San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
WINDOWS ONTO HISTORY
HOW TWIN PEAKS TAVERN HELPED S.F. COME OUT OF THE CLOSET.
The plate glass windows of the Twin Peaks Tavern have seen a lot of LGBTQ history. Since the 1970s, protests against the antigay Briggs Initiative, marches in memory of Harvey Milk and reactions to elections and Supreme Court victories have transpired in view of the bar that sits on the corner of Castro and 17th streets, the entrance of the historically LGBTQ Castro neighborhood. But it’s not just what has transpired in the tavern’s vicinity that’s made history: The floor to ceiling windows are themselves a marker of the gay rights struggle, believed to be the first of their kind for a gay bar in the United States.
In 1972, when Twin Peaks opened under Mary Ellen Cunha and Peggy Forster’s ownership, the windows were a sign that the community was coming out of the closet, and coming together in public away from the hidden and unmarked bars that characterized many queer spaces prior.
“It was a real, empowering innovation by the bar owners,” says Don Romesburg, a professor at Sonoma State University and LGBTQ historian. “Well into the ’70s across the country, simply gathering together as gay people in commercial venues could lead to police raids, being exposed at your job and to families. Having a gay bar where passersby could easily look in and see gay people enjoying themselves together without fear of legal persecution or violence was a really profound architectural move. It is worthy of its historical landmark status.”
But like many ubiquitous neighborhood institutions during the pandemic, those windows into Twin Peaks have been at risk of being shuttered. The tavern has had to reach out for community support to survive the shutdowns, most recently during the holiday season when a recent push on the Twin Peaks’ GoFundMe helped get the bar’s campaign over the $100,000 mark in December and back to more secure financial footing.
Owner Jeff Green says Twin Peaks has laid off roughly half its 10 workers, with a remaining four on furlough (there is also a separate GoFundMe that benefits bar staff ).
During its five decades, Twin Peaks has also served as an extended living room for many in the community — its Victorianalite interior offers a particular brand of coziness, and the smell of bar coffee and baked goods from the neighboring Hot Cookie greet you once through the swinging door. In a neighborhood filled with dance venues and pickup bars it’s a different kind of space: The music is kept to a low din and cruising is minimal. It has also long been known as a favorite spot for older gay men. All of this is why the idea that such an integral part of the Castro fabric could close was inconceivable to many in the neighborhood — including many who donated to save the tavern.
“I feel like it’s our Stonewall,” says Bret Parker, codirector of “Through the Windows,” a 2019 documentary about Twin Peaks that is currently streaming at www.throughthewindows. com to benefit the bar. “That’s where we go if something is happening good or bad, we head to that corner and we also head to Twin Peaks.”
Green and business partner George Roehm became the owners of Twin Peaks Tavern in 2003 after working as bartenders there since 1989. Green describes it as a “passing down” of the business from owners Cunha and Forster. While Green and Roehm updated the paint and the carpet, they were careful not to touch the beloved ’70s fern bar fixtures (although the actual ferns are long gone) or balcony.
“We wanted to maintain the feel it’s always had, that feeling people love,” says Green. “We have people that have been coming here since the ’70s and didn’t want to change it too much.”
In the ’70s, the signature windows also helped inform the mood of the bar: Because of its visibility from the sidewalk, Cunha and Forster instituted a “no touch” policy inside that helped set it apart as a place intended for socializing in the neighborhood.
“There would still be arrests for lewd conduct or if you were dancing too close,
making out, even just holding hands in a bar,” says Romesburg of LGBTQ rights in the ’70s. “The very visibility remembered as such a liberating move by Twin Peaks required a certain kind of respectability in terms of how patrons behaved themselves.”
Romesburg says that the bar’s policy may have also been what attracted the older, more discreet clientele of gay men who have favored Twin Peaks since it opened.
“We wouldn’t dare go in there in the ’70s or ’80s,” says Marc Huestis, a longtime producer of special events at the Castro Theater, acknowledging the bar’s reputation for older clientele. “It was our future then, we didn’t want to be reminded of it. When Jeff and George took it over it became more hip. That’s when I started taking stars there after my shows, we practically had to pry Alan Cumming out of the place.”
The bar’s reputation as a mecca for senior patrons also earned it a number of nicknames. Romesburg titled a 2013 article about the history of the bar “The Glass Coffin” after one of its most famous monikers, which dates back to the ’70s. Green says that he and Roehm find the nicknames ageist and offensive. Parker calls the names morbid, especially given the Castro’s status as ground zero of the AIDS crisis in the ’80s and ’90s.
Despite the nicknames, younger customers have also been taken in by Twin Peaks’ charms in recent years. Photographer Devlin Shand has been going to the bar since moving to San Francisco in his 20s and says the connection to queer history that Twin Peaks represents is a big part of its lure, along with its Irish coffee.
“As someone who appreciates the meaning of being a queer San Franciscan, it’s important to me to patronize and lift up spaces that are a monument to that history,” Shand says. “Sometimes you hear the nicknames and you have to roll your eyes at that trope of gay men being youth obsessed. I’ve seen so much cultural, intergenerational exchange in that space.”
“It’s beyond a community,” says bartender Speros Mikanos. “People come in and drop stuff off like it’s a mailbox. I may not know everyone’s name, but I know their cocktails.”
While the fundraising campaign has lessened some of the financial worry for Twin Peaks, Green says what will ultimately allow them the most peace of mind is being able to open up for outdoor business again. They are putting a lot of faith into the vaccine, herd immunity and people taking social distancing seriously so hospitalizations go down and they can reopen with neighboring Orphan Andy’s as their food partner. As for the tavern’s longterm future, Green is in his 50s and says that he and Roehm have no plans to sell it. But, eventually, well into the future, they would look for someone who would want to carry on the legacy of Twin Peaks Tavern the way they have.
“Our hope is that it will be maintained forever as the gateway, and the living room, that it’s become,” says Green. For now though, they just can’t wait to get back to work behind those windows and back to the regulars they’ve been missing the past 10 months.