Sadness, Resignation Linger One Year After Hippo Closing

As the renovated Baltimore Eagle is poised to re-open after being shuttered for four years, there remains a feeling of melancholy and resignation within Baltimore’s LGBT community concerning the Club Hippo’s closing its doors for good. Last October 3, the end of a 43-year icon in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon gayborhood became a reality.

The popular disco and saloon, which had been a must-see Baltimore destination for LGBT and straight people from all over, closed as owner Charles Bowers decided to retire.  The building, which he still owns, has been leased to CVS Health, whose brightly-lit store opened a couple of weeks ago.

Several members of the community expressed nostalgia when it comes to the Hippo but also a feeling of inevitability regarding gay bar closings in general and a concern for the profitability of these establishments.

“For me, the departure of the Hippo from My Vernon signaled what I already knew - that the LGBT community was too well established in Baltimore to not be constrained to just one neighborhood. I can feel comfortable by myself or with my LGBT friends anywhere in town,” explains Mara Drummond, a transwoman who points out she began going to the Hippo in 2006 when she first began her transition.

The grand disco finale on September 25, 2015     Photo: Bob Ford

“The decline of Mount Vernon as the hub of the LGBT community is both sad and joyous,” she says.  “The community has lost some of its self-identity but at the same time has blended comfortably into a much larger community.”

Don Davis the owner of Grand Central, which is situated diagonally across from the building where the Hippo had stood, notes the migration of LGBT folks to other areas and also sees the predictability of gay bars closing because the culture is changing.

“It’s sure a different world. So much of the change with the Internet’s hook up sites and apps, gays are now feeling comfortable with hanging out with their straight friends at the straight places,” says Davis, who had been the Hippo’s bar manager for a brief stint in the seventies.  “It breaks my heart to see the Hippo of 43 years and 27 other gay bars close in the 30 years that I have been in business.”

Davis believes this cultural shift as well as other challenges associated with owning a bar has made such businesses unprofitable.  “I am off almost $25,000 from the same period that I had done last year,” Davis states.  “And this is with the Hippo closing.”

Shawnna Alexander, a drag personality who had performed at the Hippo on and off for 20 years and a former Miss Hippo, is resigned to the bar’s closing but is still sad when is reminded of it.  “It's strange because just as I’m getting over it as everything must change, a Facebook memory will pop up 😞😞and I get a little sad,” Alexander says. “A bigger part of me says it was a smart business move and wish Mr. Bowers nothing but the best.”

The final last call - 1:40 a.m., October 4, 2015

Many drag performers launched their careers at the Hippo yet feel the loss of the bar has not impacted them too negatively.  Danny Carbo, a former employee and a drag performer who goes by the drag name Pamela de la Cruz, says, “The Hippo was not only my place of employment and favorite spot for a night out, it was also Baltimore’s best drag venue. In the year since its closing, we’ve seen several venues, new and old, step up to keep the party going.”

Carbo offers an example. “The standout queen, Brooklyn Heights, has worked tirelessly to keep drag alive in Charm City and has brought new shows to Steampunk Alley, The Depot, and a new drag brunch at Points South Latin Kitchen. Ottobar and The Crown continue to regularly include female illusion in their eclectic events as well.”

Still, Thomas Groves, another former employee, laments the Hippo’s closing.  “This past year had been all about going after my goals and dreams in life. The bar’s closing definitely left a hole in the gay community in Baltimore.”

He adds, “Without the Hippo the community has had a huge void in somewhere to go and unwind, enjoy a show or just hang with friends.”

An End of an Era: The Hippo is Set to Close

After 43 years, the Club Hippo, one of Baltimore’s oldest and most iconic LGBT institutions, is poised to close its doors.

As confirmed at a meeting with employees on May 9, Hippo owner Chuck Bowers has negotiated to convert the building at the southwest corner of Charles and Eager streets into a CVS store.  

The negotiations between CVS and Bowers began early in 2014.  Under the arrangement Bowers will retain ownership of the building and lease it to CVS.  There is no date certain for the anticipated last dance, but it will likely take place sometime after the summer at the earliest.

Upon completion of the deal with CVS, it would mean an end of an era for an establishment seen by many as the epicenter of Mount Vernon’s “gayborhood.”  Recently, that area has also been jolted by the expected closing of Jays on Read, a piano bar that had a loyal LGBT following and Comprehensive Car Care, a long-time staple on Eager Street.

