travel – Brian Ferrari's Blog

I recently found myself perusing (as one does) the January, 1990 issue of In Touch For Men. An article titled Touring Around The Village caught my eye. Wesley Allen took a walking tour around Greenwich Village, writing about the gay bars, shops, and restaurants.

This was the New York City that I fell in love with – the one I would visit on day trips from Long Island and was finally able to move to the following year. (See The Lion In The Emerald City and 1991: Homo Alone for more on that. ) These were the shops I frequented and a couple of the bars, too.

Of the 26 businesses mentioned here, four of them still exist at the same locations: The Monster, Ty’s, Marie’s Crisis, and Julius. Around the time that this magazine hit the stands, The Duplex, which originally opened in 1951 at 55 Grove Street, moved to its current spot at 61 Christopher Street.

In 1991, I moved into a 5th floor walkup on East 6th Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. Tunnel Bar was my neighborhood spot, just around the corner on First Avenue at 7th Street. On slow nights, the bespectacled bald barback would sit cross-legged on the far end of the bar, absentmindedly clicking his tongue ring on his teeth like some sort of queer lizard. I couldn’t decide if it was creepy or adorable.

A few years after Tunnel Bar went out of business, Saifee, the hardware store next door expanded into the space. I would reminisce about what it used to be whenever I would go in to buy plant dirt and screws.

I used to joke that the bar I frequented the most was Uncle Charlie’s, but it was just so I could hold my friends’ coats while they cruised the preppy boys. I was invisible there – never quite handsome or stylish enough for the clientele.

*Postcard for the 56 Greenwich Avenue location of Uncle Charlie’s, which closed in September, 1997.*

The Bar on Second Avenue was another neighborhood spot that I frequented, followed by The Boiler Room, which opened right around the corner on East 4th street in 1994. The Bar went straight a few years later, undergoing many hetero iterations and name changes in the ensuing years. The Boiler Room remained its gay seedy self until the Fall of 2024, when it moved to 45 Second Avenue.

Another item of interest in this issue of In Touch: A very nice photo of Madonna paramour / model Tony Ward.

Donald Windham and his partner Sandy Campbell were two of the subjects of my recent collaboration with the Fire Island Pines Historical Preservation Society. The Fire Island Muses of George Platt Lynes and The PaJaMa Collective focused on the subjects of their photography and artwork, specifically during summers spent on Fire Island.

Donald Windham (with Paul Cadmus) & Sandy Campbell in PaJaMa photos of the early 1940’s.

I recently rediscovered this piece written by Windham for a 1988 issue of Christopher Street. I bought the magazine at a West Village newsstand back in the day, and it has remained in my possession all these years, proving yet again why I never throw anything away. Because you never know…

Back in 1987, Donald Windham had published Lost Friendships: A Memoir of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Others. This article was written the following year in response to the publication of Gerald Clarke’s 600+ page biography Capote, which Windham describes as “misguided.” Clarke’s book would later be adapted into the 2005 film, with Phillip Seymour Hoffman winning an Oscar for his portrayal of troubled Truman.

Note that the photos accompanying the article are credited to Sandy Campbell.