Guys would wander back and forth between the two bars, and in warm weather the sidewalks out front were filled with people taking a break from the crowded, charged atmosphere inside. Starting well after 11pm, as other bars gradually emptied out (and this was after the heydey of the more southerly Village bar scene), the Spike and the Eagle would fill up. It was a block south of the old Eagle, a somewhat seedier bar that usually had at least one porn film showing and, depending on the mood of the owners and the legal climate, often had some on-site sexual naughtiness going on. Its reputation as a leather bar was a little exaggerated, but every surface was painted black and it was certainly full of maculine guys cultivating a harder look than, say, the guys who went to Uncle Charlie's. The Spike was a classic "S&M" bar, meaning, in this case "Standing and Modelling." It had an ultra-butch veneer, and for varying periods on Saturday nights one of the bar's two rooms was sometimes cordoned off exclusively for guys wearing black leather he-man drag. Well, "favorite" is perhaps being kind, but I went there a lot. Long closed now to make way for the gentrification of far west Chelsea, in the 1980s and early 1990s it was one of my favorite weekend places. The Spike was a gay bar on Eleventh Avenue by the West Side Highway in New York City.
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