Rusty’s: Where Were You in ’62?

With this post we’re back on Quince and Walnut Streets, where today you can enjoy a fine burger and a Guinness at Moriarty’s Irish Pub, the former home of Philadelphia’s most famous lesbian bar – Rusty’s.

 BEFORE THE FORREST

Although today we think of most of Walnut Street as a commercial thoroughfare, like most Philadelphia streets, it began as a residential area. By the 1890s, so many homes had been converted to shops that the city began removing all the stoops to the buildings on Walnut within a few blocks of Broad St. to make more room on the sidewalks for shoppers and to provide easier access to the businesses. Below is a photo of the south side of Walnut Street in February of 1927. Just a few months later, most of these buildings would be demolished and construction would begin on the Forrest Theatre. The ornate buildings on the far left were the Turkish and Russian Baths. More research needs to be done on the Turkish baths that served Philadelphia business men in the 19th and early 20th century and their place in the gay subculture. I’ve only come across one reference to them in a Vice Commission report in 1913, where a hotel bellboy tells the Commission that “now that there’s been a crackdown on prostitutes in the city, the fairies in the baths are getting bolder.” There is a lot more history to explore behind that quote.

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QUINCE GOES THEATRICAL

The building with the white sign three doors down to the right at the southeast corner of Walnut and Quince, was the Davis and Harvey auction house. On the far right, at 1116 Walnut St., is the building where Moriarty’s now operates. It was home to the W.F. Jones tailoring business for the first few decades of the twentieth century.

When the Forrest Theatre was completed in 1928, it changed the tone of the neighborhood. Restaurants catering to the theatre patrons sprung up at 202, 204 and 211 S Quince St. (See the histories of the restaurants on S Quince St. in this blog archives under the Quince St. category.) In the late 1940s, the business became the  Café Footlight. You can still see the old “Café Footlight” sign painted on the wall in the photo, left from 1958. By the time this photo was taken, the name had changed from the theatrical Café Footlight, to the very fifties Star Lite Café.

ENTER RUSTY

ENTER RUSTY

About 1963, the bar became known as Barone’s Variety Room. The main entrance to the restaurant and bar was on Walnut Street, but if you went around to the Quince St. side of the building, through the side door and up the stairs, you were in Rusty’s.

In November of 1967, Philadelphia Magazine published an article by Nancy Love called “The Invisible Sorority,” a semi-lurid exposé on Philadelphia’s lesbian community. The article opened with a visit to Rusty’s:

A small sign over the door on Quince Street, a little alley next the Forrest Theatre, says “Variety Room.” It’s very quiet as you go up the old wooden steps to the second floor and down the long corridor. You don’t hear the juke box until you’re actually in the room. You pay the $2 minimum to a woman in a white button-down shirt and slacks who looks a little like a gym teacher you once had, and she gives you a strip of tickets for drinks. It’s a smallish panelled room with a bar at one side and lots of tables clustered around a dance floor. At first, the relaxed atmosphere and informal dress and young girls make you think of a girls college hangout in a small town.

The woman at the door in the button-down shirt might have been Rusty Parisi, owner of the bar. She is the woman in glasses on the cover of the Philadelphia lesbian feminist newspaper Wicce, above.  This issue, published in 1974, featured an interview with Rusty and a nostalgic look back at lesbian life in the ’60s. Rusty was one of the first bar owners in Philadelphia who was gay herself. She discussed butch and femme roles, police harrassment and her own experiences. When asked how she felt about men in general, she replied bluntly, “I’ve never been with one and I’d never want to be. So that’s what I think of men in general. Not much.”

The matches, above left, are from the cigarette machine in Rusty’s. With their 1960s pin-up girls and phallic rockets, (the one on the right  is limp!), they are two of my favorite objects in the William Way Community Center’s archival collections.

THE RAID ON RUSTY’S

On the night of March 8, 1968, a year after “The Invisible Sorority” appeared, women out for a drink at Rusty’s suddenly found the jukebox unplugged and the house lights brought up. It was a police raid. Under Police Comissioner Rizzo, raids on gay and lesbian bars were an all too common occurence in 1960s Philly.  Many of the women were verbally abused; police accused them of being drunk and disorderly. Some were booked and held overnight. They were brought before a magistrate the next day, but all charges were dropped. It was a clear-cut case of  police harrassment.

