Gay 90s

in August 1954, the Gay 90s moved to 433 W. Michigan.

New owner Ben "The Baron" Siegel was a famous emcee from Club Milwaukeean, known for its exotic drag shows throughout the 1950s. He was highly regarded as a community leader in both the Vliet Street neighborhood and in the Jewish community. His son Edwin Siegel ran the high-end Camelot East hair salon at 2222 W. Wisconsin Avenue, which served local and visiting celebrities. 

The Baron brought flamboyance and flair to the Gay 90s, along with female impersonators that attracted customers from The Royal Hotel next door.  (The Royal was a long-time LGBTQ landmark dating back to the 1930s.) 

The only problem? Baron's Gay 90s was a dump!

"Old Jim Cochrane’s dilapidated tavern has been converted into the city’s only Gay 90s bar," reported the nightlife columns. 

Former owner James Cochrane (1868-1958) was an old Milwaukee eccentric who owned his first saloon at age 14 and ultimately owned as many as 12 downtown bars. Despite openly defying every liquor law, including Prohibition, he never lost his liquor licenses, and died in 1958 with over $120,000 in the bank ($1.1M in 2019 dollars) and four contested wills.

The Gay 90s was never in good shape, but it seems Siegel really let it go. The one-story building was built as a private home in the 1840s, and generations of Frankenstein remodels had left the structure unsound. The property was rumored to be haunted, and more than once, police searched the mud floor basement for bodies Cochrane supposedly buried there.

"The saloon's 25 foot bar has not been polished in more than half a century, except by elbows, bar cloths and sliding beer mugs. The carved front door is easily over 100 years old and the old fashioned back bar's age matches its veneer. The place has the patina and the aroma that only comes with long and constant smoke," said the Milwaukee Journal in 1960.

The Baron had at least 12 good years as an "unofficial" gay bar. But by 1967, the Gay 90s wasn't so gay anymore. There were already newer, better, cleaner options for gay men to frequent-- and dozens more would open within a few years. Like many downtown bars past their prime, the Gay 90s desperately added go-go girls to stay in business. It just did not work.

Throughout the 1960s, fires at the Royal Hotel and Mr Anthony's Steak House (later Sally's Steak House) severely damaged the Gay 90s. Ultimately, the 125-year-old building was condemned as unsafe in October 1968.  Siegel had been given 90 days to make improvements and avoid condemnation, but refused to spend the money.

"It is a structural hazard. Literally, it is falling down. The floor joints are rotten and the stairways to the basement have collapsed," said city building inspector Sam Mann. 

Siegel was ordered to vacate the building immediately. By January 1969, the building was replaced by a parking lot for The Royal Hotel, and the 25-year legacy of the Gay 90s ended forever.