SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - There's a gap on Franklin Avenue, across from the Capitol Theatre and the Greenstone Building, but for years, the only thing missing were people's memories from the night before.

Crews tore down the three-storey building that used to house The Gallery bar on April 17. - Adrian Lysenko/NNSL photo

Now reduced to rubble, The Gallery bar was once an institution in Yellowknife's social scene - a cornerstone of a hard working, hard drinking town that liked to let loose, any night of the week.

"It was crazy. You had to go to The Gallery at three in the afternoon if you wanted a seat on Friday. The girls working in the banks used to go put their coats on the chairs to reserve them for five o'clock," said Harvey Bourgeois, who managed the bar on and off for ten years, beginning in the early 1980s.

It was packed most days, he said, and the regulars often sat at the horseshoe shaped end to the long bar. The faces were familiar and drinks flowed every night of the week.

"Thursday, Friday, Saturday. But it was consistent through the week, too. People drank more then, than they do today," said Bouregois, who recalls the bar's transition from a pub, to a band bar to dance club.

The bar served as a meeting place for people doing shift work in the mining camps and was an inevitable stop when people came back into Yellowknife, said Jewel Bailey, who worked there as a waitress in 1985.

"Twenty-five years ago, it was more of a blue collar town here. The mines were happening and camp work like crazy. It was almost a 24/7 drinking party, with people always coming and going," she said. "It's a much different scene than it is today with it being more of a government town."

In the years before cell phones, it was a central location that kept people connected. Along with the Gold Range and the Rec Hall on 50 Street, The Gallery formed part of the "triangle," where regulars rotated between last calls.

"It's an era that's passed. Everyone were hard workers and hard drinkers ... people had two, three jobs and there was nothing else to do but work and drink ... Once they came in (to The Gallery), they'd be partying on the tables," Bailey said laughing.

Known for its live music, many performers cut their teeth in front of enthusiastic crowds at The Gallery before hitting the national stage.

Early incarnations of the Saskatchewan group Wide Mouth Mason would come up for two-week stints. Many bands stayed at the staff house up the street, often leading to legendary after parties, all part of The Gallery's lore.

Through the 1990s, The Gallery was joined by the Cave, located in the basement, a smaller space with an eclectic feel where jazz and blues performers took the stage.

"It was really a place where everybody mingled. People from all walks of life let loose," said Jamie Look, who remembers the Cave as one of the best places for live music in Yellowknife, past or present.

"I saw some incredible music down there. (There was) a lot of characters. A lot of talent," said Look, who waitressed there in 1997 and 1998. "It was just packed you could not move. There was the tiniest dance floor but usually by the end of the night three quarters of the room would be dancing," she said.

As years passed, other bars began taking The Gallery's place, said Bouregois.

The iconic Yellowknife watering hole inside the three-storey building had its last call in 2005. The Cave became Lucille's Cabaret before converting into the computer gamer's lounge the Frostbyte Cafe, which vacated the building last June.

Last fall it was announced Toronto-based owner Dundee Real Estate Investment planned to level the building, and replace it with a five-storey office building to house 300 federal Indian and Northern Affairs employees, who currently work out of three separate Yellowknife offices.

The estimated $20 million building is expected to be complete by December 2011.

What remains of the three-storey building - built in 1970 - is a pile of rumble, the rest is at the dump. The faces that once threw shots back around the bar have moved on, grown up, or found new places to celebrate.

"It was a pretty popular spot. It had it's day. In the end it couldn't compete with (what's) around town," Bouregois said. "It did it's time."