One could hangout on the aptly named “Joan Crawford Suite” or play a round of pool with buddies clad in nothing but towels.
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The next room was a relaxed lounge with overstuffed '40s furniture adjacent to a snack bar and an open DJ booth. Once checked in, you could store your valuables in a safe at the entry. The cost of a yearly membership was only four bucks. Full-sized rooms were just five to seven dollars for the night lockers, one to three dollars. And then, well, it was cheap - meaning it was relatively inexpensive compared to other such places in town. For one, it was a racially inclusive place for gay men to have sex, unlike some of the city’s hot spots that were less welcoming of people of color. The Fairoaks’ existence was short-lived - 1977 to 1979 - but fondly recalled by its patrons for a number of things.
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It literally stood alone, at the intersection of Oak and Steiner streets, perched on a hill overlooking the lower Hayes Valley district an urban patch not yet gentrified by the city’s swelling tide of gay Boomers and some distance from the neighborhoods they typically occupied. San Francisco was filled with establishments like this - ranging from the outright seedy to gaily grandiose - but there was no place quite like the Fairoaks Hotel. He’d been a member of the '70s gay commune that went on to purchase and convert a faded but wonderfully intact Victorian apartment building on the edge of a black ghetto into a gay bathhouse. Photographer Frank Melleno must have intuited the once-in-a-lifetime magic of the moment when he took these candid Polaroid pictures. The ticking of the clock of youthful beauty and passion was about to chime midnight and who knew what another morning would bring?Ī strategically placed clothespin advertises a preference by this sensitive young man. But for the denizens of the Fairoaks Hotel and other places like it all over town, it was eyes wide-open, as if every second counted. This brief zenith would be over in a blink.
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The gay revolution was in full flower - sexy, charged with itself, admitting no shadows. Life seemed never better in this fabled City-by-the-Bay. Those were the times to remember, not to ever forget- as if one could in their fleeting glory. The slapping flesh of one-time lovers lustily gettin’ it on. The happy laughter of good friends getting together. The passing drifts of another cool fog spied through a curtained bay window. Low moans and orgasmic shouts heard over an endlessly played Sylvester tune, “Do You Want to Funk With Me?” Giggles. The clank of an eight ball in a rear pocket, the rattle of chains. The acrid smell of popper fumes and stale marijuana smoke. Standing at the front office counter with notices about T-shirts, poppers, and towels.Ī day and a night at the Fairoaks could mean a lot of things.
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Interspered with these images is an essay by former Advocate senior editor Mark Thompson. Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (Prince Street Project Space) Polaroids from a San Francisco bathhouse in 1978 These images and more will be on display at the Leslie-Lohman Prince Street Project Space (details below) and also included are images from the Fairoaks Pride Parade float from that same year. There is no other collection of photographs that so clearly visualizes this period in bathhouse culture. Many of the images contain nudity and frank erotic scenes, but they also capture men dressed in festive attire and the general life at the bathhouse. These candid images are remarkable because they document the life of the bathhouse with celebration and no apology. An extraordinary, glimpse into the pre-AIDS gay sexual culture, "The Fairoaks Baths" is an exhibit of Polaroids taken by Frank Melleno during the spring and summer of 1978 at the Fairoaks Hotel, a San Francisco bathhouse.