Many gay men New York are lookg for alternative ways to socialize. A look at the surprisg revival of the kntg circle.
Contents:
TRADG THE NOISY GAY BAR SCENE FOR THE KNTG CIRCLE
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Boria tried to remember the name of a gay bar Hell’s Kchen and asked the seven men stg at the table wh him if they knew. “The social teractn is pricels, ” he up wh awkward small talk and impersonal teractns at bars, some gay men New York are lookg for alternative ways to nnect. You uldn’t ll a kntg explosn, exactly, but small pockets — at yarn shops, apartments and gay bars throughout the cy — a new kd of kntg circle is emergg.
The men have discsed their g out stori and their childhood experienc beg gay, topics that don’t tend to arise bars. The origal Toad Hall, a Castro neighborhood gay bar the 1970s. Toad Hall opened on May 28, 1971, Memorial Day weekend, by four gay men and a woman – Ron Est and David Monroe of the Ln’s Pub, a gay “sweater” bar at Sacramento and Divisaro that opened 1969, wh Tom Sanford and Sam Hall, along wh the fancial support of Marjorie Deremer, a well-off senr cizen who passed away 2000.
SF GAY HISTORY
It was one of four gay bars that year to jo the three other gay bars that already existed the Castro. (The Ln’s Pub still exists, but gradually stopped beg a gay bar sometime the early 2000s.
Tom Sanford had a metal statue of a nun and had hoped to ll the bar The Iron Nun, but one of the landlords, a pharmacist at Star Pharmacy next door (where the first notic of a “gay ncer” htg the Castro would be posted 1981) named Eugene Longotti, who was a vout member of Most Holy Reemer Parish, was willg to accept a gay bar for a tenant but not one whose name sound so blasphemo. The bar was stead named Toad Hall after the home of one of the characters om Kenh Grahame’s 1908 children’s book The Wd the Willows, an awkward character who never felt at ease wh the other characters – a nod to the homosexual unrton some believe the book to have, and, bee of the toadstool on the bar’s shgle, perhaps also to psilocyb mhrooms.
It was the first gay bar the neighborhood to allow dancg – at least for a time until the police noticed they didn’t have a dance perm.
THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
San Stryker’s Gay by the Bay suggts that Toad Hall was one of several gay bs affected by arson (“Gay bs were equent targets of bombgs and arson. One gay bar, Toad Hall, was burned out three tim three months durg 1973, ” p. Not long after he was done, jt two weeks before Gay Pri of 1974, the bar was pletely gutted by another fire.
In January of 2008, G Van Sant me to the Castro to beg filmg his feature film Milk, a bgraphic film about Harvey Milk starrg Sean Penn as the assassated gay rights lear and Jam Fran as his lover, Stt Smh. “The rebirth of Toad Hall, ” Big Gay Frat Hoe Blog, Febary 26, 2009.
Stryker, San and Jim Van Bkirk, Gay by the Bay, Chronicle Books, 1977, 978-0811811873. Whg, Sam, “Where History Was Ma: A tour of 41 pots of gay tert all across the cy, ” San Francis Chronicle, June 23, 2000. The days, seems that gay rom s are as prevalent as right-wg relig fanatics prottg said movi.