At the now-shuttered Berlin club, art was for celebration and mourning

J.D. Vincent remembers walking into the Berlin nightclub opening night. Smoke fogged the crowded room as the music blared overhead. Patrons danced even though there was no dance floor yet. Everything about that night was a reflection of Vincent’s friend Tim Sullivan, a quirky man who loved disco and country music about as much as he loved the club.

Sullivan opened the Lake View business with Shirley Mooney in 1983. It wasn’t long before it became an essential gathering place for Chicago’s queer community. It was a liberating, electric sanctuary that welcomed misfits, artists and dreamers alike.

Dion Labriola worked there starting in 1987 as the “light boy,” managing the ambiance of the dance floor. Gradually, he worked his way up to spinning records as a primary DJ.

“Some of my best memories were DJing at Berlin,” Labriola said. “Sometimes Tim would come up to the booth and yell at me for playing something a little too industrial or metal. I laugh when I think about it now.”

According to Labriola, Sullivan and Mooney brought in a lot of different art over the years — some campy, some profound, some painfully mediocre. Drag, performance art, immersive installations, anything and everything was featured at Berlin. It was a place where art thrived. Throughout its lifespan, Berlin never lost its heart for expression.

‘Put on a wig and perform’

Weird, nonsense, cabaret — that was the inspiration behind the performance art of Berlin. It thrived on the absurd, the playful and the unexpected. Labriola remembers one of those odd performances: Two women got up on stage just to feed each other spaghetti.

Many others would take to the stage for free drinks or cash prizes. Berlin regular Peter Neville once got up to lip-sync the “Wonder Woman” theme song.

“Sometimes people go to bars just because it’s a place to go,” Neville said. “They think: ‘You entertain me.’ But at Berlin, you were a part of it. It was the people who kept the fun and creativity going.”

In its early days, it was one of the first bars in Chicago to host an amateur drag night according to Labriola. It began on Sundays back in ‘89 with the Queen, Gina Taye, as emcee.

“It was whoever wanted to get up, put on a wig and perform,” Labriola said. “They even called it ‘Drag Race.’”

Sullivan and Mooney would also bring in outside entertainment, like the Del Rubio Triplets. They played Berlin following their television appearance on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”

The triplets, in their 60s at the time, strummed their ukuleles and wore matching miniskirts. They played covers of songs like “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” or “Winter Wonderland.” It wasn’t until the three women started playing “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” by Pet Shop Boys that the club erupted.

“People started laughing, but they did not get the joke,” Labriola said. “They were just sincerely doing these songs. It was just so bizarre — these three bleach-blonde older women in go-go boots singing Pet Shop Boys covers.”

Campy and creative

Dutifully watching over the nightly revelry was a large mural that wrapped around Berlin’s main bar. The Art Deco-style painting hung with a variety of figures that had style, flair and pizzazz. Berlin wasn’t just performance art.

Sullivan and Mooney commissioned local artist Zuleyka Benitez to paint the mural for the fifth anniversary of the club. They wanted something that would immortalize the free-spirited, roaring, creative essence of the club and its regulars.

“We wanted to keep the theme of Berlin [Germany] in the ‘30s,” Benitez said. “It was the height of art, dance… Think ‘Cabaret.’”

Sullivan and Mooney gave artists the opportunity to create temporary installations for the interior of Berlin. Labriola was also a visual artist, sketching his own sci-fi worlds from a young age. He was delighted when Sullivan and Mooney gave him the chance to show his work.

Armed with foam core, house paint and 50-cent motors from the American Science & Surplus store, Labriola completed a total of five installations. They were campy, mixing kitsch, pop culture and whimsy into a colorful spectacle. His favorite was called Logoland; he created giant cutouts of Mr. Peanut, Quisp, the Green Giant, Tony the Tiger and many other brand mascots. Each of the three bars was a different theme: breakfast cereal, kitchen stuff and junk food.

“Dion was a big part of Berlin,” Neville said. “He created the environment — the playground we all loved to have fun in. He made Berlin what it really was.”

Celebration and mourning

The community came together not just to celebrate art, but to mourn in it as well. Several patrons and close friends of Berlin died due to complications from AIDS. Labriola was hit especially hard when bartender Don Zeibarth died in 1992. Sullivan himself died on July 8, 1994.

The club opened its doors to provide comfort. In the early afternoons, before opening for business, Berlin would hold memorial services. Vincent vividly remembers standing shoulder to shoulder with other patrons the afternoon of Sullivan’s memorial service. He kept the service pamphlet from that day. It still brings tears to his eyes looking at Sullivan’s portrait, smiling up at him.

“He was the light of that place,” Vincent said. “Everyone who ever stepped into Berlin misses Tim, I’m sure of it.”

Mooney sold Berlin to Jim Schuman and Jo Webster about five years after Sullivan’s passing. Some things about the club changed, but it never lost Sullivan’s spirit for creativity.

After nearly 40 years of operation, Berlin closed its doors on Nov. 19, 2023. The space remains empty, and it’s unclear what will take its place. Despite its closure, the art, community and spirit remain in the memories of those who found a home within its walls.

“It was just such a unique place,” Labriola said. “There will never be anything quite like Berlin.”

Grace Logan is a writer in Chicago. Follow her @grace.elogan