Dugout Bar

Two male bartenders in white short-sleeved shirts posing for a photo behind the bar with patrons seated on square leather stools, mostly congregated in far side and end of the bar.

Dugout Bar, an after dark meet up location for gay men on 2nd Avenue South. Circa 1960. Photo courtesy of Jean-Nicholaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.

In the 1940s and 1950s, The Dugout Bar attracted gay and bisexual men after dark. In this photo, the bar’s married owner stands on the right, behind the bar, with the daytime crowd. The Dugout stood across from the fabled Metropolitan Building and fell to the wreckers in the early 1960s. Patrons rummaged for bricks as keepsakes.

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