In ‘Who Needs Gay Bars?,’ Greggor Mattson Explor the Past, Current, and Future of Ameri’s Queer Spac - Eater

Contents:

• WHY GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG ACROSS AMERI
• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• WH THE WOODWARD’S FUTURE UNCERTA, TAKG STOCK OF DETRO'S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS
• GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG
• THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.
• ‘THE ARE OUR HOM’: LA GAY BARS FIGHT TO STAY AFLOAT AFTER YEAR OF SHUTDOWN
• LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE
• A YEAR GAY BARS
• THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

WHY GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG ACROSS AMERI

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.

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

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.

WH THE WOODWARD’S FUTURE UNCERTA, TAKG STOCK OF DETRO'S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

Part of the change is posive, that gay liftyle and culture is so readily accepted now, so part of the mastream, that the gay muny don’t need rved out spac orr to feel safe, meet one another, or be themselv. And there’s somethg to be said for the fact that straight bar and rtrant goers are so attracted by aspects of the gay liftyle that the drag clubs have bee statns.

“As the thgs change, and the spac bee more sanized, and more people go there jt to explore, and ’s kd of voyristic, you feel that you’re losg that sense of omniprence of gayns that ed to feel like a protectn, ” says Stafford.

But even light of all the threats, gay bars are figurg out how to fill hol muny needs, how to pete wh apps and apathy, how to balance muny tradns wh more clive valu. Is , “I don’t need gay bars my middle age, but I might as a retiree, ” or is , “I don’t need gay bars now that I’m a mted partnership, but I might if I were sgle”?

GAY BARS ARE DISAPPEARG

I don’t know that needg gay bars is an on-off swch for the rt of your life, and so ’s important to me that the bars that n serve all of be open for when we need them. ” A lot of amics bate or wonr whether we’re a post-gay phase, where we — and ’s never que clear who the “we” is — don’t need our gay inti or LGBTQ+ inti anymore.

But one of the thgs I realized talkg to owners of bars that don’t intify as gay bars but are certaly full of gay people is that maybe other bars need to prove to that they’re post-straight.

THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.

I’m not married to the ia of a gay bar always beg everythg — if ’s a queer fe, if ’s a nonprof LGBTQ+ center — but I thk the panmic tght all how important is to have physil plac to ngregate, and those will rema important even a hypothetil, non-opprsive future.

The fact that you have a bar that’s maly Latx folks or a bar that’s Ain-Amerin LGBTQ+ folks, that didn’t surprise me, although I was very terted to fd out what were the challeng of nng those kds of bs bee those are the bars that’ve been closg among the fastt — gay bars that serve people of lor. When The Woodward, Detro's olst-nng gay bar, burned a massive fire last week, spurred a nversatn about the history of the bar self, but also where was suated Detro gay history more broadly — and how to remember and celebrate s signifince the gay muny while lookg toward the future.

The fire happened the middle of Pri Month, and not jt any Pri Month Detro: This year marks 50 years sce the cy's first Pri march, held June 24, 1972 to mand "full civil rights for gay people" and a repeal of all anti-gay laws, the Free Prs reported back then.

‘THE ARE OUR HOM’: LA GAY BARS FIGHT TO STAY AFLOAT AFTER YEAR OF SHUTDOWN

The march, officially lled Christopher Street '72, was self a remembrance of the uprisg at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street New York Cy on June 28, 1969, when protts broke out rponse to a police raid at a gay bar. In s 70-odd years, The Woodward has been part of many tersectg stori of gay life and culture Detro, cludg policg of gay spac, ownership shifts, racial segregatn and populatn trends the cy. "It was technilly illegal to operate a bar that was a renzvo for homosexuals, " said Tim Retzloff, adjunct assistant profsor of history and LGBTQ studi at Michigan State Universy.

Startg after World War II and to the 1960s, several gay bars were cltered around Farmer and Bat streets downtown Detro, cludg Club 1011, La Rosa's and The Silver Dollar. Very few gay bars at the time tered to Black patrons, although there were two Paradise Valley that Retzloff has intified his rearch: The 705 and the Ra-bo Mic Club.

It dat s foundg to 1973, when the former supper club was purchased by Tony Garne — a gay man and one of the founrs of Bars and Towels, Inc., an early associatn for owners of gay bars and bs. Other notable Detro gay bars of the 1970s clu The Famo Door, on Griswold near Grand River Capol Park, which had been a straight bar until was purchased 1972 by Ernt Backos, the owner of the old Club 1011, which by then had been sold and molished for parkg. On the east si, at Seven Mile and Van Dyke, an terracial gay uple, Bobby Calvert, who was Black, and Dan Campbell, who was whe, opened Todd's Sway Lounge 1975.

LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE

Todd's was one of the few racially tegrated Detro gay bars s the mid-1980s, there were about four dozen gay bars Detro, pared to about a dozen 20 years earlier. Detro's gay bar scene cled the '80s and '90s as Baby Boomers aged out of their bar-gog years and the HIV/AIDS epimic renewed discrimatn agast gay people and cimated the muny. But memorializg the venu, the project, which lnched December 2020, also livers a nuanced and necsary acunt of the state of gay bars today: the soc-culturally important stutns are creasgly beg victims of an enomy that favours gentrifitn over prervatn.

To be queer a gay bar is to be the majory for a few fleetg hours, a fantastil reprieve om the suffotg hegemony of heterosexualy that domat life outsi their walls.

Every gay bar that clos is a massive blow to the liberatn of queer and trans people, the kd of liberatn that I and so many others uld never have achieved whout the spac.

A YEAR GAY BARS

The only gay bar Arlgton, Tex., has shuttered due to the 1851 Club, which for s operated as a Cheers-style waterg hole for the lol LGBTQ+ muny, announced the sad news to s patrons a January 2021 Facebook post. Oil Can Harry's has had s last gay untry-wtern bar, which has provid le-dancg and a waterg hole for the LGBTQ+ muny Los Angel's Stud Cy neighborhood for 52 years, was sold December to a new owner who plans to nvert to a venue wh jazz mic, acrdg to owner John a Monday Facebook post, Fagan revealed that the landlord of the buildg, Monty Overstreet, had ma the sale.

The Atlanta Eagle has end s more-than-30-year flight midtown Richard Ramey announced that the gay bar would be vatg s longterm lotn at Ponce De Leon Avenue November 2020. Although no reason was given the post, the popular dive bar was the fourth gay bar after Rage, Flamg Saddl, and Gym Bar to shutter Wt Hollywood durg the COVID-19 panmic, which has forced all Los Angel bars that nnot nvert to rtrants wh outdoor dg to cease Coast was also the third closed WeHo gay bar to have had Monte Overstreet as a landlord. Except for a brief wdow, bars Wt Hollywood had been closed to prevent the spread of the Robert Maghame and Saeed Sattari opened the gay bar on Santa Moni Boulevard 1983, reports Wehoville.

Sadly, there will be no more socializg at the Albuquerque Social New Mexi gay club, known to lols as the "SOCH, " operated for nearly four s before shutterg Augt 2020 due to fancial issu tied to bar had first opened as The Heights the 70s before takg on the Albuquerque Social Club name 1983. Flamg Saddl Wt Hollywood has hung up s Squatriglia and Chris Barngay, owners of the untry-wtern bar, announced Augt 2020 that COVID-19, bed wh a failure to renegotiate the lease wh the landlord durg the panmic, has led to s permanent tablishment, known for shirtls wboys and wgirls who danced on the bartop, opened January 2015 on Santa Moni Boulevard.

THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

Ltle Jim's Tavern -- the olst gay bar Boystown, and the send olst Chigo -- closed s doors July 2020 orr to open a satelle lotn for Howard Brown Health, an LGBTQ+ clic.

The Stud, San Francis's olst gay bar, shuttered s lotn of 33 years rponse to the health opened 1966 around the cy's burgeong leather muny by founrs Gee Mason and trans bs owner Alexis Muir, who was mored to be the spiratn of Anna Madrigal Tal of the Cy, the Stud grew to an LGBTQ+ stutn and safe hosted many drag and muny events over the s. The only gay bar on Barracks Row, a mercial strip near the Navy Yard, Orchid was known for s Prohibn-era style, a 40-foot marble bar, and an upsle menu that clud avodo gazpacho, seared sea sllops, and magnums of rose. It also featured a cktail named for Hay and others named for one of his lovers, fashn signer Rudi Gernreich, and Pershg Square, once a gay cisg an terview wh The Advote, owner Garrett McKechnie said gay bars were still relevant.

A sad story is nnected wh the bar; a manager, Sean Verdi, died sudnly at age 23 2014, possibly of a dg overdose, a Central Park South apartment belongg to Ian Reisner of Out NYC hotel fame (and known more recently for hostg a receptn for antigay printial ndidate Ted Cz). Jewel Thais-Williams bted through the male-domated, mostly-racist gay club culture of the early 1970s by openg Jewel's Catch One, a dis loted a stgglg neighborhood near downtown L.