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White Elephant
Opened in the 1960’s and owned by Stuart Dare. Warner Hotel LGBTQ+ community started to frequent the bar in the Warner Hotel around the 1960’s. “…it had a big bar there on the first floor and it…but it was frequented by gays, but it was a very mixed crowd, but it was never a gay bar. It was just frequented by gays because they had a gay bartender behind the bar and they and you had an accepting place that didn’t throw the gays out.” – Larry Wilson, 1960s Group Oral History During the “raids” in the early 1970’s, the Warner Hotel Bar became less popular and unsafe for the LGBTQ+ community to patronize. |
Warner Hotel, circa 1960s
Courtesy of Historical Society of Dauphin County.
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Picture of Plaza Hotel Fire, February 1976. Courtesy of Historical Society of Dauphin County.
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Plaza Hotel
Like the Warner Hotel bar, the Plaza Hotel Bar was frequented by the LGBTQ+ community in the late 1960’s through 1976. However, the bar itself was not the main draw, the “cruisey men’s room” in the basement were: |
Picture of Plaza Hotel during demolition, 1976. Courtesy of Historical Society of Dauphin County.
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“The Plaza Hotel was less known about the bar itself and more know about the bathroom downstairs…because if you walked into the bar there was maybe one or two people sitting at the bar, but there were 20 downstairs in the bathroom…”
- Larry Wilson, 1960s Group Oral History
The bar officially closed when the hotel caught on fire in February 1976 and was demolished after.
- Larry Wilson, 1960s Group Oral History
The bar officially closed when the hotel caught on fire in February 1976 and was demolished after.
Picture outside entrance of Plaza Hotel, 1976. Courtesy of Historical Society of Dauphin County.
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Photo of Plaza Hotel, Crossroads Magazine Aug/Sep. 1997. Courtesy of LGBT-013, DCA.
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The only known surviving artifact from the Plaza Hotel, a stained-glass window, reportedly from the hotel's bar. On permanent exhibit at the LGBT Center of Central PA, Harrisburg.
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