Tunnel Bar — East Village Gay Bar (late 1970s–early 1990s)
Located at 116 First Avenue, Tunnel Bar was part of the East Village’s gritty, post-Stonewall gay nightlife—active from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. Like many downtown bars of the era, its history lives more in listings, flyers, and memory than in official timelines, but its presence is well documented as a cruisy neighborhood spot during a period when the East Village was loud, artistic, and defiantly queer.
Tunnel Bar wasn’t about polish or scale. It was intimate, unpretentious, and coded—one of those rooms where regulars recognized each other, word of mouth mattered, and the night unfolded through proximity rather than spectacle. As the neighborhood and nightlife shifted in the 1990s, bars like Tunnel quietly disappeared, leaving behind a map that only exists if you know where to look.
