The Death of the Gay Bar - Boston Review

Contents:

• LAW STUNT'S FAY SAYS HE WENT MISSG AFTER VISG NYC GAY BAR
• THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS
• A 25-YEAR-OLD GOT A TAXI OUTSI AN N.Y.C. GAY BAR. HE WAS AD AN HOUR LATER.
• HERB BMEISTER PICKED UP MEN FROM GAY BARS, THEN BURIED THEM IN HIS YARD
• THE GAY MEN FREQUENTED MANHATTAN PIANO BARS. SO DID THEIR KILLER.
• WHY GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG ACROSS AMERI
• THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR
• NORTH TEXAS GAY BARS HAVE PROVID MUNY FOR MANY. HERE ARE THEIR STORI
• SAM SMH REVEALS THEY ARE MISSG ‘MCDONALD’S & A GAY BAR’ DURG QUARANTE

LAW STUNT'S FAY SAYS HE WENT MISSG AFTER VISG NYC GAY BAR

A New York Cy law stunt has been missg for nearly two weeks, and his brother said his last known lotn was a gay bar Manhattan’s Hell’s Kchen neighborhood. In ci like San Francis and New York, gay bars—once central to both a cy's gay muny and the liberatn movement self—are cle.

Herman Niev’ memory stretch back to when the epicenter of San Francis’s gay scene wasn’t the tony Castro, or the leather-and-Levi’s bars South of Market or even the htler hangouts Polk Gulch. That was the first gay bar I’d ever been , ” Niev, who is now 78 years old, rells. Over the last ten years, giant leaps queer visibily have given way to a general cle homophobia.

Yet gay bars, once central to both a cy’s gay muny and to the liberatn movement self, are cle. Scratch anyone who’s lived an Amerin gay mec long enough, and this fact be almost a melancholy pot of pri, of the I’ve-seen--all-kid variety.

THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

’s nightlife pal, saw two of s three gay bars shutter, a loss ma all the worse bee one was the last full-on lbian bar left the cy (the Lexgton Club), and the other a workg-class venue that tered to the dimishg Lato populatn (Esta Noche). Historilly, gay bars have been margal neighborhoods where rents were low; but what gentrifitn giveth also taketh away, as yterday’s periphery be today’s unaffordable hotspot. It’s not enough, however, to note that gay bars are disappearg.

And further, are gay spac even necsary anymore? If you ask 100 random heterosexual New Yorkers to name a gay bar, many of them would probably say “Stonewall.

” But the once Mob-owned bar on Christopher Street that lnched the LGBT Liberatn Movement is hardly the lifeblood of Gay New York today (and arguably never really was).

A 25-YEAR-OLD GOT A TAXI OUTSI AN N.Y.C. GAY BAR. HE WAS AD AN HOUR LATER.

In fact, the epicenter of the gay scene has long sce migrated far beyond s origs the Wt Village. Daniel Erickson, a barback at one of North Brooklyn’s olst extant gay bars, the 12-year-old Metropolan Williamsburg, has observed the scene change om unr him even jt the past few years.

HERB BMEISTER PICKED UP MEN FROM GAY BARS, THEN BURIED THEM IN HIS YARD

“The bars ed to be the unrground scene, but that changed, and gay bars beme ol for everyone to hang out , and people’s expectatn of a bar has shifted towards specialty cktails, ” he says. Consequently, Ameri’s well-known “gay-borhoods”—the Castro, Hell’s Kchen, Wt Hollywood, DuPont Circle and Boystown, to name a few—are changg, too. Even the Castro, once the polil base of Harvey Milk, and still home to bakery lled Hot Cookie and a sgle-screen movie palace that ns a sg-along Sound of Mic every year, has taken on some trappgs of an airbshed, tourist-iendly gay herage district, rather than a livg, breathg gay neighborhood.

Above ground, many ci are experiencg the rise of what might be termed the “post-gay bar”—plac wh mpy dér, strong pours and mixed crowds. But to some, spac “for everyone” reprent the end of the sanctuari that a more overtly separatist gay culture built the 1970s and ’80s; to others ’s jt the next logil evolutn a cy where gay people have been assiated to mastream nightlife culture.