The Hippo, which opened on July 7, 1972, possesses one of the largest dance floors of any club in the state.  During disco’s heyday, the Hippo flourished with huge crowds dancing to the beats of vintage and newer disco hits on its spacious rectangular floor bathed in glimmering, colorful lights.  As musical tastes changed in succeeding years, so did the music.  The Hippo kept up.

The club also features a popular video bar where karaoke and weekly show tunes video presentations occur and a saloon area that had been renovated several years ago.  Those renovations dispensed with the two pool tables near the bar’s large glass windows and added more seating at tables within the saloon.     

Through the years, the Hippo, whose motto is “Where everyone is welcome,” hosted such extravaganzas as the Miss Gay Maryland pageants and Mr. Maryland Leather contests as well as Twelve Days of Christmas, an annual affair that benefits local non-profit organizations. The Hippo had also served as the venue for Gay Bingo—a weekly event whereby non-profit organizations shared in the proceeds.  To broaden its appeal, the Hippo has held well-attended weekly Hip-Hop nights the past 11 years.

There have been numerous specialty events held at the Hippo with well-known DJs and drag performers entertaining the masses.  Many of these individuals began their drag careers at the Hippo.  

The club’s Halloween celebrations are legendary showcasing the community’s vast cache of creativity, and the Hippo’s annual New Year’s Eve gala has always been a popular stop to herald in the New Year that frequently attracted local celebrities—LGBT and straight—to the club.

Though the Hippo does not have a large political footprint, it had been the host venue for fundraising events throughout the referendum battle in 2012 in an effort to secure marriage equality. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who had appeared at some of those events, customarily spends her birthday at the Hippo for one of their charitable Bingo nights.

For his part, Bowers, who recently turned 70, has donated sizable amounts of money to LGBT non-profits, primarily to Baltimore Pride and its sponsor, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Baltimore and Central Maryland (GLCCB). The Hippo has been one of the focal points for the annual Pride block parties along Eager Street.  

In addition, he has allowed other organizations to hold fundraising events at the club.  Early in the 1980’s when the AIDS crisis began, Bowers was one of the first to help raise money to fight the disease.

"Gutting it for a CVS just doesn't seem fitting.”

Other than special events, there has been a decline in gay bar patronage over the past few years for a variety of reasons, and the Hippo was impacted by that trend as well.  Nonetheless, many folks in and out of Baltimore’s LGBT communities view the Hippo as more than just a bar with so many stating that the Hippo was the first gay bar they patronized.  It had also been a strong visitors’ destination whereby out-of-towners discovered Baltimore as a gay-friendly city.

Chuck Bowers on the evening of the Hippo's 40th Anniversary

To others, it meant much more. “The Hippo is an anchor of LGBT openness in Baltimore,” Tree Turtle, a Baltimore resident, told me  “It routinely brings together a broad cross-section of Baltimore of all colors and creeds. Regardless of the progress of LGBT human rights, regardless of the mainstreaming of queer people, and no matter how tough the economic climate is, we still need community havens! We still need people to love us for our difference. Yes: we are both same and different!”

She adds, “Where would we be but for the openness and distinctiveness of the leather daddies, the drag queens, and the drag kings? That's why we need to be accepted for our work as well as our play. That's why we need the Hippo, the Baltimore Eagle, the GLCCB, and all LGBT refuges in Baltimore!”

A person identified as 1/619K commented on Baltimore Brew, an online daily news journal, “With The Hippo’s presence on Baltimore’s major artery, straight Baltimore has had a slice of gay life mainstreamed into their everyday experience for 40 years. Early on, that really mattered. Chuck Bowers’ vision and tenacity created something groundbreaking and important. Gutting it for a CVS just doesn't seem fitting.”

As for Chuck Bowers, there is much nostalgia.  “When I come into the bar on a daily basis it’s quiet, no one is here yet. I walk through the building and look around. I hear the music, I see the lights, I hear the glasses clinking…..and then I stop,” he said in a statement. 

“And then I see the people whom I have met over the years.  This is to me, the most valuable asset this club provided me.  Their laughter, their smiles and more importantly their friendship over these years.   I want each and every one of you to know how much you have meant to me and for your ongoing support and friendship that has encouraged me to keep the club open for you.”