The local chapter of D.O.B. editorialized against the raid. D.O.B., the “Daughters of Bilitis,” was a national lesbian social and support organization with a policy of political non-involvement. The Philadelphia chapter was one of the exceptions. A few nights later, after another raid on Rusty’s, local activists Ada Bello, above, on the left, seated next to Frances Hanckel, right.  Lourdes Barbara Gittings were present. When Police asked Gittings for her I.D., Barbara flashed her ACLU card. The police moved on.*

In May, the D.O.B. arranged a meeting with the Philadelphia Police Inspector and they brought along an ACLU observer. The D.O.B. let the Inspector know that they represented the community and that they were were not afraid to protest violations. The police issued a statement that “homosexuals have been, are now, and will be treated equally with heterosexuals.” Because of their active support in the incident, membership in the Philadelphia D.O.B. increased dramatically. A year before the Stonewall riots, the raid on Rusty’s and the reaction of local lesbians was a success story for gay rights.

● Matchbooks and cover of Wicce courtesy of the John J. Wilcox Jr. Archives at the William Way LGBT Community Center.

* Some details of this entry have been corrected on July 11, 2013, thanks to input by Ada Bello. Also, according to Ada, portrait artist Susan Schary painted several of Rusty’s patrons, Lourdes Alvarez and Ada Bello among them, as well as Rusty Parisi’s. The whereabouts of the latter is not known.

Thank you, Ada!

Quince Street: Crowded But Not Crushed, Part II

Last time, I began the story of the short stretch of the east side Quince Street between Walnut and Locust Streets – sometimes straight, sometimes gay, but always interesting. We traced it from the 1920s Blue Lantern Tea Room, through its life as Maurice’s, Antonio’s, the Foster House and Flippo’s in the 1970s.

BREAKING BAD

In the early ’80s, now called the Intermission Tavern, the restaurant ended up in a 48 page exposé published by the Pennsylvania Crime Commission. The Commission cited violations that included numerous violations of the state Liquor Code and ownership and use of the site as a meeting place by organized crime associates, some with criminal records. In a secret bugging operation, the FBI phone taps and hidden cameras discovered that the Intermission was being used as the headquarters for loan sharking and drug dealing operations by mobster Raymond “Long John”  Mortorano, right, and union boss Albert Daidone. Their methamphetamine and Quaalude trafficking network was estimated to have an annual worth of  between $50 and $100 million. Mortorano and Daidone were both eventually implicated in a murder that was part of a battle for control of Atlantic City’s 10,000 member bartender’s union. The city shut the Intermission Tavern down in 1982. After serving 17 year prison sentences, Daidone and Mortorano were  released in 1999. Daidone retired from mob life, but Mortorano was gunned down in his Lincoln towncar during rush hour in South Philadelphia in 2002.

THE MONSTER MASH

On April 5, 1985, after three years as co-owner the new Bike Stop at 206 S Quince, Ron Lord, right, with partner Roland Frambes, opened a restaurant across the street at 211 S Quince St called The Monster Inn. Jim Madden, who would buy the Bike Stop in 1997, got his start in Philadelphia working at the Monster for Lord. The Monster Inn was named after the chain of “Monster” bars in Cherry Grove, Key West and Sheridan Square in New York, but apparently was not associated with them. (If anyone knows the story, please let me know!) The Monster featured a menu sprinkled with with items humorously and ghoulishly named, in keeping with the theme,  like “Decapitated Coffee” and the “Lox Ness Monster,” served at brunch; see the sample menu, below. The Monster catered to cast members and theatre-goers from the Forrest Theatre and advertised to a gay clientele as well.

