May 15th, 2016
San Francisco’s South of Market (SOMA) has been the center of the city’s leather scene since the 1960s, when the famous Tool Box opened in 1961. The Barracks opened in 1972 as a combination hotel/bar/bathhouse, with emphasis on the latter and each room set up to cater to a different fantasy. Vector magazine, a San Francisco gay glossy, described it this way in 1973:
Unlike the Continental or the Ritch Street baths here, the Folsom has a very easy and soft trip that lets you run with it. The Folsom is not a programmed environment; it does not impose it’s trip on yours. As a result, the divergence of types and scenes is manifold. At any given minute of the day or night you are likely to find as many different things going on as there are people on the premises. For purists, all of the bath traditionals are there and modern; sauna, showers, coffee shop, lounge, along with some radical innovations such as complimentary cans of Crisco in every room, a free-wheeling staff out to please in every sense of the word, and generous patrons willing to share whatever they may have brought with them to help you get to where you want to go.
By the late 1970s Folsom’s Miracle Mile, as that stretch of Folsom Street came to be known, featured nearly thirty bars, clubs, and retail shops within walking distance of each other. The Barracks closed in 1981 for renovation, but was destroyed in a fire that was described as the worst since the 1906 earthquake.
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Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
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Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
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Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
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