As a 55-year-old lesbian, I often look back on my twenties and the “safe” spaces we created for ourselves—spaces that became our family. Coming out of the closet (as we called it back then) meant you’d better know how to survive and how to find your people. I came out at a time when it absolutely was not safe to simply live openly as a gay person. We had to seek each other out and build our own places to belong.
Attitudes
With no social media and no cell phones, we relied on word of mouth and whatever gay literature we could find. We waited for the new month to see what events or establishments might open so we could spend our dollars in gay spaces. It was a time of searching for our people and finally being able to connect once we found them. We actively sought out lesbian bars and spaces.
One of those places was Attitudes—what we affectionately called the “High Heel in the Sky.” The logo was a giant high heel, and for many of us it felt like home. We’d dig through ashtrays where we’d been smoking just to scrounge up enough change to pay the cover. We stood in long lines back when The Grove was mostly vacant. The only street life you saw was women lined up from all over the region, waiting to get in—to dance in metal cages or stand on a ledge we called “The Meat Rack.”
We loved leather, bleached hair, and our wife-beater shirts. We tattooed the pink triangle on our arms so we could find each other and never forget what happened in the Nazi concentration camps. Inside that dark bar, we held wakes and funerals for people without families, as many of us lost ours after coming out. We cried, we danced, and we shared our lives with each other. We wrote our numbers on matchbooks, and the next morning your pockets would be full of them.
There were male bouncers who watched out for our safety. When you walked in, Jan—the butch owner—would be smoking a cigar behind the counter with a cash register, taking your cover charge. Her partner Bonnie, always in dresses and high heels, floated through the room making sure everything ran smoothly. Once you stepped inside, the feeling was like nothing else. The music was loud, the bartenders slung drinks as fast as they could, and the crowd packed in so tight some nights you could barely move.
Nancy Novak’s final hurrah. Photo credit: Theo Welling
At one point, Attitudes even had a “no males allowed” policy. Later, Novak’s opened down the same street. It had more of a sports-bar feel, with food and karaoke. Nancy, the owner, created one of the first truly inclusive lesbian bars on the street. The lines grew long there too. She had a patio full of cornhole and outdoor games, and later moved the bar across from Attitudes to a larger space with an even bigger patio that filled up night after night.
Dancers stood on the bars, and it felt like a party every evening. Nancy knew how to throw an event, and she kept the crowd coming back. None of us minded paying the cover—we knew it helped keep the DJs playing and the doors open. Soon we were collecting Novak’s bright-colored matchbooks too.
Nancy opened several places over the years, but the one I’ll always remember is where we gathered every Saturday night—doing the “knee dance of love” and hoping to leave with a handwritten number on a matchbook. When the lights came on and you heard, “You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here,” you knew the night was over.
Sadly, both of those bars eventually played their final songs, and it felt like our lesbian spaces had disappeared.
But maybe they didn’t.
Many people still don’t realize that Dawn and Melissa Hummel now hold space for our community. They’ve created an incredible patio, with rainbow flags flying proudly. There’s rarely a cover charge (except for larger live music events), and they serve some of the most affordable drinks in St. Louis.
Last year, Cindy Dotson Decker brought the up-and-coming lesbian recording artist known as The 76th Street Girls. You might know them from TikTok and their song “She’s My Handsome.” Cindy brought The 76th Street Girls to Hummel’s—and she’s doing it again this fall in September. The group was excited to help a lesbian-owned bar pack the place! With only 36 dedicated lesbian bars left in the entire United States, I believe it’s more important than ever that we support our spaces.
Dating apps may have changed how we meet, but they’ve also closed many doors. I still believe in organic connections, and no artificial intelligence will ever replace that.
Hummel’s on Broadway offers drinks starting at $5 and even serves mocktails for those who don’t drink. It’s an all-inclusive pub, and when you see that patio this spring, you’ll know you’ve found a place to belong.
On the last Saturday of every month, the St. Louis Lesbian Queer Society hosts an outdoor dance party with DJ Stormi spinning music from every era. The only exception is May 30, when Cindy Dotson Decker hosts a special ticketed event featuring Brianna Musco.
It’s important that we bring the old and the new together. After all, when we were young, we had these spaces—and the businesses behind them gave us a safe place to meet our family and build community.
We may not have matchbooks anymore, but what we still have is each other.
So let’s make sure Hummel’s has lines out the door again. Let’s go back to spending our gay dollars in gay places. Let’s support our people, build community, and create connections that last another generation.
Rena Noonan is with St. Louis Lesbian Queer Society.