The Monster Inn only lasted three years, until early 1988. In June of that year, it was announced that Joe Venuti, below, the owner of the Allegro II which had operated at 2056 Sansom St. since 1983, was going to move his club  to the defunct Monster Inn. When the deal fell through, Venuti charged that the corporation that had run the Monster reneged because the Allegro II catered to a mostly African-American clientele. Ron Lord, who had done so much in fundraising for AIDS in Philadelphia,  denied those charges, stating simply that his partners were not ready to sell. Ron’s health was in decline at the time and his original partner, Roland Frambes, had died of AIDS in July of 1987. The Allegro II ended up moving back to Sansom Street. Lord announced that the Monster Inn would re-open as The Home Plate. According to Gayborhood Guru reader Rick Van Tassell, that only lasted a few months. (See his comment below.)

PENGUINS ON QUINCE

For five years in the mid 1980s, the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia (GCCP) miraculously existed without a building as Penguin Place, “The Community Center without Walls,” logo at top of post. In the fall of 1988, the Center’s Board decided that they needed a physical space again. In December, they signed a lease with Ron Lord, owner of the Bike Stop, to rent 211 S Quince Street, the former home of his Monster Inn, right. The GCCP Library and Archives began moving in right away. Within a few months there were problems; it seems Ron Lord’s original lease didn’t allow him to sublet. Furthermore, the building seemed to be in the name of an 80 year old Italian woman in South Philadelphia, which hinted that the building’s organized crime connections were still very much there. During this minor crisis, GCCP Board Members Marge McCann and Michael LoForno worked heroically to keep the Center together. By the time things were worked out, there was some contention among the GCCP Board, inflammatory press added to the problem and Center co-chair John Cabiria resigned. In addition, in early February of 1990, there was a fire in the back of the building, most probably set by a homeless person. Coincidentally, soon after, plans for a new location were announced. The Community Center moved on to 201 S Camac St. and seven years later, to its current home at 1315 Spruce Street, the first building that the Community Center has owned.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

The buildings lay empty for a long time, until a few years ago, when they were once again separated into three private residences, restored and sold. Today, the three simple brick façades at 211 to 215 S Quince St., with their tiny marble stoops, tasteful, dark green doors, fanlights and shuttered windows, left, look pretty much they way they did when they were first built about 1850. There’s no hint at all of the long succession of tea room, restaurant, gay bar, mob hangout, gay bar again and community center they housed in the last hundred years.

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• For more information on the Bike Stop, see “T-Squares and Bootblacks: The Bike Stop,” on this blog.

• For more information on the William Way Center, see “A Home for the Community Center,” Part I, Part II and Part III, on this blog.

Quince Street: Crowded But Not Crushed, Part I

A 1922 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer about the tiny stretch of Quince Street between Walnut and Locust Streets called it “. . . a tinge of the Philadelphia of old, crowded but not wholly crushed,” and even then, almost a hundred years ago, the tiny houses that lined it were already being referred to as “ancient dwellings.” The picture of one of the buildings that accompanied the article, below, right, would be hardly distinguishable from one taken today.

Narrow Quince Street, running only four blocks from Walnut to Lombard Streets, first appeared in Philadelphia City Directories about 1813 as “Quince Alley.” By 1816, it was a full-fledged street, home to a racially mixed working class population of carpenters, waiters, dressmakers and coachmen. By the early 20th century, not unlike other small by-ways in the older part of the city east of Broad Street, it had become a bit shabby. Seventy year old fireplaces were bricked up, ornate woodwork was lost under layers of heavy paint and motley layers of wallpapers covered the original walls, much like what was going on in Society Hill. Well into the beginning of the 20th century, William J. Beattie, who lived at 208 S Quince, right next to where the Bike Stop is today, held the honor of being one of the last horse-shoers in the city.

