The Mineshaft was the notorious New York City leather bar that became, for a time, the epicenter of gay male sexual culture in America — famous, and later infamous, for its uncompromising after-hours scene before its 1985 closure amid the AIDS crisis. Jack Fritscher covered the bar extensively in Drummer magazine, including his essay “Pissing in the Wind,” and later revisited it in Profiles in Gay Courage with a feature article and an interview with the club’s manager, Wally Wallace. The Mineshaft also became a flashpoint in the culture wars of its era when it served as a filming location for the 1980 film Cruising, which Fritscher examined in his essay on the gay community’s divided reaction to the movie.

Gay San Francisco: Eyewitness Drummer
Drummer Magazine No 19 December 1977

“Pissing in the Wind”
Drummer Magazine No 20 January 1978

Cruising (the movie)
The Gay Civil War: When the Boys in the Band Attacked the Leathermen in Cruising

Profiles in Gay Courage
The Mineshaft (Feature Article)
Wally Wallace Interview (text)
Wally Wallace Interview (YouTube)

References in: Gay Pioneers