Leather Bar Mugs
Description: Tugs Belltown Tavern is considered by many to be the best Seattle gay bar of all time. The legendary Tugs opened their doors in October 1976 at 2207 1st Ave. and quickly showed the city what a gay bar could be. The tavern hosted a wide variety of musical style theme nights, making the transition from jukebox-only to live DJs in '78. They had a downstairs DJ booth where patrons could walk up to the window and look at the record being played. Customers would dance until dawn, often spilling into the streets or up on the roof in the small hours. Tugs also hosted live shows, movie nights, and tons of other regular events (every Saturday was Spaghetti Night!) which were all detailed in a monthly calendar that was designed and printed by hand.
Description: Established in November 1966, The Black Cat Tavern was a gay bar located in Los Angeles, California's Silver Lake neighborhood. Two months later, on New Year's Eve, several plainclothes LAPD officers infiltrated the tavern. After arresting several patrons for kissing, the undercover officers began beating several revelers, ultimately arresting fourteen patrons for assault and public lewdness. With no resolve for those wrongfully attacked and arrested, a civil demonstration of over 200 people to protest the raids was held on February 11 outside The Black Cat Tavern. This was one of the first demonstrations in the U.S. protesting police brutality against members of the LGBT community, preceding the Stonewall riots by over two years.
Description: Queer bars and clubs lost quite a few legendary spaces over time. Gathering places favored by homosexuals have operated for centuries. Like non-gay establishments they serve as a meeting place and LGBT community focal point, in which conversation, relaxation, and meeting potential romantic and sexual partners is the primary focus of the clientele. Historically and continuing in many continuing in many communities, gay bars have been valued by patrons as the only place closeted gay men and lesbians can be open and demonstrative about their sexuality without fear of discovery. court rulings nation wide that gays could peacefully assemble at bars lead to the opening of the Stonewall Inn in 1967, which in turn led to the 1969 Stonewall Riots
Description: Walter Schneider and his partner B.M. Alexander were pioneers West Hollywood, opening their successful bar, The Gallery Room, in 1962, and also ran the hot club of the day, Up Disco. In the late '70s, Schneider and Alexander decided they’d like to live in Venice, and a friend found them a prime location on Abbot Kinney Boulevard to open a new gay bar at the beach. Opening their doors in 1979 under the name Roosterfish, the bar quickly became a gay hot spot on the westside. Roosterfish became a neighborhood favorite, and operated for decades until finally closing up shop in 2016.
Description: Queer bars and clubs lost quite a few legendary spaces over time. Gathering places favored by homosexuals have operated for centuries. Like non-gay establishments they serve as a meeting place and LGBT community focal point, in which conversation, relaxation, and meeting potential romantic and sexual partners is the primary focus of the clientele. Historically and continuing in many continuing in many communities, gay bars have been valued by patrons as the only place closeted gay men and lesbians can be open and demonstrative about their sexuality without fear of discovery. court rulings nation wide that gays could peacefully assemble at bars lead to the opening of the Stonewall Inn in 1967, which in turn led to the 1969 Stonewall Riots
Description: Originally a leather bar with an obvious western theme when it opened in 1974, this West Village gay bar eventually played host to a rather diverse crowd with campy drag shows in it's latter years up until it's closing in 2014. This design celebrates Boots & Saddle's earliest incarnation that would end up becoming a 40-year old icon of New York's diverse LGBT scene.
Description: The sign is still lit. The band is still setting up. The bartender still knows what you drink before you ask. "Support Your Local Dive Bar Band" is the credo of everyone who knows that the best music you will ever hear is playing in a room with a fifty-person capacity and a two-drink minimum, and that the skeleton in the leather jacket on stage is the only artist who shows up at every show in every bar in every city without fail.
Description: The most popular riding leathers in the '60s and '70s were without question from ABC Custom Leathers. ABC was a 'little old lady' by the name of Clarice Amberg who had a shop in South Gate, California who made some of the first colorful biker jackets in an era where they were mostly black and riders were near impossible to tell apart. Clarice and her crew created rawhide masterpieces with swatches of leather for thousands of riders and racers from coast to coast, though one of ABC's most iconic projects is probably Wyatt’s leather jacket from 1969's Easy Rider. The character's prominently featured jacket had an armband of red, white, and blue, with an unmissable star-spangled banner appliquéd on the back.
Description: Originally a leather bar with an obvious western theme when it opened in 1974, this West Village gay bar eventually played host to a rather diverse crowd with campy drag shows in it's latter years up until it's closing in 2014. This design celebrates Boots & Saddle's earliest incarnation that would end up becoming a 40-year old icon of New York's diverse LGBT scene.
Description: "Discover the history of The Black Cat Tavern, established in November 1966 in Silver Lake, Los Angeles—a landmark in LGBT rights. On New Year's Eve 1967, plainclothes LAPD officers raided the gay bar, arresting and assaulting patrons for same-sex displays of affection. This injustice sparked one of the earliest LGBT civil demonstrations in the U.S. on February 11, 1967, protesting police brutality—predating the Stonewall riots by over two years."
