The come one, come all venue saw business partners Bob Pontarelli and Stephen Heighton bring to Chelsea an expanded vision of the winning formula that made their East Village venue, Crowbar, more than the sum of its free-flowing booze and boys. That was all about to change, when the fall of 1995 saw the rise of Barracuda Lounge. Long gone bars with names like Splash, Rawhide, Champs, and G Lounge were the immobile mobile apps of their day, each catering to a specific taste of rainbow flavor, be it muscle boy, denim daddy, or all-night dance floor denizen.īack then, noted an Augpress release touting an event to be RuVealed in the paragraph below, “Gay bars were, for the most part, somewhat serious affairs meant for cruising and drinking… gay bar entertainment was relegated to random strippers and porn stars.”
| Photo courtesy of BarracudaīY SCOTT STIFFLER | A quarter century ago-a little more than 12 years before a contestant nicknamed “Porkchop” became the first of her kind to “sashay away”-Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood was dotted with well over a dozen gay watering holes. Drag artists surround Barracuda co-founder Bob Pontarelli, at the 20th anniversary celebration.
