Sandwiched on a floor between a gay bathhouse and a bail bonds agency, Hot Mass is an underground after-hours club that holds “services” every Saturday night through to Sunday morning from midnight to 7:00 AM. And here’s a fun fact: Ru Paul’s Drag Race champions Sharon Needles and Alaska both got their start on Blue Moon’s stage. Performers of all kinds are welcome, including burlesque, drag kings and queens, singers, poets, and comedians. On its modest stage, Blue Moon hosts weekly karaoke, themed drag shows, and open stages. Inside, you’ll find two cozy, wood-paneled rooms containing a small stage, pool table, and jukebox.
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Blue Moon may be on the smaller side, but it’s full of character and cheap drinks. Where: 5801 Ellsworth Avenue, Shadyside Blue Moonĭeclaring itself the “friendliest gay bar in Pittsburgh,” this dive bar is known for its welcoming atmosphere and diverse crowds. 5801 also has weekly trivia, darts, and poker games. If sports aren’t your thing, you can drop in to watch episodes of Ru Paul’s Drag Race instead. On game days, Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates fans can head over to 5801 to watch the game on the big screen. And it’s not called a video lounge for nothing - 5801 has 15 big screens that play music videos throughout the night.
With its clean, classy design gorgeous outdoor patio and three bars, 5801 is the place to be. Today, the non-profit Delta Foundation of Pittsburgh leads advocacy efforts, producing Pittsburgh Pride and collaborating with other smaller organizations. The Pittsburgh branch became a key player in the fight against the illnesses by helping identify the transmission, progression, and treatment of the disease. Called the Pitt Mens Study, it joined Baltimore, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, which was created to gain a scientific understanding of HIV/AIDS. In 1982, PERSAD created an AIDS support program and has since expanded to include other outreach programs aimed at supporting LGBTQ people and educating allies.ĭuring the HIV/AIDS outbreak in the 1980s, Pittsburgh stepped up to the plate again when researchers, doctors, and gay activists in the community united to recruit gay men for a study at the University of Pittsburgh. Named PERSAD, this organization gave the LGBTQ community quality care. In 1972 - a year before homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder - Pittsburgh opened the country’s second-oldest licensed LGBTQ mental health center. The exhibit will focus mainly on material from the three clubs operated by Robert "Lucky" Johns between the 1960s and early 1990s: the Transportation Club, the House of Tilden and the Travelers.īy focusing on those three clubs, Apple says he was able to document that Pittsburgh's LGBT community evolved much differently than those in larger cities.When it comes to LGBTQ health services in the US, Pittsburgh has been a trailblazer, offering non-discriminatory care before homosexuality was decriminalized in Pennsylvania, let alone nationwide. The show, the gallery promises in a statement, "challenges existing interpretations and assumptions about the development of an LGBT culture in Pittsburgh." Some of the research and material he recovered will be part of a month-long exhibit entitled Lucky After Dark at Future Tenant. That discovery led Apple to delve into the history of the city's gay after-hours clubs, the people who orbited around them, and their significance in shaping the city's present-day LGBT community. It showed that gay bars in Pittsburgh didn't just appear out of vice and ether." "Lucky not only ran that club, but two clubs before that and a bar. "I did research and found that the Travelers was a gay after-hours club that was run by a guy named Lucky," Apple says. Inside it was a membership card for a place called the Travelers Club. In a space between a stage and a concrete wall, Apple's boyfriend found an old wallet that had been there for probably more than two decades.