Nighthawks: The TLC Provider

“I always take care of my ladies,” says the woman known as Big Mama, a 61-year-old mother of eight and grandmother of 27 from Ashburn, on the South Side, who happily spends three nights a week in Le Passage’s ladies’ room. Dorothy Davis insists she chooses to be here. In fact, she’s so focused on pleasing customers that she puts her gratuities back into the products on her counter, though she does keep her paycheck for herself. For Big Mama, working as a bathroom attendant is part of her spiritual life (she attends Gospel Truth Missionary Baptist Church every Sunday), and it’s a way to help women stay safe and show them a good time. She provides advice to broken hearts, mails back lost cell phones and purses, and even performs the occasional repair, such as sewing up a club patron’s ripped pants on the spot. “Somebody’s got to be the Big Mama around here,” Big Mama says.
–NORA O’DONNELL

Photo Assistant: Alan Rovge

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