Mineshaft (gay club)
| Mineshaft | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Type | Sex club |
| Location | Manhattan, New York City |
| Address | 835 Washington Street |
| Country | United States |
| Opened | October 8, 1976 |
| Closed | November 7, 1985 |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 2 |
| Other information | |
| Facilities | roof deck, clothes check, dungeons / private rooms, slings, glory holes, bathtub |
The Mineshaft was a members-only BDSM gay bar and sex club located at 835 Washington Street, at Little West 12th Street, in Manhattan, New York City, in the Meatpacking District, West Village, and Greenwich Village sections.
Among those who frequented the Mineshaft were Jack Fritscher, who was present at its opening night and attended hundreds of times, Fritscher's lover Robert Mapplethorpe, who took many pictures of the Mineshaft and was at one point its official photographer ("After dinner I go to the Mineshaft."), gay erotic artist Rex, and Annie Sprinkle, who said she was one of three women ever allowed in. (One of the other women was Camille O'Grady.) Manager Wally Wallace (born James Wallace) said that he turned away Mick Jagger, and a bouncer turned away Rudolf Nureyev.Vincente Minnelli, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Rock Hudson, and Michel Foucault got in.
There was no sign on the entrance; the exterior has been described as "grimy". The location had previously been used by a gay bar, Zodiac. The entrance to the club was up a flight of stairs, on the second floor. The door was manned by someone who rejected anyone wearing preppie clothes or cologne. Originally the Mineshaft was on that one floor (and with a scat room, which was soon abandoned as too extreme). It soon expanded to the first floor beneath, cutting a hatch in the middle of the (second) floor which gave access down rough stairs to a recreation of a jail cell, the back of a truck, dungeons, and a room containing spotlighted bathtubs in which men could let other men urinate on them.
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Wikipedia