THE BLUE LANTERN TEA ROOM

In the early 1920s, a prosperous Philadelphia dentist named Dr. Eugene Pettit, went though a nasty, much publicized divorce and bought the three two-story rowhouses with dormers at 211, 213 and 215. He moved out of his Clinton Street home and into the top floor of 213, restoring much of the interior to its early 19th century glory and filling every corner of the attic space with the antiques, engravings, porcelains and furniture he had collected. The houses on either side, he rented to an antique dealer and to offices, but the ground floor of 213 Quince became the Blue Lantern Tea Room.  Tea rooms, like the contemporaneous Venture Tea Room on Camac, served “dainty lunches” and light dinners to well-heeled club women in the city. The Blue Lantern, as you can see in the 1922 illustration, left, by artist Frank Taylor, was marked by the large –you guessed it– blue lantern that hung outside until World War II. The Blue Lantern matchbook cover at the top of this post probably dates from the early 1930s, after the Forrest Theatre opened in 1927 on Walnut Street.

MAURICE THE MAESTRO

Maurice Rotenberg, grandfather of chef Marc Vetri, began his restaurant career in the 1940s, with a small lunchroom in Center City. A great lover of classical music, he decided to replace the pop tunes in his juke boxes with classical selections. The idea was a huge hit. In 1948, he bought the three building complex including 211 Quince Street, broke through walls and opened Maurice’s, above, an “Old World” style restaurant wired by technicians from Philco to pipe classical music throughout the nine tiny dining rooms, including the “Beethoven Shrine” on the third floor.

In the 1950s, celebrities like Eugene Ormandy, Tony Randall and Sammy Davis Jr. would drop in for lunch and to hear some of Rotenberg’s collection of over 30,000 classical records. After Maurice died in 1952, his wife Gussie ran the place for ten more years before retiring.

Long before Philadelphia’s restaurant renaissance in the 1970s, Maurice’s was offering a gourmet “J.S. Bach Club Sandwich” served up with the latest recording of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

THE STRAIGHT AND THE GAY OF IT

After Gussie left, the restaurant briefly became Antonio’s, serving Italian cuisine and steaks from about 1968 to 1971. You can see, below, that Antonio’s left Maurice’s signature treble clef on their sign, simply adding “Antonio’s Steak House” below it.

Still relying on the patronage of the theatre crowds from the nearby Forrest, the business would go through several name changes in the 1970s, from Antonio’s to the Foster House, to Flippo’s then to Curtain Call. Both Foster House and Flippo’s are listed in gay guides and Foster House had the honor of appearing in 1972’s “Gay Today” article by Art Spikol, which also mentioned the Horizon House, see the last post, below, February 28.

Spikol described the Foster House this way:

The 200 block of South Quince Street is not much bigger than an alley, and runs between 11th and 12th in center city. There is a parking lot on the corner and a few bars on the street–one of which, called the Foster House, is small and quaint, and at night, with its colored lights shining on the sidewalk, surrounds itself with the slightly unreal, super-animated aura of a Disney movie.

It is only eight o’clock, and the Foster House is still relatively empty–two guys talking quietly at the bar, a lesbian couple at a nearby table. The walls are covered with a planned graffiti, and the black-light illumination makes white glow purple. A fun house, with nooks and crannies and little steps leading to a small room in the rear where our meeting is to take place.

Spikol then goes on to describe his meeting with four young gay male activists, including the 21 year old Mark Segal and the 29 year old Kiyoshi Kuromiya.  He bravely endures a four-hour consciousness raising lecture on 1970s gay liberation politics from them, ending the article with an admission that, just possibly, for all his liberalism and understanding, he’s been a sexist male, “right down the line.”

Next time: BREAKING BAD

T-Squares and Bootblacks: The Bike Stop

The history of the Bike Stop at 204-6 S. Quince St. follows a pattern that’s common to many Gayborhood businesses. What began as a private building would become a public space with live entertainment after World War II, and then a self-identified gay bar in the 1960s. The Bike Stop is special to me, because it’s the first gay bar I went into in Philadelphia when I moved here in 1998.

A THING OF DELIGHTFUL ODDITY

During the nineteenth century, that golden age of fraternal organizations, Philadelphia was home to its share of clubs catering to every profession and interest imaginable; painting, sculpture, advertising, theatre, journalism, literature, science and engineering. Many of these little clubs found comfortable spaces in the tiny alleys and side streets that honeycomb today’s Gayborhood.

