Bar at 7 Mile and Woodward

**John** · September-11-09, 04:16 PM

I am surprised this incident has not been mentioned yet:
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Sep 19, 1994 - An off-duty Wayne County Sheriff's deputy was shot and killed early Saturday, only a couple hours after he had completed a charity walk-a-thon for cancer research, officials said. Stephen Lucas, 30, had been with the department for seven years, said Candace Avery, sheriff's department spokeswoman. Lucas was shot once in the face with a shotgun at 4 a.m. in a car outside a nightclub on Detroit's north side, police said. Investigators said they had no motive.
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As I remember, this happened right behind the Gas Station / Heaven. It wasn't too long afterwards that both establishments closed.

**Detroitgayhistoryguy** · September-11-09, 10:02 PM

Wow, it seems like there are some older gay guys on here. I need your help. Please read my blog and post your stories about different bars. Especially the ones that are long ago closed. Please try not to just post a short comment. If you knew who owned the bar, why it closed, etc. Also, what the clientele was like. If you have old photos of bars, I really love that. I'm hoping my blog can be a center for people to reminisce about old bars. It is important do document Detroit's gay history.

Thanks!

http://detroitgayhistory.blogspot.com/

**vetalalumni** · September-12-09, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by Onthe405

I believe that was "Club TNT". That property was originally built as a private Jewish men's health club. It eventually devolved into gay bath house [[oy vey), then a bar with the bath house portion closed. You're right. It was dead and very short-lived, although the DJ/music wasn't half bad. They even tried the promo of giving away a free bottle of poppers upon entrance, but that obviously didn't do the trick.

The same club then continued to devolve as the "exclusive" Cheeks, where all of the chic trend-setters of metro Detroit would rub elbows and bump booties. Keep in mind, this was 4 or 5 years after the heyday of Studio 54. Bad concept. Bad place. Bad timing. It failed shortly thereafter.

Detroitgayhistoryguy, speaking of Studio 54, the old Detroit Studio 54 was an establishment you may find interesting historically. The late great Ken Collier is a place to start your research. Huge roving dance parties went on at such places as the Sentinel Building [[east Jefferson) and The Introvest on Greenfield.

My interest evolved in an odd way. During high school I spent an entire summer in New York with relatives. WBLS was very popular in NY and I was hooked. Later, Detroit had a variant station, WLBS with very similar format. The Electrifying Mojo was fading for some. Disco and Techno were evolving.

The following article is very accurate:
http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=6502

Chessmate and L’uomo were a couple of other very popular spots.

Regarding the Club TNT [[TNT Complex?) establishment.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&cl...189.58,,0,6.19

I had a friend who I used to visit who resided in the Co-op housing right there. Until now, I was unaware that the nightclub location right there was a gay establishment. Are you saying that even as far back as the late 70s and early 80s it was a gay establishment?

**Detroitgayhistoryguy** · September-13-09, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by vetalalumni

Detroitgayhistoryguy, speaking of Studio 54, the old Detroit Studio 54 was an establishment you may find interesting historically. The late great Ken Collier is a place to start your research. Huge roving dance parties went on at such places as the Sentinel Building [[east Jefferson) and The Introvest on Greenfield.

My interest evolved in an odd way. During high school I spent an entire summer in New York with relatives. WBLS was very popular in NY and I was hooked. Later, Detroit had a variant station, WLBS with very similar format. The Electrifying Mojo was fading for some. Disco and Techno were evolving.

The following article is very accurate:
http://metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=6502

Chessmate and Lâ€™uomo were a couple of other very popular spots.

Regarding the Club TNT [[TNT Complex?) establishment.

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&cl...189.58,,0,6.19

I had a friend who I used to visit who resided in the Co-op housing right there. Until now, I was unaware that the nightclub location right there was a gay establishment. Are you saying that even as far back as the late 70s and early 80s it was a gay establishment?

What establishment? TNT? TNT has been a bathhouse since at least the 80's I'm not sure maybe as far back as the 70's. I still have to get the history on that place. Cheeks was next to TNT in the same building. I remember when it was open. But it was male strippers for straight women. Gay guys kinda were not allowed. I used to know I guy who stripped there. I don't know if it was anything before Cheeks.

