The Holiday's then-owner, whose name David Byrd can't fully recall, "said that, if I would paint a mural from the front of the bar all the way to the back window on wall, he would give me the bar for the day." The mural featured bar regulars as well as the year's celebrities, from the Supremes and Beatles to Andy Warhol, whose CMU cubicle Byrd then occupied. Once inside, patrons found a uniquely welcoming space. "eople would sit out front and walk up and down until they'd see no one in the street and then duck into the bar," Tierney says.
#Gay bars pittsburgh downtown windows
"We had issues with that" into the 1980s, when the windows finally had to be covered temporarily. "They were put there to keep bricks from being fired through the window," says Honse. A cross-hatch of bricks remains across the front glass. The place is still barely noticeable, save for the sidewalk board advertising beer specials.
![gay bars pittsburgh downtown gay bars pittsburgh downtown](https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/YnYs21-GsS0dWVYzshR8ew/258s.jpg)
That's what you had to do in those days." There were no flashing lights and no sign hanging out over the sidewalk. "They were here - this was right on a main street - but you had to know where to find it. "This business goes back to a time when gay bars hid in plain sight," Honse says, sitting with Tierney in the bar's back porch, which has been enclosed since 1984. Together, they've seen their clientele through political and AIDS activism, as well as more celebratory times. "I think the space was always on the edge," says Chuck Honse, of Friendship, who along with Chuck Tierney, of Squirrel Hill, has owned the Holiday since 1977.
![gay bars pittsburgh downtown gay bars pittsburgh downtown](https://img.hoodline.com/uploads/story/image/694107/bar.jpg)
The purchase will also, however, bring an end to a legacy that dates back to when the college was Carnegie Tech.
![gay bars pittsburgh downtown gay bars pittsburgh downtown](https://pittnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cruzeu21-courtesy-1280x720.jpg)
CMU has purchased the unobtrusive structure, as well as neighboring buildings, to give the school "flexibility" for undetermined building plans, says spokesperson Kenneth Walters. But the Holiday - Pittsburgh's oldest gay bar still operating under the same name, owners and location - is due to close on April 29.