In 1883, thirteen Philadelphia architects formed the T-Square Club for mutual fellowship and to sponsor competitions and exhibitions.  Among the early members of this prestigious organization was Julian Abele, the first African-American graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Architecture. For a few years, from about 1906 until 1914, the club was based at an architectural firm’s offices at 1204 Chancellor Street, just behind where Cafe 12 is today. In 1914, they bought a three story house and adjacent two story barn at 204-206 S. Quince St.  On that site, the firm of Wilson Eyre & McIlvaine designed the arts and crafts, rustic style, three storey building that houses the Bike Stop today (see photo of original entrance above, left, 1916). In 1922, the Evening Public Ledger described the buidling as “a thing of delightful oddity.” Two doors down, at 206, lived Wiliam J. Beattie, one of the city’s last horseshoers. Across the street, at 211, lived eccentric antiquarian, Dr. Eugene Pettit upstairs, with the romantically named “Blue Lantern” tea room on the first floor. The architects remained on Quince St. until the late 1930s, when, like many organizations, they dissolved their club in the face of the Great Depression and the oncoming war.

Below is the original terra-cotta medallion visible in the photo of the original entrance above. It was saved during renovations and is now at the Athenaeum on Washington Square:

I was recently able to find two photos of the second floor of the T-Square Club from their 1923 Yearbook. Here they are, below:

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BARNEY ZEEMAN, MUSICIAN & RESTAURATEUR

In 1927, the Shubert Organization built the beautiful Forrest Theatre on the south east corner of Walnut and  Quince Streets. The theatre helped give rise to small cafes and restaurants nearby which catered to its audiences before and after shows. In the 1920s the Blue Lantern Tearoom flourished at 211 Quince St. (more about that building’s LGBT history another time). In the late 1930s, after the architects left, the second floor of 204 S Quince St. was home to a little theatre group called the Quince Street Players. Some time about 1941, 204-26 Quince became the Forrest Restaurant and Bar, owned by Barney Zeeman. He bought the property in 1944. Barney had been a pianist and dance band leader in the 1920s and 1930s, performing all over the southeast Pennsylvania area and Atlantic City with his band, the Kentucky Kardinals. He died in 1976.

Barney Zeeman

The ad, above right, and the photo postcard, below, of the Forrest’s “English Room” date from about 1948. You can plainly see the arched windows in the photo; it’s absolutely recognizable as the second floor of today’s Bike Stop.

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THE DISCREETLY PRIVATE ’60s

By the early 1960s, the Forrest definitely identified itself as a gay bar, advertising in gay publications and appearing in gay travel guides. Here’s a photo of Quince St. from 1962, with a huge neon “Forrest Bar & Restaurant” sign on the façade and vinyl siding gracing the entrance. Visible on the north door, beyond, is a tiny “U.S.A. & A.” sign. This was the entance to the upstairs, third floor, private after hours club. The initials stood for “Uniform Social and Athletic Association.”

Next to that, beyond the  U.S.A. & A. sign, is the long sign for Dave Shore’s Jewish-style restaurant, which operated at 202 from 1941 until 1981. These strangely named social clubs, named after fictitious poitical or professional clubs, provided important private spaces, where gay men and lesbians could socialize and enjoy a little same sex dancing, which was strictly forbidden in public bars. Even though they were technically “private membership,” these clubs were frequently raided by the Philadelphia Police. There are many stories of raids on the U.S.A. & A. in the ’60s.

The black and white ad for the Forrest, below, is from a 1964 edition of Clark Polak’s gay publication “Drum,” published by the Janus Society here in Philadelphia. It’s a rare look at the inside of a gay bar in the ’60s. The two men discreetly have their faces hidden from the camera, but note the same black and white checked floor in the ad as is seen in the 1948 postcard above. It’s the second floor looking in the other direction.

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THE DISCO ’70s & THE GLAM EARLY ’80s

By the ‘70s, as we see in this photo, right,  from 1972, the Forrest was billing itself as the “Forrest Theatrical Cocktail Lounge,” and we all know what “theatrical” meant.  The tree seems to have been planted somewhere between 1962 and 1972. It’s still there today. The Forrest featured drag shows in the ’70s, and the U.S.A. & A. had become the P.B.L., still an after hours private club, catering mostly to women.

