My first gay bar was the bar at Nomad Village in Bethany Beach, DE. Later it was the peep shows in the Combat Zone. Plus the porn movies: the Bijou, the Art Cinema, the Pilgrim and the State were a fuckfest every night. And you could always park on the street near by.
The Other Side was the best place to get drugs and find fucked-up Southie hotties, Herbie’s Ramrod Room was the leather bar, the 1270 was the best place to dance, Sporters, Buddies, and later Fritz, the Eagle, and the Merrimack to name a few.
JFK supposedly went there as a Harvard undergrad in the 1930’s. It and they had been around forever and when she lived in town, Judy Garland was a regular. I could have made a fortune filing the claim forms for the rest of the customers there. I had a decent baritone and a summer job working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and would help her with her Medicare claims: it was new then and no one knew how to get paid. No fake ID needed 17 and I was, um, very popular with the aging clientele (“look and maybe buy me a drink but don’t touch”) but even closer to Marie, the pianist who had been a showgirl going back to the Zeigfeld era. The Napoleon Club, aka “The Wrinkle Room” in Boston’s Bay Village circa 1967.
