An Oasis of Civilization

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"San Francisco; an oasis of civilization in the California desert." - Addison DeWitt, "All About Eve"

If the walls could only talk, what stories the Oasis would have to tell.

It started its life as the Polly Ann Restaurant in the middle of blue-collar auto shops and gas stations. You can almost see the gingham tablecloths and smell the spaghetti. When it became the Covered Wagon in 1968 and turned gay, it was still a restaurant, but it evolved into a bar that held private parties for the mysteriously named "Longhorn Club."

We should not be so puzzled by the presence of longhorns in the South of Market Area however, since the iconic Tool Box, the first leather bar in the neighborhood, was at 4th Street and Harrison by 1964. The Tool Box garnered national attention that year when the Chuck Arnett mural in the bar of men seriously pursuing pleasure was the opening spread of Life magazine's article "Homosexuality In America."

In 1966, two years before the Covered Wagon opened, Febe's and the Stud opened in the same block of Folsom Street with the Cruiser Café (which would become Hamburger Mary's) opening at the other end of the block in 1967. The leather community was already well established in the neighborhood before the Covered Wagon pulled into town.

By the time the Covered Wagon became the Leatherneck in 1977, the community was well established. The mural in the Tool Box had echoes in the Leatherneck with "The Perils of Pecs O'Toole" cartoon panels by Al Shapiro (A. Jay), which Jim Stewart wrote about in the BARchive column ( 7/24/14). It's obvious that there was a homey feel to the bar and a thriving community established there by Thanksgiving of the next year, as Stewart recounted in "Thanksgiving High" (11/21/13).

But the Leatherneck only lasted through 1978 and was replaced in that year by Dirty Sally's, which only lasted one year. By 1979 the bar had become the "San Francisco Plunge." The Plunge was advertising in a May 1979 issue of the Bay Area Reporter, letting readers know that "summer is here" and that the pool was open.

In 1980 the Plunge was gone and the Drummer Key Club and its retail outlet, the 'Studstore' had taken over the spot. Jack Fritscher has written extensively about this period of time in his books "Eyewitness Drummer" and "The Rise and Fall of Drummer Magazine."

I was particularly interested in the incongruity of pool culture and leather and asked Fritscher about this. Apparently John Embry, the publisher of Drummer was interested in emulating the Playboy Clubs and attempted to start his own gay club empire, starting with the Drummer Key Club. But it was not a fully formed concept and the business faltered a few years in.

"The Rise and Fall of Drummer Magazine" includes an essay by Daniel Curzon, who wrote, "'His [Embry's] publications were doing well in the late 1970s, and then Embry got too ambitious. He decided to open the Drummer Key Club, modeled after the Playboy clubs, only for South-of-Market types. The Key Club was a flop, and money became tighter." Embry did have elements which could possibly have saved the enterprise as Jim Stewart, late of the Leatherneck, was managing the bar, but it was not to be and the Drummer Key Club locked the doors in 1982.

The Oasis opened later that summer of 1982. It was an inauspicious time to be starting a new club in San Francisco. The ephemera collection of the GLBT Historical Society reflects this. The announcement for the first event at the new club is a benefit for the (then newly formed) K.S. Foundation, which would eventually become the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The business sponsoring the event was The Connector, an "Electronic Glory Hole."

Not all signs pointed to doom, however. In September 1982 there was a travel event at the club sponsored by a local travel agent that had a drawing for a trip "to beautiful sunny Puerto Vallarta!"

And in the ad for the event, the iconic pink flamingo (which adorned the outside wall of the club on 11th Street) was featured for the first time. Halloween was also an event at the club that first year. It was open from 6 A.M. for revelers who had spent the previous night partying "After The Galleria, I-Beam & Trocadero the party begins at Oasis" the ads promised.

The Oasis also seemed to retain some of the leather clientele from the Leatherneck and the Drummer Key Club, because Manifest magazine held the contest to choose the "Manifest Man" at the club in December 1982.

But the club's luck didn't last, and it had new owners with a different vision. On March 28, 1984, the club reopened with the same name, but (as the flyers promised) "A New Beginning." And gay patrons of the club wouldn't notice much of a change - at least at first.