(Don’t tell the heterosexuals we need time to set down roots before they figure out where we’ve all gone.) Marcus Wilson, who designed Pony’s aesthetic early in its life, has now moved on to a bar called Swallow, located in a semi-unincorporated area known either as White Center or Rat City depending on whom you ask. These days, Seattle’s queer community has been blown apart, landing like shrapnel to establish mini-enclaves in the suburbs. “It reminds me of an old party I used to go to in New York City called Jackie 60,” says Rawkson, referring to the notorious gay fetish night in the Meatpacking District, “back when New York was New York.” The refrigerators behind the bar are the same ones that once held flowers there’s bell over the DJ booth that’s thought to be a holdover from when it was a gas station in the 1930s. Before it was a bar, DJ King of Pants recalls buying a corsage for a school dance from the florist shop that once stood in its place. History is woven throughout Pony, from the management to the structure itself. We stayed up ‘til five in the morning talking about Capitol Hill in the 90s when he moved here.” “One of my first nights dancing there, I was staying in Ballard so I couldn’t take the bus home, and let me crash at his place. “I’ve learned so much about our history and what life was like over the last fifty years,” says Roghaar.
Pony tends not to have much use for culture that’s mainstream or polished instead, it serves as a safe space for the queerest of Seattle’s queer community. As rents rise and heterosexuals flock for a taste of the enclave’s queer excellence, Pony has maintained the grungy aesthetic and tight-knit community that once defined every dive on the Hill. It’s a testament to Pony’s magic that the bar has managed to survive Capitol Hill’s ongoing facelift and gayborhood dilution. Met personal celeb luminaries there: Allen Cummings, Lady Miss Kier, David Sedaris, and so many more.” “Glass Candy, Joey Arias, Justin Vivian Bond, Zebulon Gone, Ononos. “I’ve seen intimate secret performances by artists there,” recalls couturier and tastemaker Jordan Christianson. Afterwards, he says, she sent the bar a cake shaped like a penis. DJ King of Pants remembers when the singer Peaches dropped by and he offered her a stack of physique pictorial zines that he’d produced, which she gleefully stuffed down her leotard. Pony’s reputation has been known to attract celebrity fans, though with varying reactions. Walking into a bar that was dark and loud and dirty and the lighting is so perfect and it was amped up for the party.” “My first night ever going there was Depeche Mode Hero Worship,” says Timmy Roghaar, a bartender and go-go dancer and social media manager and drag queen and bouncer (and so on). Other frequent highlights include The World’s Tiniest Tea Dance, as well as Hero Worship nights dedicated to particular artists. Pony’s also been an off-brand Wal-Mart, festooned with plastic bags and local artists selling wares on the patio. On another occasion, they transformed the venue into a replica of Mortville, the fantasy shantytown from the John Waters film Desperate Living, complete with a Queen Carlotta. “I remember saying, ‘it’s going to be hard to get that into a gallery, so why don’t we turn Pony into a gallery?’” “My coworker Ben was making extreme drawings of guys getting fisted,” says Rawkson.
That’s allowed employees and regulars alike to take risks, experiment, and transform the space again and again. “It got to be such a fun, crazy space because it was doomed,” as DJ King of Pants puts it. From bars to bathhouses, queer Seattle institutions have vanished, replaced by shiny new waffle shops and residents with disposable income.Īfter a successful debut in its now-demolished first incarnation, Pony moved up the street to an implausibly small, oddly triangular shack bounded by construction sites, bringing with it the same sense of apocalyptic abandon.
Seattle is tumescently swelling like the Incredible Hulk through a redevelopment bubble right now, and the old gayborhood of Capitol Hill has struggled to retain a shred of the queerness that it attracted in past decades. “It’s a party whether there’s hundreds of people or two people here.”Īt first, Pony was destined to be a temporary pop-up bar in a space slated for demolition. “It’s cramped, it’s electrifying, it’s such a variety of fun weirdos,” says DJ King of Pants, who holds court in a booth festooned with papier-mâché cocks, near a tiny area that could be whimsically described as a dance floor.