Folsom Street Barracks (San Francisco) — 1970s–mid-1980s
Located in the heart of South of Market, the Folsom Street Barracks was one of San Francisco’s best-known gay bathhouses during the post-Stonewall years, at a time when the neighborhood was the epicenter of the city’s leather and cruising culture. Operating through the 1970s and into the mid-1980s, it formed part of the dense network of clubs, bars, and private venues that made Folsom Street an international symbol of queer sexual freedom and subcultural identity.
The Barracks reflected an era when gay spaces were unapologetically adult, underground, and community-driven—places where anonymity, connection, and chosen family existed alongside the codes and rituals of leather culture. Like many such venues, it closed as the AIDS crisis and shifting city policies reshaped the landscape of queer nightlife.