Here’s Philly writer and longtime activist Tommi Avicolli’s 1976 membership card from the P.B.L., below.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Forrest went through a few rapid incarnations, as Scarlet’s Lounge from 1976 to 1977, as After Dark (after the discreetly gay ’70s publication of the same name) from 1977 to 1980 and finally as The New Forrest Lounge from 1980 to 1982. As the ad, right, for The New Forrest Lounge and “The Fabulous Fakes” shows, the bar was still “theatrical” and still very much gender-bending; it billed itself as “Philadelphia’s only showbar of its kind!!” This ad, right is from Center City Magazine, a gay entertainment and events magazine published in Philadelphia for a few years in the early ’80s. Below is performer Les Harrison as “Philly’s own Shirley Bassey,” in a New Forrest review.

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1982: THE BIKE STOP OPENS, MULLETS RULE

In the early 80s, Philadelphia boasted two leather and denim bars west of Broad St. and two east of Broad St.  There was the 247 at 247 S 17th St., which had opened in 1971, and the Post, at 1705 Chancellor St., which had opened in 1976. There was the Loft at 1215 Walnut St. which opened in 1980 and the Cell Block above the DCA on St. James St. All were doing fine business. In 1982, Philadelphians M.C. member Ron Lord bought the Forrest and turned it from a show bar into a leather bar, hanging the infamous motorcycle on the first floor and christening the space as the Bike Stop on June 11th of that year. In 1983, the Pit Stop in the basement opened on weekends. Ron and the Bike Stop were early leaders in Philadelphia in raising money to fight AIDS. The top two floors remained a separate, private lesbian club called Mamzelle’s, run by Sally Tyre from 1982 to 1986. Mamzelle’s had two levels, a mirrored and strobed dance floor above and a conversation lounge and video games under that. Below is a great photo of Mamzelle’s circa 1985, mullets and all.

From 1985 to 1987, Ron also ran the Monster Inn at 211 S. Quince, right across the street, where the Blue Lantern restaurant, and later, a string of mob run restaurants had been.  For a brief period after the Monster Inn closed in 1988, 211 S. Quince would also serve as a home to the Gay Community Center. The Bike Stop became soon became host to the Mr. Philadelphia Leather contest, see photo, below, and in 1994 sponsored the first Mr. Philadelphia Deaf Leather contest.

1990 – 2009: JIM MADDEN

In 1987, Ron hired Jim Madden, left, to work at the Monster Inn across the street. In 1997 Ron sold the Bike Stop to Jim, who ran it until 2009. (There are many instances in Philly’s Gayborhood history of businesses being passed on from an owner to an employee when the employer retired).

Meanwhile, the Cell Block and the Loft  had closed in the ’80s, the 247 closed in 1996 and the Post became Stir Lounge, leaving the Bike Stop as the only real leather bar in Philadelphia. The Stop continued to host the Keystone Boys of Leather, the Philadelphians and the Liberty Bears.

2012

Today, the vinyl siding and the neon sign are gone from the façade, but the painted brown ghost of the Dave Shore’s sign still remains at 202 S. Quince, next door. Only a small sign on the door at 204 S. Quince identifies the location of the Bike Stop and its hours of operation. The present owners of the bar are Robert and Carmella Porter who are happy to carry on the long Bike Stop tradition.

This year, 2012, the Bike Stop celebrates its 30th anniversary. I was given a wonderful tour of the building by bartender/bar manager/historian Mike Gaines. Recent interior renovations have revealed some of the plaster medallions, ceilings and some brickwork arches from 1916. Whether you’re gay or straght, it’s worth a visit just to see them!

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NOTE:

Most of the images I’ve used here are either from my own collection or  from the amazing collections of the John J. Wilcox Jr. LGBT Archives at the William Way Community Center. Email archives@waygay.org to schedule a visit there.

The beautiful tile work scattered around the Club was done by the Enfield Pottery and Tile Works just north of the city. What other city  but Philadelphia would have an arts-and-crafts leather bar?