There’s enough space in the dark room with mirrored walls for patrons to dance, but, on this night, the only dancers are being paid, and the clothed public stays relatively still, watching. On a Saturday night, an unmarked wood veneer door swings open at the back of the bar, revealing what appears to be a broom closet as a steep set of stairs lead up to the dance floor. Rotenstein in The Metropole, is visible mid-collapse with its interior chambers exposed, looking more like a grand Roman ruin than familiar Rust Belt decay, juxtaposed next to the shocking red exterior of the Real Luck Cafe.
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Instead of razing every structure, the demo crew carefully works around the bar, whose offerings are advertised on a sandwich board out front: “6-PACKS TO GO / WINE TO GO! <3 / HAPPY HOUR MONDAY-FRIDAY 5:30-7:30 / DANCERS UPSTAIRS THURSDAY TO SUNDAY 10PM-2AM / MUSIC AND DANCING / FREE MUNCHIES.”įrom the 16th Street Bridge, the seven stories-high Federal Cold Storage Company building, according to David S.
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The narrow brick three-story building shares a wall with the Wholey’s warehouse and this proximity is slowing the process of demolition. Lucky’s is currently still locally owned by Nancy Pribich, who ran the bar with Lucky prior to purchasing it from him outright in 2004 on the bar’s Google profile, she claims that Lucky’s is “the oldest woman owned gay bar that still has a dance floor!!,” though Apple says he believes it “may be the oldest queer bar that is woman-owned featuring nude dancers in Pittsburgh, not the greater metro area.” Harrison Apple of the Pittsburgh Queer History Project. It bears the name of Robert “Lucky” Johns, a pivotal figure in Pittsburgh’s gay nightlife scene who bought the building in the early '90s. (The Allegheny County Real Estate Portal lists the sale at $1 in 1990, but Pittsburgh City Paper was sent a copy of the deed, listing the price as $35,000 in 1991.) Lucky, who died in 2014, was the subject of the exhibit “ Lucky After Dark: Pittsburgh's Gay and Lesbian Social Clubs 1960-1990,” organized by Dr. And along with The Brewer’s Bar up on Liberty Avenue and Donny’s just across the Herron Bridge in Polish Hill, it’s one of the few remaining venues that once constituted a large network of gay bars and after-hours clubs across the city. The warehouse’s demolition is actively underway to the tune of a million dollars, granted by the state of Pennsylvania to New York City-based redevelopment company the Acram Group.īut despite the demolition, Lucky’s still stands. In the daytime, patrons smoking outside the bar stand next to cranes and bulldozers parked in the concrete rubble of the New Federal Cold Storage Building, better known to locals as the Wholey’s building.
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Just past multiple orange traffic cones sits the identity-obscuring, small glass block facade of the Real Luck Cafe, commonly known as Lucky’s. Demolition of Wholey’s Fish Market warehouse behind Lucky’s bar in the Strip District The north side of Penn Avenue, between 15th Street and the base of the 16th Street Bridge in the Strip District, is a construction zone, with a chain link fence blocking the sidewalk and yellow caution tape encircling an abandoned shopping cart at the east end of the block.