DAVID UY / FILE PHOTO
Empty Nest
DC Eagle employees on the legacy of the city’s oldest LGBTQ nightclub, and the alleged mismanagement that brought it down. By John Riley
W
HEN NEWS BROKE ON TUESDAY THAT THE DC Eagle was closing, longtime patrons, leather enthusiasts, and casual fans alike took to social media to express their shock, share fond memories, and raise concerns about the future of nightlife in the city. But for some former employees of the District’s oldest and largest LGBTQ nightclub, the news wasn’t so much a surprise as a disappointment, a result of alleged financial mismanagement and a resistance to changing and adapting with the times. The closure announcement, made to employees during a Zoom meeting on Monday evening, makes the DC Eagle the second LGBTQ bar in the D.C. area to close in the past week — Ziegfeld's/Secrets, the Southwest D.C. club that offered live drag and nude male dancers, confirmed last Friday that it would permanently close. According to one employee, who spoke to Metro Weekly on condition of anonymity in order to talk openly, the DC Eagle’s co-owners Ted Clements and Peter Lloyd are expected to dissolve the business. There are currently no plans to relocate or reopen the bar in another location at this time. The employee claimed that staff and managers had seen signs that the business was not on strong footing even prior to being forced to close due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, adding, “It's been a constant struggle to get things done that needed to get done.” Throughout its 48-year history, the DC Eagle has served as a popular hangout for members of the leather, levi, kink, fetish, and BDSM communities, and more recently had begun reaching out to other non-traditional communities. It also boasted of having the longest-running leather title contest of any bar in the country, even prior to the start of the International Mr. Leather contest. The bar has relocated and changed ownership many times since first opening in 1971 at 904 9th St. NW, in the city’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. It shifted every couple of years, relocating to 950 9th St. NW, then to 925 5th St. NW, and finally 639 New York Ave. NW, where it remained for 26 years, from 1987 30
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to 2013. In 2014, the club relocated to its current location at 3701 Benning Rd. NE, opening the doors of its newly renovated warehouse in early 2015. Due to its resilience and the persistence of its various owners to keep the DC Eagle brand alive, the frequent moves gave the club an air of indestructibility among some of its most loyal customers and staff. But the Eagle employee said that, over time, concerns about the bar's financial stability began to develop, especially after the building was sold to Estervera LLC in June 2019 for $1.5 million. The club's owners told local media that they had sold the property to generate revenue with the intent of leasing the building from a new owner in order to continue operations. That sale occurred less than a year after the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue sold the option to buy the Eagle's building because the Eagle owed close to $32,000 in overdue property taxes for the period from 2016 to 2018. Under D.C. law, owners whose properties are sold at a tax sale can stop the purchaser from taking over the property by paying back the overdue taxes, plus fees and penalties, in full before the last day of the sale. Records from the Office of Tax and Revenue show that a payment of $25,000 was made in October 2018, and another payment of $49,000 was made in June 2019, the same month it was sold to Estervera LLC. Nine months later, on April 3, 2020, the building was sold again, this time to Benning Rock, LLC for $3 million, according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. The Eagle employee claimed that, prior to the Benning Rock sale, Clements had not paid rent on the property “in a long time,” enough for Estervera to “exercise a part in the lease that says you’ve broken the lease and [Estervera is] able to get out of the lease agreement.” As such, when the building was sold, Benning Rock “was purchasing it with a tenant who was moving out,” the employee said. The employee said that Benning Rock plans to take control of the building in September. In February, the Washington Informer
