Daley, Jane Byrne, Harold Washington, and Richard M. Hanging in Renslow’s office at Man’s Country were photographs of him with various Chicago mayors, including Richard J.
Renslow said the bathhouse’s sauna had been a vault for the nightclub, and his office had been a room where slot machines were stored. The building, according to Renslow, once served as a secret nightclub during Prohibition and featured hidden hallways that patrons would use to escape police raids at the time. Renslow owned Chicago’s oldest gay bathhouse, Man’s Country, in Andersonville. “My legacy is, I think, I made this a safer, better, nicer world to live in,” Renslow said in his 2007 interview with Baim. “My rivals would have made a big deal about ‘the S & M clubs and people beating each other.‘”īut Renslow remained active in politics and helped lobby for a gay a lesbian civil rights ordinance in the City Council during the early ’70s, which he considered one of his greatest achievements for the local LGBTQ community. “I would have done more harm than good,” Renslow told the Reader. George Dunne, the legendary chairman of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee and county board president, asked Renslow to run for office in the ’60s, according to the Reader. Renslow’s involvement in politics caught the eye of many powerful political figures. Working within the Democratic Machine, Renslow long lobbied for gay and lesbian rights. Renslow later got involved in city politics and became a precinct captain for 43rd Ward committeeman Dan O’Brien during the ’70s, according to the Chicago Reader.
In matter of fact, I remember one time - which is why I liked Benny the Bums - I told them, ‘Well I’m not old enough to be in here.’ The doorman said, ‘Who the hell cares?’” When I was 18, I had no problems going in.
“Very free atmosphere in there, but you got to remember all these bars - Benny the Bums especially - were syndicate bars. “Once you got in the bar, it was very open, very celebrating,” Renslow said in a 2007 interview with Windy City Times publisher and executive editor Tracy Baim, who co-authored a biography about Renslow called Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow.