone in 10 years.”
The process of becoming and unbecoming is a central theme of Oh’s art.
“For me, queerness is process-oriented and performative,” Oh said. “I think it’s important for queer artists to realize this process-oriented and performative nature in their work rather than trying to represent it in its fixed form.”
Oh has exhibited in other cities around the world. “My installation stems from my experiences in New York, London, and Seoul,” he said. “I experienced gay bars being visualized and perceived differently, as if the same words were understood differently in different cultural contexts.”
A place for the culture to thrive
Many gay bars in Philadelphia have their origins in Prohibition-era hideaways. Tavern on Camac, Philly’s longest operating gay bar in Philly, can trace its roots back as the speakeasy Maxine’s. Throughout the city in these “semi-public spaces” all kinds of people were drinking and socializing together.
As public opinion shifted and laws were passed, queer culture in Philly experienced a kind of apex in the 70’s and 80’s, according to Skiba, of the William Way Center.
Nationwide, the total number of lesbian bars peaked in the 80s at about 200, according to the Lesbian Bar Project. Philly saw the opening and closing of bars and clubs like Sneakers, Rusty’s, Upstairs, and P.B.L.
The large number of venues was a boon for the gay rights movement, but it remained risky to frequent such places.
“Up to the 70’s and 80’s gay bars in Philadelphia were raided by the police,” Skiba said. “If you were seen going in a gay bar, you could be outed to your family, your friends, your congregation.”
It could be a worrying experience. “I have heard stories of women walking around the block six times before they finally got up the courage to go into a lesbian bar,” Skiba said.
Popular gay bars in Philly today invite all members of the LGBTQ community, though there are still issues around racial inclusivity, with some Black and brown people not feeling welcome at certain venues.
It’s now normal for LGBTQ+ people to hang at mainstream bars, but gay bars and clubs remain a historical epicenter, Skiba said, where the culture could thrive.
“I think what gay bars tell us is what it was like to be queer in America when you were just not welcomed,” said Skiba. “And for all intents and purposes, you didn’t exist.”
The bars and clubs of ‘Where He Meets Him’
With help from the artist, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Skiba’s Philadelphia LGBT Mapping Project, we’ve compiled an alphabetical list of the bygone Philly spots featured in Oh’s installation.
The Bridge Tavern
This Old City spot at 3rd and Race was acknowledged as “gay friendly” as far back as the 1940s.
DCA (now Voyeur Nightclub)
Housed in a former bakery, this multi-level private club on St. James between Walnut and Locust offered gay men’s disco downstairs, women’s disco upstairs, and a leather and denim club on top called Cell Block. A fire destroyed the building in 1980, but it was rebuilt and continued operations for another six years.
Forrest (now the Bike Stop)
Tucked on Quince Street between Locust and Walnut, this space advertised as a gay bar in 1960s gay travel guides, but was officially called the Forrest Bar & Restaurant. The upstairs, meanwhile, was billed as a private club called USAA, standing for Uniform Social and Athletic Association, a basically fictitious name that allowed queer people to socialize without being judged.
By the 70s, however, it had turned into the Forrest Theatrical Cocktail Lounge, featuring drag shows and upscale drinks. The upstairs club became the P.B.L., an after-hours private club that catered to women.
Fuel Pump
On 13th Street at Arch, on the north side of City Hall, this bar catered to the Black queer community in the 70s and 80s.
Gatsby’s
Located at Broad and Locust, where the Cambria Hotel and Del Frisco’s Grille now stand, this spot was a 1980 transformation of the former Eagle II restaurant into a gay bar and nightclub. Its sister location across the river in Cherry Hill became the “coming out” bar for the queer community of South Jersey.
Hepburn’s (now Franky Bradley’s)
Nationally renowned gay bar Equus operated at Juniper and Chancellor until 1989, when it reopened as an homage to the famous actress. Owned by Mel Heifetz, it was decorated in the style of old Hollywood glamor, with production stills of its namesake in her cross-dressing role in the 1935 film “Sylvia Scarlett.”
The bar served its last patron in 1995. The space is now Tabu and markets itself as the city’s best gay sports bar.
iCandy (now Tabu)
This multi-level gay bar at 12th and Manning offered dance floors with dazzling disco balls and glittering chandeliers. The spot was popular with younger crowds and operated from 2013 to 2018, two years after its owner was caught on video using a racial slur.
Kurt’s
Described in the mid-80’s as Philly’s hottest gay club by patrons, yet also attracted complaints about discrimination from minorities and women during its time.
