So, apparently, Boston has a haunted gay bar: Jacque’s Cabaret in Bay Village. It was opened as a standard bar but two years later, in 1940, Jacque’s became a gay bar. In the 60s and early 70s it was a lesbian hangout, but at some point it started featuring drag shows, as it does today.

In Sam Baltrusis‘s 2012 book Ghosts of Boston, comic Jim Lauletta claims that he encountered something unusual while performing at the club in 2010. One night, going down the basement stairs he felt a strange energy and thought he saw someone out of the corner of his eye… according to Peter Muise in New England Folklore;

After Lauletta said the energy felt like it had a “bit of an attitude,” Jacques’s manager suggested it might be the ghost of Sylvia Sidney, the bar’s most famous performer. A drag pioneer known as the “Bitch of Boston,” Sidney eschewed the gentle femininity most early drag performers cultivated and instead indulged in crude humor. Sidney died in 1998 at the age of 68, so perhaps her ghost still wants another moment in the spotlight. If you’re feeling brave but don’t want to summon Sidney’s ghost, you can watch one of her performances on YouTube. Be warned: they’re full of toilet humor, sex jokes, racial slurs, and nose-picking. Oh, and a really dirty story about Nat King Cole.

I don’t believe that Sidney died in a particularly traumatic way, but her ghost may not be the only one haunting Jacques. According to a rumor that has circulated for many years, the bar may also be haunted by victims of the infamous and tragic Cocoanut Grove fire.

The Cocoanut Grove was a popular Boston nightclub located near Jacques on Piedmont Street. On November 28, 1942 the bar was filled with an estimated 1,000 people when a fire broke out. The flames spread quickly as they ignited flammable decorations, and the main exit became blocked as patrons tried to escaped through the club’s revolving doors. Other exits had been locked earlier that night by the management to prevent people from sneaking in, while still other doors only opened inwards and were blocked as people fell against them. By the time the fire ended 492 people were dead, making it the second most deadly nightclub fire in the United States. The club’s permitted capacity was only 460.

What’s the connection to Jacques? Well, according to longstanding rumors in the gay community, Jacques was used as a temporary morgue for the victim’s bodies. It is not proven, but is entirely possible. Photos show the bodies being laid out on Piedmont Street so it’s not inconceivable that the police would have used a nearby bar as well. According to the rumor some of the victims still haunt the place where their bodies rested.

An interesting fact: an older friend of mine said he heard the rumor from Sylvia Sidney herself. Did she believe it herself or was it just part of her act? We’ll probably never know, unless Sidney tells us the truth from other side.