WashingtonBlade.com – By Lou Chibbaro Jr
Employees of the O Street gay nightclub Ziegfeld?s were scheduled to join their customers for a champagne toast this Sunday, April 2, to mark the closing that night of Ziegfeld?s and five other gay entertainment clubs on the same block.
The closings, which the city ordered to make way for a new baseball stadium, represent the end of an era of more than 30 years that included extravaganza-style drag shows, nude male dance performances, towel-clad men in a bathhouse and sauna, and porn stars of all stripes and sizes in person and on the screen and video monitors at an adult gay film theater and a video arcade.
“I know I?m going to cry,” said lesbian activist Cheryl Spector, who planned to attend the closing ceremony at Ziegfeld?s.