Talbott Street Night Club

The Talbott Street Disco was a popular dance club for Indianapolis’s LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s. Located at 2145 N. Talbott Street in the Herron-Morton Place neighborhood, the club was inside a multi-story 1920s building formerly used as a 1,000-seat silent movie theatre. Though the nightclub changed names and catered to different clientele throughout its existence, it is remembered among former patrons for its expansive, 13,500 square-foot dance floor, varied forms of entertainment, and internationally renowned DJs.  

Before the Talbott Street Disco opened, the building housed several dinner theaters in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Black Curtain Dinner Theater, Indianapolis’s first professional dinner theatre. Kent Henry bought the building from Randy and Karen Galvin and transformed it into the Talbott Street Disco in September 1980. Henry marketed the club, nicknamed T Street, as a disco, restaurant, and cabaret that served both men and women. 

T Street gained a reputation as one of Indianapolis’s best dance clubs and drag bars. Unique features included a balcony-level bar overlooking a large ground-floor dance floor and a cabaret room for the twice-weekly Talbott Street Revue drag performances, which starred a regular cast of artists called the T Street Follies.  

The club supported and hosted local LGBTQ+ community groups by providing a secure and welcoming space for gatherings. Organizations such as the Greater Indianapolis Gay Business Association (GIGBA) and Justice, Inc., used the nightclub for events. The club also hosted the first Mr. Gay Indiana contest, an annual Mr. Talbott Street Contest, and the first GIGBA Labor Day Picnic. The picnic, held in September 1982, drew more than 500 people, making it the largest dedicated event for LGBTQ+ attendees in Indianapolis’s history to date.  

Though the bar’s appeal increased among nightclubbers, its relations with the Herron-Morton Place Neighborhood Association soured in the early 1980s. Neighbors complained of difficulty finding parking while alleging that the area faced increased crime, public indecency, and solicitation by sex workers in drag. In 1982, the neighborhood association unsuccessfully challenged T Street’s liquor license renewal.  

Despite these obstacles, T Street remained a popular nightspot. In 1983, the club made numerous improvements that included a new cabaret-room stage for drag performances, installation of video displays at the main-level disco floor, and a new menu and tropical décor at the upstairs bar, now renamed as the Talbott Palms Balcony Bar. Simultaneous exterior changes included the demolition of several abandoned adjacent buildings, making way for additional off-street parking. 

T Street provided a platform for LGBTQ+ organizations to gain exposure and spread their messages to a wide audience during the 1980s. The club hosted the Miss Gay Indiana America Pageant in 1983 and the first Mr. Gay Indiana contest in 1986. With the rise in AIDS cases in 1983, T Street staged monthly AIDS benefits. One such event in October 1983 raised nearly $3,000 for the Indy Bag Ladies, who used the money to create the first Indiana AIDS fund to assist local individuals living with the illness.  

T-Street embarked on several large-scale additions in the mid-1980s. In 1984 it opened a new space called the Legends Show Bar in an adjacent building, using its Art Deco–style stage fortnightly drag performances featuring popular performers such as Nicole Ross, Ruth Dix, and Diana Black. In 1986, T Street opened Pattio’s Pleasure Palace—a concession stand, gift and novelty shop, and coat check— near the club’s entrance.  

Despite the club’s growth, T Street closed unexpectedly on August 29, 1986, to its employees’ surprise. Owner Kent Henry never publicly provided a reason for the closure. In 2010, Henry premiered a documentary about the Talbott Street Disco, titled Talbott Street 1980–1986, at the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival. The building remained vacant for several years before reopening in the 1990s as Faces, a straight bar. 

Faces was a short-lived venture. In 2002, a new LGBTQ+ bar was opened in the space by Brownsburg dentist Michael Strapulos, who purchased the property and renamed the venue the Talbott Street Night Club. Strapulos worked with designer Scott Massey to renovate the space into three different bars, each with a unique atmosphere. The main-level dance bar regularly hosted local and international DJs, including a 2005 performance by artist Boy George.  The old Balcony Bar, now renamed as the Sky Bar, took on a light and airy feel. The Legends Show Bar retained its name in homage to T Street, but was redecorated with red velvet curtains, dark red walls, and VIP seating. Strapulos’s and Massey’s extensive design work during the renovation earned them the 2003 gold medal for commercial space from Indy Interiors. 

Talbott Street Night Club carried on the old Talbott Street Disco’s tradition of hosting drag shows, now featuring local favorites Alana Steele, Asia LaBouche, and Vicki St. James.  

Relations with the Herron-Morton Neighborhood Association improved, with area homeowners preferring the presence of a nightclub to that of an abandoned building. The venue hosted community events supporting local causes. In 2013, the club worked with Indiana Landmarks to enhance public awareness of LGBTQ+ history.  

Despite his club’s success, Strapulos closed the Talbott Street Nightclub on June 25, 2016. At least one reporter noted that the closure came days after a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, though Strapulos did not publicly draw a connection. Commentators on Indianapolis’s LGBTQ+ nightlife scene also speculated that the rise in dating apps and increased acceptance of LGBTQ+ patrons at bars designed with a largely straight clientele in mind had opened other avenues for dating and entertainment. 

Three years after Talbott Street Nightclub’s closure, Kendall Lockwood and Trevor Belden opened Baby’s, a 1950s-style diner and bar, in the north section of the building, where the Legends Show Bar was once located. To commemorate the former occupants, Baby’s began offering drag-inspired cocktails and hosting annual drag events during Pride month.