1033 Kearny St. | map |
Opening: It was running in the late 1960s as the Peekarama. The building is in North Beach on the west side of the street between
Pacific and Broadway. Thanks to Jack Tillmany
for sharing this photo taken by Tom Gray.
A change of signage. The attraction was still "The Techniques of Sex." This c.1969 photo by Tom Gray is in the Jack Tillmany collection. The building is in North Beach on the west side of the street between Pacific and Broadway. The marquee that was no longer on the building appears to have been moved to the
Peekarama on Turk St.
It was running in the early 1970s as the Copenhagen Cinema.
Thanks to Jack Tillmany for sharing this photo by
Tom Gray that's in his collection.
Another
Copenhagen view by Tom Gray. Thanks to Jack Tillmany for sharing the
photo. "The Blue Balloon" was a 1973 release.
A c.1974 view with the Copenhagen rebranded as Finest Adult Movies. It's a Tom Gray photo from the Jack Tillmany collection. The bay on the left would become the entrance for the Palladium.
Another shot of the former Peekarama as "Finest Adult Movies." It's c.1975 photo by Tom Gray that's in the Jack Tillmany collection. Up the street it's the Off Broadway Theatre at 501 Broadway.
On the left it's the Palladium, in the basement of the building and using a 1031 Kearny address. Jack comments: "The Palladium was a 'Theatre Restaurant' that also
offered 'Disco After Hours' from 9 pm until 6 am. Fond memories of a fun place, during the peak
years of the Disco Era. No hard liquor - just disco on a hardwood dance floor. We even did the polka! Yes, it even had one of those mirrored globes!"
Michael Blythe adds:
"The Palladium was downstairs, but clearly had been a strip club kinda place before dancing became the thing. After Palladium it became Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, that oddly was not ADA compliant when opening and therefore was hard for Mr. Flynt to make a appearance at the opening."
A Palladium ad from the magazine The Quake. Thanks to Jonathan Orovitz for sharing it.
Looking
south on Kearny from Broadway in January 1984. On the left it's the
North Beach Movie and the
Kearny Cinema beyond. On the right it's the future Lusty Lady still advertising "Finest Adult Movies." The dark signage beyond is for the Palladium Club. It's a photo by Jonathan Orovitz, one of eight North Beach
night views he shared in a 2022 post on the
San Francisco Remembered Facebook page. Thanks, Jonathan!
Sometime around 1985 the Peekarama became the Lusty Lady. Later the Lusty Lady became San Francisco's first (and only) unionized strip club.
Thanks to Gunnar Hardman for
sharing this undated photo. Here the former Palladium upstairs had become the Hustler Club.
Closed: Labor Day (September 2), 2013.
Status:
The building survives, with porno magnate Roger Forbes as landlord. As
of 2022 the Lusty Lady space is vacant. The Hustler Club is still
upstairs.
A view of dancers at the club. It's a 2008 photo by Erin Siegal for Reuters that appears with "What It Was Like to Work at the Lusty Lady, a Unioniszed Strip Club," an August 2013 article for The Atlantic by Lily Burana.
More information: See the
Wikipedia page about the Lusty Lady clubs in Seattle and San Francisco.
Jack Tillmany's Arcadia Publishing book "Theatres of San Francisco" can be previewed on Google Books. It's available from Amazon or your local bookseller.
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