A pioneer ancestor of Minnesotan centers for young people—continued by St. Paul’s Club Vogue (1991-1992) and, years later, by District 202—the Club was a pivotal space in the history of Minnesota’s queer youth. The “theatre lounge” was a nonalcoholic social venue for gender nonconforming teenagers and young adults that occupied the second floor of an opulent—if small—2 -story building next to the Orpheum Theater on Hennepin Avenue. Once a headquarters of local circus managers and carnival hosts, [i] the space opened on Halloween in 1970 as “the ‘new’ after hours coffee house for gay people” that marked a southward shift in queer nightlife away from the Mississippi River and towards Loring Park. [ii]

Catering to “drag queens and their boyfriends,” the social center offered bar food, coffee, a movie night featuring the drag-fabulous “Some Like it Hot,”[iii] and “dancing every night” for couples with few options for public dating. The public sphere was dangerous outside; a young gay man recalled how even the city’s most supposedly-accepting area at the time—The West Bank, near the University of Minnesota—was unwelcoming to same-sex couples.

“Walking on the ‘liberated West Bank’ with your lover and you’re having a good talk and you reach out for his hand without thinking,” wrote an anonymous member of the LGBT community in Gay Vue. “Without hesitation, from across the street comes the familiar refrain, ‘look at the faggots!’ Do you bullshit radicals over there know that the Nicollet Mall is for sure less repressive to gay people than your fucked up white liberal college playground?”[iv]

Loring Park was dangerous as well. John Moore, future co-owner of the saloon, witnessed a brutal murder there in 1971. While he was sitting with friends at Loring’s edge, a group of men walked up to them.

“They asked for money,” a young Moore wrote, “, [we] gave them a quarter, told them it was all we had. They stood in positions surrounding us, after they got the dime [sic] they asked for, for several minutes. Deciding not if we had more money, but if we were the ones they were going to destroy. They then left and walked back into the park. A few minutes later a man walked into the park. They approached him in their surrounding manner, and held him emotionally and physically captive, the let him proceed deeper into the park. I lost sight or interest until I heard the screaming of ‘help—help—hel—he—l.’ I saw this figure running towards us, as I heard these words. Then I again faintly…heard part of the word [as] he was one the ground and being kicked, along with whatever the others were doing to him.”[v]

The Club was one of few safe havens for queers in the early 1970s because it welcomed the outrageous and flamboyant. In a 1972 interview with Tom Murtha, a local performer named Rick Moore—alias “Skogie,” and leader of “Skogie and the Flaming Ponchos”—remembered his performances at The Club when few other venues would book his act.

“One of the more memorable [gigs] was on Hennepin Avenue. Skogie recalls, “We had this manager for about two months named Jim Tiseth, and the only gigs he could get us were at this gay club at 916 Hennepin, and it was called The Club. So we played there for all these drag queens and stuff. It’s behind this black door that says 916, and it doesn’t say anything else on it.” “[vi]

Like FREE, Gay House, the Lesbian Resource Center, and other pioneer centers of the era, The Club was a safe house that had consistent run-ins with controversy. Women in the community “who were actively participating accused the coffeehouse of being biased as to the gender of its clientele.”[vii] Unlike the other centers, The Club’s nonconformity and apolitical purpose led to difficulties competing for outside funding. Though a pioneer in every respect, The Club proved to be an impermanent fixture on Hennepin Avenue and closed in 1972. Its regulars possibly relocated to the Sandbox Bar and, later, to the Club Cabaret before patronizing the ultimate epicenter of Minneapolis’ drag queendom—the Gay 90s Complex.

[i] “Midwest Club takes Over New Quarters,” The Billboard, carnivals section, 3/16/1957, 63

[ii] Gay-Vue, issue 1, 10/7/1971, page 5. I cannot discern why “new” is quoted—it was, by all accounts, “new” in the sense that it was the first of its kind.

[iii] Gay Vue, issue 3, 9/4/1971, page 13

[iv] Untitled statement, author unknown, Gay Vue, issue 3, 8/21/1971, 14

[v] John Moore, “A Recollection of Death—Or a Feeling of—Anyway it Happened,” Gay Vue, issue 1, 8/7/1971, 115-17

[vi] Tom Murtha, “Skogie and the Flaming Ponchos,” Insider: The Midwest Music Magazine, May 1972

[vii] Larry E. Johnson, letter to the “Gay Community,” Gay Vue, issue 7, 11/5/1971