The alley gay bar boston
No matter where the home came from, the 1850-or-earlier construction date does make the home the oldest in San Francisco. Every Sunday there were long tables spread for a host of guests and there were few of the prominent people of the time who were not at one time or another under the roof of Abner Phelps." "There were horses coming and going with the gay throng of guests. In researching this story, however, a previously uncited 1907 article in the San Francisco Call, which interviewed the original family, stated matter-of-factly that the home "was built in Louisiana and came around the Horn all ready to be put up and was pegged to the ground." That article also reveals that the home was for a long time painted not white but gray, and a hub of San Francisco society. Many of these later findings that coincided with the home's designation as a San Francisco landmark in the 1970s seemed to debunk and contradict the more romantic round-the-horn tale. Yet another San Francisco Examiner story says the home went up as early as 1846. A later 1970s report, based on an analysis of the wood by UC Berkeley scientists, posits that the house was built with California redwood. While living there and raising his family, Phelps gained work as an attorney in San Francisco and would ride his horse through the hills from the home to his downtown Montgomery Street law office every day (maybe making him one of the first riders to use The Wiggle).Ī 1934 report however contradicts the home's Louisiana origin story, and says the home was instead built for Phelps by a San Francisco housebuilder with lumber shipped from Maine. The Abner Phelps House from the rear, 1111 Oak St., San Francisco Wikimedia CommonsĪ profile of the home in the San Francisco Call reports that the lake was prone to breaking its banks on rainy days, and excitedly recalls the fate of a neighbor who lost his home to the flood: "It's a matter of history that his piano and a barrel of whiskey belonging to him were found out in the Mission." On the small, hilly ranch sat a 100-foot-deep lake "for the boys who were devoted to swimming and duck-hunting."
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The romantic ploy apparently worked and the home, then located a few blocks away from its current location, in the center of a 160-acre homestead at the foot of Buena Vista Park, housed the Phelps and their six children for decades. Phelps is said to have had the home shipped from New Orleans around Cape Horn to convince his young Louisiana bride, Charlotte Roussell, to move to San Francisco with him. Thanks! (Donations are non-deductible.The most romantic (and most repeated) origin story for the home tells of a lovelorn lawyer and former colonel in the Mexican-American War, Abner Phelps. Please help keep Boston Restaurant Talk and Boston's Hidden Restaurants going by making a one-time contribution or via a monthly subscription. Its website can be found at īy Marc Hurwitz ( Also follow us on Twitter at related post from our sister site (Boston's Hidden Restaurants): List of Restaurant Closings and Openings in the Boston Area] The address for the Alley Bar is 14 PI Alley, Boston, MA, 02108.
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The Alley Bar, which first opened in 2003, is a nightclub that has catered to the LGBTQ community over the years, though it never had food offerings until now. We have been told that a kitchen had apparently been in the works for awhile there-apparently before the coronavirus outbreak hit-and that with the food menu now offered at the bar, it can open now rather than having to wait for Phase 4 of the reopening of the Massachusetts economy, which might not happen for awhile because it is dependent on the discovery of a vaccine and/or therapeutic.Ī Facebook post from the Alley Bar indicates that it reopens today (with its new food menu) at 4:00 PM. A longtime gay bar in the heart of Boston is now serving food, which allows it to be open as the pandemic continues.Īccording to a source, the Alley Bar now has a kitchen within its space on PI Alley (just off Washington Street), with appetizers, burgers, and pizza being some of the options available to patrons.