Irisher / Frolic Room / All Star Theatre / Chez Paree (#3)

135-41 and 143-47 Mason St.  | map |

These were two separate but nearly identical single-story buildings on the west side of the street between Eddy and Ellis. They were each originally with two storefronts with the southern one designated as 135 and 141 and the northern one as 143 and 147.  

In the 1960s and 70s the southern building was the Irisher Club and the Frolic Room. Peter Field has the data:

"The city directories show 141 Mason as the Irisher Club in 1963 and perhaps before, and as the Frolic Room from 1964 to at least 1971."

The All Star Theatre at 141 Mason is seen in this 1964 photo from the San Francisco Public Library collection. The building the Chez Paree would land in is to the right with the Lazar Hotel beyond. Peter notes:  

 

"The 'All Star' name on the sign fools a lot of people because that’s how it’s listed in the San Francisco Public Library photo collection. It fooled me for years until I finally looked it up in the city directories and learned the All Star appellation was apparently just advertising the ladies. 

 

"By 1982 Earl Kuhn was operating the space as one of his three Frenchy's K & T XXX stores. He eventually was convicted of pandering because his lap dancers were doing more than that and was sentenced to prison. He had a wife and family in the Sunset District."

 

The 143-47 building was listed as the Score Two Club at 147 in 1977 and the Jem & Jewelry Company pawn shop in 1982. Later it was the Tropic Room. Sometime after 1989 it became the Chez Paree and the famous 'Leg Sign' was installed. Earlier the leg had been at 115 Mason St., a venue that later got remodeled and rebranded as the Union Square Sports Bar.

 

 

The Chez Paree location #3 at 143-47 Mason is indicated in green. This map of buildings of the west side of the 100 block of Mason is a detail from page 62 of the 1950 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. In the version on the Library of Congress website it's their image 71 of 119. Ellis St. is at the top of the image. The earlier #2 Chez Paree location at 115 Mason is down near Eddy St., circled in orange. What's seen on this map adjacent to 115 as the Hotel Mason is now the Bijou. 

 

 

 

The famous leg at 143-47 Mason and 135-41 as a video arcade. The Hotel Bijou is located on the northwest corner of Mason and Eddy. Thanks to Peter Field for locating the Corbis image. 

A 2002 shot of the two buildings taken by Paul Chinn for the Chronicle that appeared with the 2002 SF Gate article "Strip-club landlord: Glide Church / $8,000-a-month rent from Chez Paree and porno shop" by Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross. Thanks to Peter Field for locating the photo. The church was planning to build a conference center on the site. In the meantime the Rev. Cecil Williams was collecting rent:

"The ever-liberal reverend doesn't appear to have any regrets about being a porno landlord -- but he admits it does have its embarrassing moments, like the other night when he was having dinner across the street at the Hotel Nikko and someone commented about the strip joint across the street. 'Yes, I had to say, that big leg sign you see across the street belongs to us,' Williams said with a laugh. As he sees it, porn or not -- it's just the price Glide has to pay to get its big project off the ground and get some homeless people jobs."

 

Closing: Sometime after 2002. Peter comments: 

 

"This location was the Chez Paree until that block of storefronts was razed for Glide subsidized family housing."

The end of the line for the 'Leg': The Chez Paree name resurfaced at 220 Jones St., a venue that had been called the Screening Room. But the sign was never installed there. Gary Parks offers a March 2019 report:

"Last weekend, at SF History Days at the Old Mint, I walked up to the Tenderloin Historical Society’s table—staffed by two very knowledgeable and enthusiastic women of late young or early middle age, and all I had to say was, 'So—is anyone trying to figure out what happened to the Leg?' That’s all it took. 

 

"They both lit up with big smiles, and said, yes, and they are on the heels (so to speak) of a rumor that it was broken up into sections, and is stored in the basement of the building that was the last Chez Paree location, 220 Jones -- although it never got installed there.

 

"They both knew the places where it had been displayed previously, its status as a former light-bulb unit, and that those bulbs originally spelled out 'Barbary Coast.' One of their members is trying to get access to the building, to verify the rumor. So—hopefully this quest is continuing on the right foot."

The locations of the 'Leg Sign':

535 Pacific Ave. - Barbary Coast / Little Fox Theatre 

150 Mason St.   -  Chez Paree #1 / Pussy Cat / Pink Kat / Spartan Cinema

115 Mason St.   -  Robin Hood Burlesque / Chez Paree #2 / Union Square Sports Bar

135-47 Mason  -  Irisher / Frolic Room / All Star Theatre / Chez Paree #3 

220 Jones St.   -  Screening Room / Chez Paree #4 / Power Exchange - 'Leg sign' never installed

 

More information: 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.   

Thanks to Peter M. Field for his research. For a fine history of the neighborhood see his 2018 America Through Time/Sutton Publishing book "The Tenderloin District of San Francisco Through Time." It's available through your local bookseller or Amazon.  

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