“We were the Other Club, mentioned in the same breath as Chicago’s Playboy Club. Speaking of, there’s apparently some long-simmering ill feeling between the Gaslight Girls and the Bunnies. Belle epoque Paris inspired the atmosphere, especially the Gaslight Girls’ outfits and revues. The club’s luxurious interior design stayed consistent across several different downtown locations. Founded in 1953, the Gaslight Club set the template for the va-va-voom aesthetic and atmosphere that Playboy made so famous. The famous Playboy Club (which opened on the Mag Mile in 1960) and its iconic Bunny outfits were both inspired by a haunt Hef knew well: The Gaslight Club. Hugh Hefner was many things, but original was not one of them.
Down town chicago gay bars full#
I know I would rather lick a boot or kiss a hot guy in full gear than stare at a phone app.So, yes, USO tours in Vietnam are not typically considered part of Chicago nightlife history, but there’s only so many accessible photos.
I hope that these places don’t become memories, but continue to adapt to a world that communicates via phone apps. Our beloved David Boyer is keeping the leather bar legacy alive at Touche. I remember this place always hopping it closed in 1993, I think, because of the gentrification of that neighborhood by Lincoln and Diversey, though I did hear there was some raid that year for “public indecency.”
In my younger sluttish days, I remember being dragged into the bathroom at the Meat Market to perform fellatio and lick boots. It was located next to the famous original Touche (I went there for the first time in the early 1990s a week later it burned down). Now, I’ll end with one more place, the AA Meat Market. Leatherneck with its distinctive mezzanine opened in 1997 I don’t remember when it closed, but I do remember it being for many people I know more of a hangout place rather than a more serious down-and-dirty place like the Eagle or Touche. I could devote a whole other blog to this individual (it might read as a particularly outrageous National Enquirer article), but strangely enough, there’s almost no online trace of him, other than a link to some papers by one Beau Lee James, winner with John Birch of the International Master and Slave contest held by Pantheon of Leather in Houston, Texas, 1994. The operator of this building was the infamous (emphasize the “in” in that word) John Birch aka of the now defunct Metropolitan Slave magazine. The upstairs was outfitted as a dungeon, where Windy City Bondage Club held amazing parties. It was located literally in downtown Chicago, the Loop.
I also remember another spot, now closed, called Leatherneck. The Eagle closed in the early 2000s the last time I went there was 2007 by that time the totally hot Pit had closed. I was flogged in public down there, my first big BDSM scene. I actually consider this place my “coming out” bar as a leatherman. Renslow later opened the Chicago Eagle in the 1990s I remember the entrance being the inside of a truck, and the basement Pit. The Gold Coast closed in 1988 (alas, I never went there) at the 5025 North Clark location, having moved from its original location at 501 North Clark Street. Much of what is perhaps now the traditional dynamic of gay leather bars originated there: the leather biker look, the rough sex and BDSM, the l hypermasculinity revealed in the famous artwork of Etienne aka Dom Orejudos now displayed in the Leather Archives and Museum. Much has been written on this place of LGBT history already I’ll just add that it seems to be the granddaddy of places where like-minded men could meet others who shared their sexuality. I know one person who remembers this bar he is in his eighties (hard to believe). I thought I would do an IML-related piece, the whole leather contest circuit actually began in a leather bar, the famous/infamous Gold Coast founded by the legendary Chuck Renslow.