The Eagle quickly became engaged in many community-based activities such as holding tea dance benefits for national gay organizations. Nevertheless, the men loved their “home away from home” and were undeterred. Gay Bashing by marauding thugs was not uncommon in this remote area of New York. Its patrons loved the isolation and the raw masculinity of this dark playground on the West Side Highway. With a few coats of black paint and an old beat up motorcycle for decoration, an institution was born.īack in those days it was known as The Eagle’s Nest. In 1970, the Eagle Open Kitchen was acquired by Jack Modica who turned the pub into a leather/ levi bar. In 1969 the stonewall riots in Greenwich Village produced a new found pride in being gay and the closet doors were slowly opening. The Eagle bar originally was a longshoreman’s pub called the Eagle Open Kitchen at 142 11th Avenue at 21st Street from 1931 to 1970.
Dark-lit, multilevel gay leather-&-Levis bar with a roof deck.
