As Branson developed friendships with countless gays in roughly the ‘40s and the ‘50s, her mission as a bar owner was more than just profit-driven: she truly believed she had a void to fill and provide opportunities for neglected gays in society. Helen Branson played a significant role in the cultivation of a unique experience for all of her bar patrons. As a result, regulars at the Windup were thrown into a nurturing environment, where they had the opportunity to mingle with those around them and form lasting relationships. In Helen Branson and Will Fellows’ book called Gay Bar, Branson expresses her sympathy for the lack of genuine opportunities for the socialization of homosexuals as she states, “lonesomeness is the phantom that hovers over every one” (83). In fact, this case serves as one of the chief motivators for the owner's desire to open the Windup.
Reilly Supreme Court case segued to greater social opportunities for homosexuals, as it legally permitted the operation of gay bars in California.
Gay male figures were under the threat of police forces and could potentially lose job positions if they were discovered in the public sphere. The concealed life for a homosexual living in the 1950s in Los Angeles directly paralleled the lack of advertising presence of gay bars in the ‘50s. The Windup Bar acted as a second residence for many gay men around the 1950s.