**n7hn** · September-13-09, 10:30 PM

cheeks was the TNT bar before it was cheeks. I remember the changeover

**Onthe405** · September-14-09, 12:06 PM

"Cheeks" ended up becoming a ladies' strip club, but that was not the original concept. After "Club TNT" failed, the new owners/operators [[who knows, it may have even been the same owners as TNT) poured tons of money into remodeling and marketing it as the hetero/homo "exclusive" haunt of Detroit's glitterati. I believe they even tried the infamous "doorman/velvet rope". The NW 8 Mile location was supposed to be close enough to attract the monied crowd from Southfield/West Bloomfield, etc.

It experienced a [[very, very) brief period of decent business, but patronage quickly began to fall off a cliff. By the early 80s: 1. The str8 crowd had already moved on past the "exclusive disco" trip and gays already had regular spots like Menjo's, the Gas Station, Backstreet, etc. 2. Detroit glitterati is an oxymoron.

Since imitating Studio didn't work, the owners moved on to imitating Chippendale's instead. I'm not certain, but I think when the building was first converted from the Jewish men's club to a gay bath house, it was called something else. I think it may have been "Club Baths Detroit". There was a loose association of "Club Baths" in cities throughout the US & Canada. Almost like a franchise [[shared logo, advertising, and membership in one city would admit patrons free in another city).

**EastsideAl** · September-14-09, 02:19 PM

As I remember, Cheeks was deeply damaged when they tried the velvet rope bit and refused to admit a well-known local black female news anchor [[Doris Biscoe?). They then cluelessly used the excuse to the news media that they were just trying to keep the crowd "balanced" [[i.e., not too many black people), which in turn drew the attention of the Liquor Control Commission. Soon there was no velvet rope and little business for their overpriced and increasingly unfashionable disco. Cue the male dancers...

Wasn't the Club Baths on Woodward somewhere north of the Boulevard? It was near where Lelli's was I think. I remember going by there on the bus when I was a kid and riding the Woodward bus every day.

**Onthe405** · September-14-09, 03:23 PM

Wow, thanks Al. I had completely forgotten about that "tempest in a teapot" controversy over the news anchor's velvet-rope rebuff at Cheeks until you mentioned it. I believe you're on the right track with Doris Biscoe [[or Diana Lewis). Undoubtedly, that incident further hastened the demise of a concept that was doomed from its inception.

Re: Club Baths. One of the characteristics of the bath houses [[in any city) is that they tend to be a lot like a speakeasy---located in seedy neighborhoods, owned by the mob, frequently losing their leases, and, more often than not, in violation of some local ordinance and shut down & reopened in another spot. As such, it is completely possible that CB may have been on Woodward and later moved uptown to the W 8 Mile space. Or perhaps they both operated simultaneously under different names for awhile.

**kryptonite** · September-15-09, 07:47 AM

There definitely was a club bath on Woodward north of Grand Blvd. It was on the east side of Woodward. I remember going by it on the bus heading downtown and they ran ads in Metra and Cruise magazines. I don't know when it opened, but it would have been before 1980 when I moved back to Detroit. And I have no idea when it closed, most likely in the mid or late 80's with the AIDS epidemic. I don't believe there is a Club Bath in Detroit area any longer, weren't they a national chain? Maybe the whole Club Bath chain is gone?

**Gary** · September-15-09, 10:22 AM

Al and Onthe405..I remember the "velvet rope" policy at Cheeks too. I never had any trouble getting in, but I knew others who did. I was there for New Year's Eve of 1984, they had a pretty cool mixed crowd and the place was off the hook that night. It didn't take long for the clientele to change however. Eventually, there was no need to try to keep the crowd "balanced" because the clientele was virtually all black.

**EastsideAl** · September-15-09, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by kryptonite

There definitely was a club bath on Woodward north of Grand Blvd. It was on the east side of Woodward. I remember going by it on the bus heading downtown and they ran ads in Metra and Cruise magazines. I don't know when it opened, but it would have been before 1980 when I moved back to Detroit. And I have no idea when it closed, most likely in the mid or late 80's with the AIDS epidemic. I don't believe there is a Club Bath in Detroit area any longer, weren't they a national chain? Maybe the whole Club Bath chain is gone?

The Club was there in the mid-70s when I rode that bus every weekday. In those pre-AIDS days of "gay liberation" and the sexual revolution [[am I the only one here old enough to remember that time?) it seems that part of their deal was to be open and above-board about who and what they were. Much as many other "adult" businesses were operating quite openly in that decade. So they had very visible signage, identified the place as a "men's health club," and had a sunbathing/dancing deck that was visible from Woodward.