Quote Originally Posted by EastsideAl View Post
What's interesting about these places, from a present day perspective, is that they were far from exclusively "gay." In fact, they were just sort of quiet and very sexualized spaces. There were some men there of course, gay or otherwise, who were looking for or would accept sexual encounters with other men, and knew they would probably find them in that atmosphere. There were others who were just there to see the movies, which were exclusively male-female, or were overly curious kids like me. And, in the 24 hour places, those who were there mostly for a warm place to sleep.

The Sassy Cat, as I remember, had much more apparent gay cruising going on than other places. But it also had active prostitution, of the M-F, M-M, and M-Trans varieties. All of which is what made it "infamous."

Of course, I wasn't in any of these places until the mid-70s, by which time there were many relatively open gay bars and gay clubs operating in the city. So it may have been different in earlier years, when gay men had many fewer places to go. Although, as I understand it from some old friends of my parents, back in the WWII era Detroit was, quietly, something of a gay haven. Especially with its large numbers of single men coming from all over the country to work, and concentrating in the areas around and north of downtown.
Interesting Al, I'll have to do more research about the Sassy Cat. I think gays had to find places that were "seedy" to meet. They could not yet have an openly "gay" bar yet. I think that is why some met at one of the Brass Rail bars. Some "straight" bars were known as gay meeting places, but I'll sure it had to be very clandestine.