Platial | Who and What's Nearby
Platial | Who and What's Nearby
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by Christine Curran
Squinting, the last bits of sun slumbering along its edges, the obtuse and exposing windows of Twin Peaks Tavern stare back at the street. Like the bent, 100 year-old Victorians shoring up Market Street as it recovers from its harrowing 17th Street drop, Twin Peaks remains, ornery and defiant.
I half expect to see long-gone Dan in the bar, talc-colored skin now glowing from several Irish coffees and the impending prospect of fat wallets, cheap drinks, and sex with anonymous strangers. "We're going to pick up some old queens," he'd say, and in 1981 that meant anyone over 25. Dan, who never wanted to grow old, never lived long enough to have to.
The bar outlasted a lot of us.
Twin Peaks was built over 100 years ago and was one of the few buildings in what was known as Eureka Valley to have made it through the 1906 quake. The original carved woodwork in the bar was resurrected from an old demolished hotel in the Mission, and the windows were blacked out to prevent outsiders from seeing inside and witnessing the debauchery of drink. (Little did they know what was to come!) The original bar was frequented by the predominantly Irish and Italian blue-collar workers who lived around it. Later, as the neighborhood grew and prospered, it became a popular watering hole for a mix of people moving in from all over the country when the area was affordable to working class families.
As the hippies filtered through the Haight Ashbury in the 60’s, Eureka Valley residents over the hill got wary, suspecting their backyards would be trampled by tripping, naked young people. They moved out to the suburbs in droves. Twin Peaks Tavern fell for a time into obscurity– but the influx of gays seeking sanctuary in San Francisco changed that in the late 60’s and early 70's.
A Lesbian couple bought the bar in 1972 and Twin Peaks Tavern became Twin Peaks, the first openly gay bar and haven for a defiantly “out” generation. In 1972, bucking the trend, Twin Peaks became instrumental in the gay rights movement, becoming the first street level bar to feature ceiling-to-floor windows that let the casual voyeur, cruiser, or gawker peer in. It set the trend for the later "fern bars" of the late 70's and early 80's. Along with other budding establishments in the neighborhood, such as the Elephant Walk at 18th and Castro (now Harvey’s), it became a symbol of gay pride and tolerance.
The deaths of Harvey Milk and the coming of AIDS may have sobered the community, but Twin Peaks Tavern is still "kicking it", as they say. When I finally made my way in I found Dennis pouring the same generous Irish Coffees, the same guys rousting each other, the same banter about what a "straight girl like me" was doing in a place like this (without a date for them).
Twin Peaks, with its Tiffany-esque lamps, dusty oak tables and crusty cobwebs flung across unwilling crevices – much like some of the patrons – is a survivor, plain and simple.
Dinged up myself after my 3rd "pop," I'm feeling a little more rambunctious, too, and as I steady myself with the help of a good samaritan who appears as inebriated as me, the words of Abba mixed with Al Green come wafting out of the bar's speakers and everyone joins in with the lyrics in a bizarre cacophony straight out of Fellini.
Tattered foolhardy and stubborn, Twin Peaks lurches on.
by Christine Curran
Squinting, the last bits of sun slumbering along its edges, the obtuse and exposing windows of Twin Peaks Tavern stare back at the street. Like the bent, 100 year-old Victorians shoring up Market Street as it recovers from its harrowing 17th Street drop, Twin Peaks remains, ornery and defiant.
I half expect to see long-gone Dan in the bar, talc-colored skin now glowing from several Irish coffees and the impending prospect of fat wallets, cheap drinks, and sex with anonymous strangers. "We're going to pick up some old queens," he'd say, and in 1981 that meant anyone over 25. Dan, who never wanted to grow old, never lived long enough to have to.
The bar outlasted a lot of us.
Twin Peaks was built over 100 years ago and was one of the few buildings in what was known as Eureka Valley to have made it through the 1906 quake. The original carved woodwork in the bar was resurrected from an old demolished hotel in the Mission, and the windows were blacked out to prevent outsiders from seeing inside and witnessing the debauchery of drink. (Little did they know what was to come!) The original bar was frequented by the predominantly Irish and Italian blue-collar workers who lived around it. Later, as the neighborhood grew and prospered, it became a popular watering hole for a mix of people moving in from all over the country when the area was affordable to working class families.
As the hippies filtered through the Haight Ashbury in the 60’s, Eureka Valley residents over the hill got wary, suspecting their backyards would be trampled by tripping, naked young people. They moved out to the suburbs in droves. Twin Peaks Tavern fell for a time into obscurity– but the influx of gays seeking sanctuary in San Francisco changed that in the late 60’s and early 70's.
A Lesbian couple bought the bar in 1972 and Twin Peaks Tavern became Twin Peaks, the first openly gay bar and haven for a defiantly “out” generation. In 1972, bucking the trend, Twin Peaks became instrumental in the gay rights movement, becoming the first street level bar to feature ceiling-to-floor windows that let the casual voyeur, cruiser, or gawker peer in. It set the trend for the later "fern bars" of the late 70's and early 80's. Along with other budding establishments in the neighborhood, such as the Elephant Walk at 18th and Castro (now Harvey’s), it became a symbol of gay pride and tolerance.
The deaths of Harvey Milk and the coming of AIDS may have sobered the community, but Twin Peaks Tavern is still "kicking it", as they say. When I finally made my way in I found Dennis pouring the same generous Irish Coffees, the same guys rousting each other, the same banter about what a "straight girl like me" was doing in a place like this (without a date for them).
Twin Peaks, with its Tiffany-esque lamps, dusty oak tables and crusty cobwebs flung across unwilling crevices – much like some of the patrons – is a survivor, plain and simple.
Dinged up myself after my 3rd "pop," I'm feeling a little more rambunctious, too, and as I steady myself with the help of a good samaritan who appears as inebriated as me, the words of Abba mixed with Al Green come wafting out of the bar's speakers and everyone joins in with the lyrics in a bizarre cacophony straight out of Fellini.
Tattered foolhardy and stubborn, Twin Peaks lurches on.
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