Mahogany
A Black lesbian bar that was open in the mid-80s at 51st and Market in West Philly. One of a very few of its kind.
Mamzelle’s
From 1982 to 1986, this private lesbian club was located on the upper two levels of the building that previously housed the Forrest. The lower floor was a conversation lounge and arcade while the upper floor offered a dance floor.
The Midway (then Pepperbox)
From 1965 to 1973, this bar on 12th Street between Spruce and Locust was known as the Midway, described by patrons as “appearing straight but sufficiently active to make it worthwhile.” In 1975 it reopened as The Pepper Box.
Miss P’s
This drag hotspot located at 18th and Lombard hosted shows in the 1970s featuring legendary Philadelphia icons like Les Harrison.
Mystique
A short-lived lesbian bar in a rowhome just west of Broad on Spruce Street. It closed after a fire in 1972.
The Pirate Ship
At Camac and St. James, smack in the midst of the historic alleys that criss-cross the Gayborhood, this mixed straight and gay bar operated from the 40s up through 1971.
Pure
On St. James between 12th and 13th, this is another gay bar that had its origins as a speakeasy during Prohibition. At the height of America’s disco obsession, this bar was the “notorious nerve center” of the Philly gay scene. While Woody’s was recognized as the most popular queer hang, Pure was the go-to for the after-party. It’s now Voyeur.
Raffles (now Tavern on Camac)
Operating as a speakeasy since the early 1900s, this building between Spruce and Locust on Camac Street — known as Philly’s “little street of clubs” — reopened in 1982 as Raffles, with four bars, a piano, a dance floor, and pub dining in the basement. At the turn of the millennium it changed ownership and became Tavern on Camac.
Rainbows
This lesbian bar at 1215 Walnut St. lived and died during the 80s disco scene with a roof deck up top and a lower level bar called the Kennel Club.
The Ritz
Operating at 13th and Commerce, a block off City Hall’s northwest corner, this Black gay bar thrived in the 70s and 80s, when Gayborhood clubs were basically segregated thanks to racism. Like many other nearby bars, it disappeared when the Pa. Convention Center was built.
Rusty’s
Today it’s Moriarty’s Restaurant, an Irish pub, but this spot on Walnut at Quince Street was once the city’s most famous lesbian bar. In the early 60’s the main entrance advertised it as Barone’s Variety Room. Walk through a side door and you’d find stairs up to Rusty’s.
Second Story
Opened in 1976 on the corner of 12th and Walnut, this was for a time considered the city’s premier nightclub. The building was formerly part of the Episcopal Diocese of Philadelphia, which explains the dance floor with 20 foot ceilings, arched Gothic windows, baptismal fonts used for popcorn, and a stained glass Virgin Mary behind the bar. In the ‘80s, it transitioned away from marketing exclusively to gay men towards a mixed, contemporary crowd. The space is now home to a law firm.
Sisters
Opened at 1320 Chancellor in 1996 — the current Franky Bradley’s — this lesbian bar and nightclub lasted 17 years.
Steps
A three-story venue dedicated to disco in the Delancey Street cul-de-sac off of 15th made it a popular choice for the younger crowds in the 70s. It closed in 1980, reopened as Odyssey II for a few years, and then was torn down and replaced with a four-story condo complex.
The Streets of Paris
A gay bar that operated mid-century at 11th and Sansom, this was among the places mentioned in a notorious 1962 Philadelphia magazine article titled “The Furtive Fraternity”.
The Swan Club (later 2 Much)
Up on North Broad in the Logan neighborhood, this bar and jazz venue first opened in 1939 as the Stork Club in 1939, then was renamed as the Swan Club two years later. In the ‘80s it was reincarnated as Black gay bar 2 Much.
Venture Inn
A Camac Street staple whose origins go back to 1931, this bar was “outed” by Philly Mag’s Furtive Fraternity article. By the early 70’s it marketed itself as a gay bar, and by the early 2000s was popular among an older crowd. It finally closed in 2016.
The Westbury
The space at 15th and Spruce began in the 1940s as a bar and grill restaurant for the Westbury Hotel. By the ‘60s, it was listed as a gay bar in travel guides, and remained a staple for decades. It closed for good in October 2014 after a fire next door uncovered a slew of building code violations.
Winding Staircase
On North Broad just below Girard, this was another of the city’s gay bars that catered to Black patrons in racially divisive 1970s Philadelphia.
