Unless someone told you exactly where it was,” you wouldn’t know the club was there. Jay Jay Tate, one of the club’s DJs, described it as “a very non-descript building. It was out of the way, in a residential, predominantly African American neighborhood, far from the downtown White gay life. Subsequently it housed a furniture store and then a warehouse. The space was originally built in 1930 as a garage-plus-new-car-showroom. As John Eddy said, “We wanted to give the community-total-gay as well as the straight-something different in the city, a place to come, relax, and party.” They struck gold when Eddy found 1296 Upshur Street in 1974.
The founders decided to create something similar in Washington. The Loft pioneered invitation-only dance parties in industrial or warehouse spaces. What was to become the ClubHouse grew out of Scott and Eddy’s experiences at the Loft in New York City. Third World, the new entity, operated there until 1976. Three years later when the upstairs bar closed for non-payment of taxes, they took over the whole building. In 1969 they opened Zodiac Den in the basement of a country western bar patronized by White motorcyclists at 221 Riggs Road NE. As the parties grew, Eddy, Chasten, and the Scotts, members of the Metropolitan Capitalites, looked for a new location. The Metropolitan Capitalites’ parties at Michael Burton’s house at 4011 14th Street NW were particularly popular. Buddy Sutson recalled in a 2001 oral history interview with Mark Meinke of the Rainbow History Project that Washington was known for the house parties that built a tight-knit community. Faced with discriminatory practices or outright rejection by the White gay community’s bars and clubs, African Americans socialized in homes, adding their own flavor to a long tradition in the larger African American community. In the 1960s, the Metropolitan Capitalites, a Black LGBTQ social club, organized house parties for African American gay and lesbian Washingtonians. The ClubHouse’s opening night, Saturday of Mother’s Day weekend, was the end of one journey for DC’s Black LGBTQ community and the beginning of another. Eddy, Aundrea Scott, Scott’s sister Paulette, Morrell Chasten, and Rainey Cheeks opened the club at 1296 Upshur Street NW across from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Petworth in 1975. It was “a place where anyone 16 and over could go and have the house party they couldn’t have in their house,” recalled John Eddy, president and one of the founders of the ClubHouse.
Tucked away in a residential neighborhood in Northwest DC, over the next 15 years the ClubHouse became a nationally known after-hours dance club and a seedbed of important developments in the LGBTQ communities. If you can supply any names, please send an email with the subject “ClubHouse” to All photos appear, courtesy, Rainbow History ProjectĪ small group of dedicated Black LGBTQ Washingtonians opened the ClubHouse to serve their community in 1975. People shown in most ClubHouse photos are not identified.
Check out the Rainbow History Project’s short video series about the ClubHouse.Īt the door to the ClubHouse at 1296 Upshur St NW. Olinger looks back at the ClubHouse, a remarkable nightclub founded by Black members of DC’s LGBTQ community that filled multiple social needs from 1975 to 1990. At La Machine du Moulin Rouge, there are no VIP areas or table reservations, creating an environment where everyone is equal.In this Place of Interest, DC History Center volunteer John P. The club has four different areas to mingle in depending on your mood: Le Central is the main room, where you can enjoy music and dance the night away the champagne bar is a popular place for locals to get drinks after work La Chaufferie is a party room in the boiler room, complete with loud music and endless dancing and The Roof is a private rooftop area where you can enjoy the fresh air and a quieter atmosphere while you drink. Since the rebranding, it has become one of the most popular nightclubs in Europe with a history of supporting local artists and playing all genres of live music. La Machine du Moulin Rouge started out as a club called La Locomotive, where artists like The Beatles and David Bowie have performed throughout the decades, and became La Machine du Moulin Rouge in 2010 when it was bought by Le Moulin Rouge cabaret.