Gigi’s Celebrat 50 Years: The Olst Gay-Owned Gay Bar Detro Is Now a Half-Century Old - Pri Source

Contents:

• WH THE WOODWARD’S FUTURE UNCERTA, TAKG STOCK OF DETRO'S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS
•  MICHIGAN LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• HUNDREDS REMISCE ABOUT HISTORIL DETRO GAY BAR SCENE
• BT GAY BARS IN METRO DETRO
• GAY BARS DETRO, MICHIGAN
• BT GAY BARS IN DETRO
• BT GAY BARS IN METRO DETRO
• HAYLOFT SALOONDETROMENUHOTELSBARSDANCE CLUBSGAY WEDDGSGAY MAPHAYLOFT SALOON
• BT GAY BARS IN DETRO
•  MICHIGAN LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• GIGI’S CELEBRAT 50 YEARS: THE OLST GAY-OWNED GAY BAR DETRO IS NOW A HALF-CENTURY OLD
• BT GAY BARS IN DETRO
• FORMER SE OF DETRO'S LONGT-NNG GAY HEALTH SPA, TNT HEALTH CLUB, FORECLOSURE

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

From downtown Detro to Royal Oak, Gay-Friendly nightlife reigns supreme. Gay-Friendly Bars & Clubs Metro Detro. As one of the olst gay spac Detro, this spot is te to s gay roots but is always open to anyone who wants to jo the fun.

Loted the former gay mec of Detro, Palmer Park, the plex clus the Menjo’s Bar, the Eagle Leather Bar, and the Olymp Theater. It’s fely the place for a night of gay-oriented entertament — the bt kd! Gigi's Gay Bar.

 MICHIGAN LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

One of the bt gay and drag bars the cy, Gigi’s is optimal for drks and a show. Ferndale has been the center of gay life Detro sce the 2000s and Soho is the classy yet sual spot for gay men, women and everyone between right the heart of the downtown area off Wt Ne Mile Road.

Whether you’re gay, straight, bi, trans, or queer, the are great tablishments to make a night of and teract wh a diverse muny.

HUNDREDS REMISCE ABOUT HISTORIL DETRO GAY BAR SCENE

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.

BT GAY BARS IN METRO DETRO

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.

GAY BARS DETRO, MICHIGAN

The owners said they never set out to open up a gay bar.

BT GAY BARS IN DETRO

"We jt opened up and whichever way went, went, " Andy Karagas told "Gayzette" 1973 (as reported Andy's obuary 1997).

"And when went gay all the way, we kicked out all the straights that night. He later me out as the time, owners of gay bars Detro were mostly not gay themselv.

Gay sex was a crime Michigan — as had been sce the 1800s — and police equently harassed and arrted gay people and raid gay bars. "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.

BT GAY BARS IN METRO DETRO

Bars at the time, gay and otherwise, sometim paid off police to be left alone. The Woodward provid a safe haven for whe gay men. Like many gay bars of s era, did not embrace people of lor.

HAYLOFT SALOONDETROMENUHOTELSBARSDANCE CLUBSGAY WEDDGSGAY MAPHAYLOFT SALOON

In that way, The Woodward was not unlike most other early gay bars Detro. 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.

BT GAY BARS IN DETRO

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. Their place was known as "The Gay Spot.

More gay hangouts began to crop up beyond downtown the '50s and '60s.

 MICHIGAN LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

Gay ownership of gay bars beme more mon this era.

Menjo's, which still exists, was gay-owned when Mike Crawford, Henry Trent and Joe LaRosa, Jr. Gigi's, on Wt Warren near the Southfield Freeway, will take on the mantle of the olst operatg gay bar Detro if The Woodward do not survive. 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.

GIGI’S CELEBRAT 50 YEARS: THE OLST GAY-OWNED GAY BAR DETRO IS NOW A HALF-CENTURY OLD

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. The Famo Door beme a Black gay nightclub "famo" for s mic and dancg. 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.

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. Retzloff said several factors played to the rapid growth of the gay bar scene Detro the '70s and '80s, even as Detro's populatn cled. Though many gay people had moved to the suburbs, few gay bars existed outsi Detro until the mid-1990s, due to trenchant suburban anti-gay discrimatn.

And as factori closed throughout those s — particularly Dodge Ma 1980 — bars that had prevly served workers shifted to servg a gay clientele.

BT GAY BARS IN DETRO

"The ugly part of that is that the owners preferred to have gay ctomers to havg Ain Amerin ctomers, " Retzloff said.

"Bee of the pal vtment that tak to n a bar and the st of a liquor license, there were always far fewer Black (owned) gay bars, " Retzloff said. 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.

Today, there are about 10 gay bars the metro Detro area, acrdg to a listg OutPost magaze — not cludg the Woodward.

FORMER SE OF DETRO'S LONGT-NNG GAY HEALTH SPA, TNT HEALTH CLUB, FORECLOSURE

Even the home of Ruth Ellis, one of Michigan's most wily known gay activists, is a vant lot today. The are jt a handful of exampl of gay bars, clubs and gatherg spac that have been razed over the years.

It is also home to the sound system of Club Heaven, a gay dance club that opened at Seven Mile and Woodward 1985. The first a three-part seri of panel discsns, this one on the history gay bars Detro, drew a crowd of more than 250 people to the Olymp Theater Saturday night. “The first gay neighborhood was downtown along Monroe Street the cy’s theater district, ” Haller told the crowd.

Sappgton enjoyed gog to gay bars long before she created her Metra magaze, which would chronicle the gay bar scene 1979. “I always hung out gay bars, ” Sappgton said. “I had a hair shop Romeo, Michigan, and I advertised the only gay paper that I knew of, which was Metro Gay News.