Athena Flint, owner of Harold’s Haunt in Millvale, never imagined she’d open a bar, much less a haunted bar. Two years on, the key, she tells Pittsburgh City Paper, has always been building the haunted “they bar” as an LGBTQ community and neighborhood space, where even the resident ghosts are included.
“It’s been a fun ride for sure,” says Flint. “And also we have a lot of work left to do.”
City Paper recently highlighted Harold’s as one of the region’s many haunted bars and restaurants. But few establishments are quite like Harold’s or have embraced their apparitions quite like the Millvale bar, whose name is even a dig at a local ghost.
Five years ago, searching for a space for Maude’s Paperwing Gallery — a self-described queer witch shop that stocks magic supplies, LGBTQ flags, books, zines, greeting cards, and other ephemera — Flint landed in Millvale.
Also intended to be a community space, a malevolent presence soon disrupted Maude’s. Flint and her team called in a medium, who revealed the surly ghost was a 60-year-old man caught in a time loop who apparently made racist and sexist remarks. They dubbed the spirit Harold, and, in an ironic twist, later named Harold’s Haunt after him — but not without hanging a banner that says “Fuck you, Harold” above the entrance of the bar.
Harold’s celebrates its second anniversary on Sat., Oct 12 with a funeral-themed party (patrons are invited yell at Harold every hour on the hour). Festivities run from 7 p.m. to 12 a.m. and include a bagpipe-led funeral procession to Millvale’s Gap Park. The bar also provides a guide for those wishing to dress up in “fancy-like” funeral attire or carry flowers.
“I am now fully a Millvale convert,” Flint tells CP. “It is the best little borough. It’s so community-minded.”
Disturbances from Harold aside, Flint soon realized her aspirations to make Maude’s a queer community space were quickly outgrowing the shop’s size. In 2021, she got word that a neighborhood bar a few blocks away, Howard’s Pub, was closing. Owned by a local family, Flint learned that Patty, a former Howard’s bartender, was a lesbian who’d held her wedding on the bar’s back patio. With her family’s support, she’d advocated for LGBTQ rights and helped launch the inaugural Pride Millvale celebration.
The bar was “a very safe space” in the neighborhood, Flint says. She also’s a member of the Millvale Community Development Corporation, which has been working to make Millvale more friendly and inclusive, “so it really felt like potentially losing a safe space would be [going] backwards.”
In her “wildest of dreams,” she didn’t imagine “the answer” for a community space would be to buy a bar, Flint says, “but it happened to be a good overlap [with Maude’s] in a very beautiful way.”
Unlike its namesake, Harold’s is meant to be broadly inclusive, welcoming trans, nonbinary, and gender-fluid individuals. On its website, it specifically distinguishes itself from a gay bar, which Flint asserts can still be alienating, have “specific clientele” and be “too party-minded,” leaning on alcohol.
The phrase “they bar” was coined by Flint’s sibling, who is trans and nonbinary, and, as far they and Flint know, it remains the only bar with the moniker in the country.
Flint says that Harold’s especially appeals to “the awkward beans, and it’s lovely,” also highlighting the need for the space.
“People who aren’t sure how to make friends or have conversation, they just come in here and they vibe,” she tells CP. “I have talked to so many people who say that Harold’s has been life-changing for them. So I am so glad we’re still here.”
Since opening two years ago, Harold’s has hosted near-nightly events and programming ranging from parties, craft nights, and trivia to a monthly queer coven to larger-scale events like a two-ring clown-themed burlesque circus and drag carnival called Honkers!
Flint says she’s been moved by Millvale’s embrace of the bar, though it’s also brought some unique interactions with neighbors.
During Honkers! in August, a man in a nearby house yelled at the outdoor performers and threw rice at audience members’ heads. With assistance from local police, Flint knocked on his door. He opened it wearing only his underwear, complaining about a broken foot. After putting on pants and being asked about the disturbance, he invited Flint inside.
“He [was] like, I don’t care about the noise. I just want to talk to her,” Flint remembers. “And I am like, in my body, just trying to decide for a moment, am I going to go into this strange man’s home after he screamed and yelled at my customers and threw rice at their heads? But in the spirit of community in Millvale, I was like, ‘Yes, I am going to go.’”
“In that moment, I’m just tense and bracing for anything,” Flint says. “And he says, ‘I need everyone to send a postcard to Donald Trump’s personal address [that says] liar, liar, liar. And then real small underneath, ‘please recycle responsibly.’”
Apparently, he planned to annoy the candidate by inundating him with messages before the presidential debate. When Flint came back to the bar and told the story, she was met with stunned reactions, but ultimately, people offered to help.
“It was pretty great, and very alarming, but pretty great,” she says. “So it’s just another reason I just love Millvale so much.”
Since opening, Flint and her team have also researched the area and found it’s steeped in history, material and spiritual. Millvale, which Flint describes as “ultra haunted,” was once home to the Allegheny Poor Farm, a 164-acre working farm and poorhouse in the 19th century, that’s also credited with bringing the steel industry to the borough.
In addition to the sick and destitute, the “giant area” was where those who didn’t conform to societal norms were sent, Flint says.
“[The Poor Farm] is where they would get sent if there was someone who disagreed with her husband or someone who attempted to get or give an abortion … if they were an orphan, or if they were old and didn’t have any family.”
That so many marginalized people were once in the neighborhood has a sort of continuity with the bar, she believes.
With a “dark history,” it was no surprise that Harold’s also came with its own ghosts.
When CP reached about the original Harold haunting from two years ago, Flint wrote that there were “a number” of new ghosts at the bar.
The most recognizable is Paul, believed to be a former bar owner who was identified by his granddaughter. Paul’s ghost is believed to have turned on lights inside the empty bar to alert staff to a possible electrical fire. Later, he was spotted in a third-floor window, apparently the same place where he was once carried up in a coffin before his funeral.
Pittsburgh paranormal investigators Bump in the Night Society also reported seeing specters in a room in Harold’s basement. Flint and others had previously tried to walk into the same room to see the lightbulb inside shatter.
“I don’t go in there,” Flint says.
Embracing ghosts is also an enduring part of Harold’s, and, looking toward the future, may become a larger part of its aesthetic. There are plans to add ornate wallpaper and new chairs to the bar for a fully Victorian look. A antique portrait wall will display patrons’ “favorite fandoms” alongside LGBTQ history-makers, including former bartender and Pride Millvale founder Patty.
In terms of programming, Flint and the team are continually building the Queer Resource Center of Millvale, which hosts bimonthly Sober Sundays and Charlie’s Charms, a femme clothing swap and community closet event.
“I really hope that continues to take firm root because [in] Pittsburgh, there cannot ever be too many resource centers for the queer community,” Flint says.
“We are still very new. We’re still getting our feet settled … getting our roots grown in,” she tells CP. But two years in, Flint sees a myriad of opportunities for community support where “the fun balances out the work.”
“We have a core of locals who come hang and this is their bar,” Flint says. “This is the one they go to because they feel safe, they feel comfortable, and they feel excited to be here.”
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2024.
