THE 5 BEST Toronto Gay Clubs & Bars (Updated 2023) - Tripadvisor

Contents:

• GAY
• GAY TORONTO THE 1970S
• 12 OF THE HOTTT GAY BARS TORONTO FOR STEAMY NIGHTS
• THE 5 BEST TORONTO GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS TORONTO
• TORONTO GAY DISTRICT: THE VILLAGE

GAY

In this edn of her nightlife-history seri, Denise Benson tak back to the after-hours nightclub that helped mobilize Toronto’s gay-rights movement the 1980s. History: In 1980s’ Toronto, street rners and dance clubs still served as sential meetg spots for gays and other margalized muni.

On the outer edg of the Church and Wellley-centred gay village, the rner was close to popular homo hnts cludg Yonge Street’s St. Charl Tavern, Trax, and the Parksi Tavern, wh gay dance club Stag above .

Nearby bathho were plentiful, Queen’s Park was still a major pick-up spot, and easy bar-hoppg meant that gay men had lots of optns even those pre-Grdr days. “The Yonge and Isabella area was really amazgly gay, ” rells event producer Maxwell Blandford, once a key figure adventurome Toronto clubs and now based Miami. “Many bars, along wh stor like Northbound Leather, were wh a uple of blocks and fed thoands of gay people to that rridor.

GAY TORONTO THE 1970S

There was also the Chez Moi - my first gay bar Toronto and a b of a hallucatn. One of the hotels on Jarvis briefly had a gay bar too, lled "The Carriage Hoe" that was closg when my iend got here. One of the largt and longt-lastg gay dance clubs Toronto, this Sherbourne Street super-club went through a number of evolutns as spurred the lol mastreamg of gay culture durg the ’80s and ’90s.

History: The story of Boots, one of Toronto’s bt-known and longt-lastg gay dance clubs, begs 1980 at the Waldorf Astoria apartment buildg. Photo by Joan Anrson, urty of the Canadian Lbian & Gay Archiv.

Wh the help of two rare DJ mix, we revis the early-‘80s Yonge Street club that provid Toronto’s gay muny wh a safe haven and showsed cuttg-edge dance-mic sounds, before the spectre of AIDS brought the party to a close. By the mid-1960s, both taverns were known to be gay bars. At that pot history, gay nightlife Toronto was still very much unrground.

12 OF THE HOTTT GAY BARS TORONTO FOR STEAMY NIGHTS

It was mon for the heterosexual owners of gay bars to be ntemptuo of their clientele. Arrts were ma, and the practice ntued throughout the 1970s, even as gay activists anized leafletg mpaigns and lled for boytts of the bar. Durg the mid-to-late-1970s, Yonge Street was the ma artery of Toronto gay social life ( would shift to Church the mid-1980s).

Those lookg to dance uld h a number of spots near Yonge and Wellley, like The Manatee, The Qut, Katra’s, Club David’s, The Maygay (later Charly’s), and Corneli, which sat above biker bar The Gasworks.

THE 5 BEST TORONTO GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS TORONTO

By 1977, there were even two gay-owned bars the area: The Barn, opened by Janko Naglic at 418 Church, and small cise bar Dus, opened by Roger Wilk, a founr of the York Universy Homophile Associatn, and his partner David Payne an alley jt behd The Parksi. In this edn of her nightclub-history seri, Denise Benson reviss the most sexcs-ful, celeb-studd gay hoe club of the ‘90s. Some of the hub’s gay and after-hours history was explored earlier Then & Now piec about fluential 1980s venu Voodoo and Club Z; now, we return durg the ’90s, before the area was transformed by the massive ndo velopment we see today.

In the mid-’70s, while big gay dance club The Manatee drew crowds to 11A St.

TORONTO GAY DISTRICT: THE VILLAGE

Joseph, Club David’s brought gay revelers south down the alley, to 16 Phipps, where a gold rendn of Michelangelo’s David prid over the dancefloor. In the ’80s, David was out and mirrors were as the buildg beme new gay club Le Mystique.

That club gave way to notorly tough gay-and-straight dance club Oz, which boasted entrance hallways signed to look like yellow brick roads. Ala Plamondon, who would bee one of Toronto’s most beloved gay DJs, was a bboy at Oz.

John was well-known the muny, and extremely active gay polics.