It offers the means to meet the like-minded without leaving the comfort of one’s couch or closet. (How can a “tiki” bar not be gay friendly?)Īnyway, the Internet has forever altered the art of gay mingling. And, the Ball Game is now a “gay friendly” tiki bar. No one picked up the torch, except in the case of the Boot Camp, when an arsonist burned it down. Its move effectively split the once concentrated community.īall Game, Boot Camp and Triangle eventually closed. The Center’s strategy envisioned itself a “healthy” LGBT hub. In the late 1990s, it relocated to Brewers’ Hill. The nascent LGBT Community Center was there, too. Over a dozen gay bars dotted the streets of then pre-historic Walker’s Point. Progress never spares Milwaukee’s past, gay or straight, be it the city’s first church or those gaudy 1890s mansions that lined Grand The building and its site, that odd, symbolically triangular block, should be historic landmarks. Recent news is the ex-Wreck Room (speaking of which, a friend met Paul Lynde there), now Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design’s coffee shop, will be razed to accommodate a high rise. The former Factory is now the site of the Broadway Theatre Center so at least the drama goes on. Big gold pendants on gold chains hung around their necks before, long before bling was a thing. Everyone looked like Paul Lynde in paisley shirts with wide, open collars that practically touched their shoulders. I recall entering the Factory for the first time on my 21st birthday. It was the home to The River Queen (I met Milton Berle there circa 1975), the Wreck Room, M&M’s and the Factory. Decades before its gentrification, there were bars in that abandoned warehouse district, the Third Ward. LGBT Milwaukee’s “gay-borhood” was once the near South Side.