In 1950, the Nob Hill Club became the Polk’s first gay bar, and it didn’t take long for the neighborhood to essentially become the City’s first gay downtown with not only gay bars and clubs but also restaurants, hotels, and retail shops catering to gay customers. At the time, the Polk catered to a more affluent gay crowd while the Tenderloin catered to poorer and more flamboyant gays and SOMA attracted more of the leather crowd.
The Nob Hill Club closed for good after a raid in 1959.
In 1962, Life magazine featured the Jumpin’ Frog in the Polk along with the Tool Box in SOMA in their “Homosexuality in America” article in which they proclaimed San Francisco to be the gayest city in the U.S.
In the 60s and 70s, the Polk had 65 gay bars, peep shows, bathhouses, and hotels along the strip. The neighborhood held the City’s first gay pride parade and for years was the place to be on Halloween.
Buzzby’s, which opened in 1974, eventually became the most popular gay bar in the neighborhood. It closed in 1986.
Of all the gay bars in the Polk, the Cinch, which opened in 1975, is the only one that remains a gay bar.
I lived in San Francisco between 1953 and 1957, and during that time, my mother used to buy whole bean coffee from an outfit on Polk St. called Freed, Teller & Freed. I don’t know how gay Polk St. was at that time, but she stayed at the old Jack Tar Hotel for several weeks in early 1963 (my family lived about 40 miles south of the city then), and she came back home talking about the “queers” that were frequenting the Polk St. shopping area.
I used to buy my coffee at Freed, Teller & Freed. I bought a grinder from Macy’s and for the first time, ground my own coffee. Like the country bumpkin I was, it made me feel like a true San Franciscan sophisticate.
Polk Street is now unrecognizable…it is filled with homeless, drug users and it is sad…all the gay business closed decades ago
Oh yeah… I remember well Buzzby’s…. I used to have a lot of fun there….
I remember Oil Can Harry’s, The Wild Goose, N’Touch, Mz. Brown’s, good ole Grubstake, the Palms (which was more of a young straight bar, still fun), Bob’s Broiler, first place I ate when I arrived in San Francisco on 10/1/1974. There were a few other gay bars on Polk, but forget the names. It was a fun place. It was a gay community.
Some of the bars I remember:
The P.S.
The Giraffe
White Swallow
New Bell Saloon
The Cinch
Hi there, George. Don here. I’m sure I saw you with the gang at the PS, Bob Sandner piano, Mike Dooley and Gary at the Swallow, David Kelsey at the New Belle….I could go on. Glad to see you are still going strong! I was the one with the Thunderbirds and other luxoboats. It was certainly a grand time that cannot be replicated.
Grubstake is still open. Not what it was but there’s some gay dinner meetings here and there
My first apartment on California at Buchanan was easy walking distance to Polk Street. 1975 and this was the gay neighborhood. Halloween was celebrated on Polk before it moved to The Castro.
I remember Buzby’s as it was the first (and only) bar I got bounced out of. Not because I was drunk & disorderly but a guy started a conversation with me. I was young naive, and was quite flattered. About 30 minutes into the conversation, I revealed I was only 20. His demeanor changed and he groaned, “Oh, I’m so sorry you said that. I work here and now I have to ask you to leave.”
Needless to say, I never made that mistake for the rest of the year.
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