D.C. Gay Clubs' Vanishing Turf

Leaning on a nearby counter, Al Ritter, 54, a lab scientist for the Maryland Department of Health, said O Street has grown more important to him since the strip club he frequented in Baltimore closed.

"This is our social life. The feeling is, if it goes here, I don't know what we'll do," he said, adding that talk of the new baseball stadium now pervades every visit. "It's almost like we're under sentence here, like we're awaiting execution."

Downstairs is Glorious Health and Amusement, whose proprietor, Robert Siegel, owns 13 properties in the neighborhood, including those occupied by Heat, Secrets, Ziegfeld's and Follies. Siegel, the area's elected advisory neighborhood commissioner, has sued to block the city from seizing the land.

On a recent night at his arcade, where employees sell sexual aids and pornography and candy from behind security glass, patrons paid $17 to entera suite of low-lighted backrooms that include a 12-seat theater where an X-rated movie was playing. Most of the place was occupied by banks of wooden booths, which patrons circled, sometimes going inside.

In an interview in his windowless office, furnished with a pullout couch on which he sometimes sleeps, a refrigerator and a wall of security monitors, Siegel described his establishment as a "walking club," explaining that the walkways form a circuit, and the booths are "a place to change clothes." He later acknowledged that patrons "occasionally" have sexual encounters. He was reluctant to discuss the subject, he said, because it could make it difficult to relocate. "I do not want you to put a dark cloud over my business and tenants," he said.

The businesses would need city approval to move downtown. To relocate to certain industrial neighborhoods, the nude dancing establishments would need permission to transfer liquor licenses.

Because the city plans to take the land, it is legally obligated to help the businesses relocate if they seek assistance. Carol Mitten, director of the D.C. Office of Property Management, said her staff has identified a number of industrial areas as potential sites but said it would be "a serious challenge" to relocate them together because of the lack of commercial properties.

Whatever transpires, O Street's owners and patrons know their world is at risk. At Ziegfeld's, Donnell Robinson climbed the stairs to his dressing room, where he keeps a closet filled with wigs, high heels and all the rest of the accoutrements that help transform him into Ella Fitzgerald.

"It's a little devastating," he said of the prospect of the clubs shutting down, as he applied makeup and smoked a cigarette. "But as I tell my friends, I have no regrets. I've spent 25 years here. Come what may."