The Steps (Philadelphia Gay Bar/70's to 80's/A Guy's Bar)

The Steps — Philadelphia Gay Bar Tee

Long before Philadelphia started calling the neighborhood the Gayborhood, there was The Steps.

Located at 1526 Delancey Street, The Steps was firmly established in Philadelphia’s gay nightlife by the early 1970s. A 1972 gay travel directory lists it at that address, while a 1979 guide describes it as both a bar and disco.

The Steps had a reputation for being a little more polished—and perhaps a little more interested in being seen—than some of the city’s other gay bars. In an oral-history interview, Philadelphia gay resident Jay Herman remembered people jokingly calling it a “posing bar,” where everybody seemed to be standing around looking beautiful. There was also a small restaurant upstairs, with dancing becoming a bigger part of the place later on.

It belonged to a much larger Center City gay world that included bars such as the Allegro, Westbury, Maxine’s, Drury Lane and others. At its peak in the 1960s and ’70s, the area around Spruce, Delancey and Rittenhouse was already a dense network of gay bars, cruising spots and gathering places—decades before rainbow street signs made the neighborhood official.

Like plenty of nightlife from the period, its history wasn’t entirely rosy. Oral histories also recall The Steps as one of the Philadelphia gay bars where Black patrons could encounter discriminatory admission practices—an important part of the complicated history of supposedly liberating queer spaces in that era.