The door was staffed by someone who rejected anyone wearing preppie clothes or cologne, and this was a widely known part of what made the bar influential. The entrance to the club was up a flight of stairs, on the second floor. The location had previously been used by a gay bar, Zodiac. There was no sign on the entrance the exterior has been described as 'grimy'. Vincente Minnelli, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Rock Hudson, and Michel Foucault got in. Manager Wally Wallace (born James Wallace) said that he turned away Mick Jagger, and a bouncer turned away Rudolf Nureyev. One of the other women was Camille O'Grady. 'After dinner I go to the Mineshaft.'), gay erotic artist Rex, and Annie Sprinkle, who said she was one of three women ever allowed in. Among those who frequented the Mineshaft were author Jack Fritscher (who was present at its opening night and attended hundreds of times), Fritscher's lover Robert Mapplethorpe (who took many pictures of the Mineshaft and was at one point its official photographer.