In the se of San Francis, over the last half-century the cy’s gay bars have gone om visible and forbidn to public and numero—and, ultimately, may be fallg victim to their own succs. The monthslong vtigatns to the myster aths of two gay men who, on separate ocsns, were dgged, robbed and found ad after gog out for a night of fun the same Manhattan neighborhood have not yet yield any arrts. The aths of two gay men New York Cy are eerily siar, and the mother of one of the victims said that vtigators are lookg to whether they are part of a crimal trend.

THE GAY MEN FREQUENTED MANHATTAN PIANO BARS. SO DID THEIR KILLER.

"They seem to target young gay men, but I thk young people across the board are vulnerable untls ci, untls plac, " Clary told News 4. Umberger’s myster ath is eerily siar to that of another gay man the cy, Jul Ramirez.

WHY GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG ACROSS AMERI

Their last stop was the Rz Bar and Lounge, a popular, multilevel gay venue the heart of the neighborhood’s Rtrant Row. Like many gay men New York Cy, he was a equent visor to Hell’s Kchen, which, along wh s southern neighbor, Chelsea, reportedly has the hight ncentratn of LGBTQ bars and rourc the cy — and perhaps the world.

And vised three venu all wh a half-e of each other: Rise Bar, a gay cktail lounge; Mickey Spillane’s, a bar and rtrant; and, fally, Rz Bar and Lounge. ”“We urge you to raise awarens on the ath of Jul Car Ramirez, to give a voice to gay Lato men who are victims of the crime this cy and to seek jtice for the loved on he left behd, ” she wrote. Herb Bmeister Picked Up Men From Gay Bars, Then Buried Them In His Yard.

THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR

Herb Bmeister seemed like a fay man, but as soon as his wife would leave town, he would cise lol gay bars, lookg for his next July 3rd, 1996, three mpers Ontar’s Pery Provcial Park ma a gome disvery. As police began to vtigate the disappearanc, they quickly found a pattern: all of the men were gay and had been visg gay bars the area shortly before they went missg.

But what Julie didn’t know was that his spare time, her hband was cisg lol gay bars.

Both victims — olr, whe-llar profsnal men, wh the heterosexual vtments of marriag and children — had last been seen at an upsle Midtown Manhattan gay piano bar lled the begs Elon Green’s terrific, harrowg, te-crime acunt of an elive serial killer who preyed upon gay men the 1990s, perfidly turng the safe havens of gay bars to huntg grounds, and semi-anonymo late-night hookups to an opportuny to kill wh impuny. The most prolific serial killers explo the vulnerabili of the social orr; the “Last Call Killer” took advantage of gay men’s need for discretn and the enmic homophobia of law enforcement.

NORTH TEXAS GAY BARS HAVE PROVID MUNY FOR MANY. HERE ARE THEIR STORI

Here was a generatn of men, more or ls, for whom was difficult to be visibly gay. Closeted gay people do, of urse, lead rich, satisfyg existenc, even if they leave fewer trac.

Gay men prsured to hi their sexualy at the height of the AIDS epimic are particularly sceptible to all-nsumg tragic seems to anticipate this journalistic nundm. Wh great passn, he wins his spe to explore the social value of gay bars to the queer muny and the val work of grass-roots groups like the New York Cy Anti-Vlence Project, which fought for fair treatment for gay crime victims durg a perd when they were often treated like reer crimals. A nfluence of factors ntribute to the rapid disappearance of gay bars and queer spac across Ameri, acrdg to Zach Stafford, edor--chief of Grdr’s magaze INTO.

SAM SMH REVEALS THEY ARE MISSG ‘MCDONALD’S & A GAY BAR’ DURG QUARANTE

Many blame datg apps as the digal accs to potential partners obviat the need for -real-life flirtg and, as Stafford not on this week’s episo of the Eater Upsell podst, “People n make any space through the apps a gay bar, a gay club, and you kd of now unrstand that gay people are everywhere.

Also changg gay bars as we know them across the untry: gentrifitn and a prsure to ter to straight dienc and sell them ritur of what pop culture says a gay bar should be. Upsell -host Dan Geneen and I spoke wh Stafford to discs the lnch of an Eater documentary he starred lled Boystown, which he explor the changg hospaly dtry Ameri’s olst gayborhood.

Others are simply phed out by the risg pric that a now-affluent and now-tablished gay muny has wrought. “People like to thk of gay bars to be jt drag clubs...