Frank Kameny, 79, a longtime gay activist, said a perception existed that police would ignore gay-oriented businesses if they opened in areas removed from downtown. "It became an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing," he said.
At times, the businesses have found themselves in the limelight . In 1977, nine patrons died in a fire at the movie theater, then on L Street SE. Twenty years later, a police lieutenant was arrested for attempting to extort patrons. Mostly, though, the businesses have remained in the shadows, near an asphalt plant and sewage pumping station and across from a Metrobus parking garage.
"They exist in their own world down there, and they don't bother anyone," said council member Sharon Ambrose (D) of Ward 6, which includes O Street.
The isolation has not been without inconveniences. Marty Crowetz, 53, a former part-owner of Follies and now a contract engineer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, said that in the early years, he bought a snowplow because D.C. workers did not show up to clear the street. On many nights, he said, he and other gay ex-Marines -- GEMs, they called themselves -- patrolled the neighborhood, sometimes with a German shepherd, to ensure patrons' safety.
But, he said, at a time when homosexuality was taboo in many quarters, the street's remoteness also allowed people to visit without fear of being stigmatized. "It was freedom for me," he said. "I didn't have to hide. It was my getaway."
The strip's reputation has spread in recent years, now that cities such as New York and San Francisco, with new regulations restricting adult entertainment, no longer have establishments that serve alcohol and feature nude dancing.
On O Street on a recent Saturday night, a crowd filled Secrets, where six nude male dancers gyrated while gay pornography played overhead on more than a half-dozen television screens.
Roland Dunbrack, 41, a biochemist from Philadelphia, said he looks forward to trips to the District for the chance to spend a night on the strip.
"Washington, D.C., is one of the few cities where you still see full nudity," he said between sips of vodka and cranberry juice. Dunbrack said O Street is "part of an adult urban culture. We're not all perfectly well-behaved people. We like to have fun. If we get rid of this, we have a straitjacketed culture."
George Phillips, general manager of Club Washington, described it as a 24-hour health club, showing a workout room with a rowing machine and weights, all unused at the time. The club features 30 cubicles, each furnished with a locker and a mat large enough for a person to lie on, as well as lounges where a few men wearing towels watched an X-rated video. Phillips said he was aware that club members engage in sex in the bathhouse but said the club does not condone it. "What they do behind closed doors is up to them," he said.
Sgt. Brett Parson, commanding officer of the D.C. police gay and lesbian liaison unit, said sexual activity in the establishments is not criminal if the participants are consenting adults and "their acts are not infringing on public space."
At Follies, also open round-the-clock, patrons walked between the main theater and a loop of darkened lounges with wooden booths large enough to hold two people. The theater's overnight ticket taker, who agreed to talk if he was identified only by his first name, Dave, said he was unaware of what transpires in the theater and the lounges. "I can't see through walls; I don't see what people do," said Dave, 65, standing across from a framed poster that read, "A Good Partner Keeps You Covered, Condoms Available."
