Hoton LGBT Travel & Communy Gui | My Gay Hoton

Contents:

• THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ONE OF HOTON’S MOST HISTORIC GAY BARS
• GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• HOTON’S GAY BARS TO VIS TO GRAB DRKS AT THIS WEEKEND
• HOTON GAY BARS

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ONE OF HOTON’S MOST HISTORIC GAY BARS

Historilly known among lols as the Gayborhood, Montrose ed to be where the weirdos were. The Gulf Coast Archive and Mm of Gay, Lbian, Bisexual and Transgenr History timat that was the se of more than three hundred funeral servic and remas the fal rtg place of an unknown number of people’s 1970 to 2009, this space was part of the legendary Hoton gay bar Mary’s…Naturally!, which fostered such a close muny that some regulars chose to have their funerals there. Mary’s, as wrer Ed Martez put a sprg 1983 issue of Out Texas, was “the mother hoe of all the gay bars Hoton.

” When origal owner Joe Anthony opened Mary’s, was primarily a leather bar where gay bikers would ngregate. But quickly beme known as a place where anyone was wele: gays, lbians, punk micians, wrers, hippi, and bohemians all termgled. “The Gayborhood is marked as much, if not more, by absenc as by the visible markers of s past, ” says curator Junr Fernanz, who anized the event along wh S Rodriguez.

“We are terted how the disappearance or ‘revelopment’ of the spac to bnch spots and ffee ho might mirror the overall trajectory of gay liberatn, om s earlier ialism to late-palist intarian pfalls like rabow-packaged Oreos. But one uld argue that Mary’s, too, was a gentrifier—one former patron remds me that gay men the seventi phed Montrose’s heavily Hispanic populatn out of the area to claim a space for themselv.

GUI TO GAY BARS HOTON

In one vio piece, for example, Penagos manvers his body to rg a bell agast a brick, which symboliz the mythologized “first brick of the gay rights movement” thrown by gay activists at the 1969 Stonewall uprisg. ”The exhib celebrat the full breadth of Mary’s, which— the way that only a historic gay gatherg place n—served as a hookup spot, a muny anizg hub, and the se of many, many funerals. After Stonewall and the ceptn of the the AIDS crisis, the bar beme a place for gays to meet, anize, and prott.

Acrdg to one archive of Hoton LGBT history, the group that beme the Hoton GLBT Polil Cc, which bills self as the olst gay-rights anizatn the South, began at Mary’s.

Don Gill, a “fundraiser supreme” at Mary’s, rells s shift om grty gay hookup spot to the go-to venue where LGBT social anizatns uld munite wh the muny. In a 2002 Hoton Prs article, bartenr and part-owner Gaye Yancey said “wasn’t unmon for three Mary’s ctomers to die each month. And although wispread gay acceptance, cemented by the legalizatn of same-sex marriage 2015, has phed society forward, this exhib is a remr that the need for queer spac like Mary’s is as important as ever—specifilly for brown and black queers and trans dividuals.

A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.

Gui to Gay Bars Hoton. Neon Boots is Texas' largt gay untry bar -- more than 10, 000 square feet of fun unr one roof.

JR’s has been a staple Hoton’s gay scene for s, helpg form the bedrock of Montrose nightlife.

Montrose’s prolific gay club South Beach was long a Hoton stutn, strivg to enpsulate the clivy of Miami before shuttered 2018 for renovatns. “It’s kd of a rocket lnch or somethg, ” says owner Charl Armstrong, who also operat JR’s Bar & Grill — billed as one of the olst, ntuoly open gay bars the cy.

HOTON’S GAY BARS TO VIS TO GRAB DRKS AT THIS WEEKEND

Armstrong says that for more than 30 years and South Beach’s entire 17-year n, he refed to have media and mera crews any gay club for fear of people beg outed, losg their jobs, or their liv generally beg promised.

It was a break om some of the nservative and homogeneo cultur he found Texas, he says. “The relevance of the club scene is still a wonrful platform” for nnectg and tablishg relatnships, says Armstrong, notg that he met the love of his life 42 years ago a gay bar Florida.

As Montrose land gets pricier and more attractive to affluent Hotonians at a time when gay and lbians have bee more assiated to mastream society, s scffy alternative tablishments ntue to be snuffed out. We have evolved a long way sce 1974 — the Police no longer raid gay bars, HIV and AIDS (for most) are chronic but manageable diseas that no longer un fear, or separat om the straight muny bee of ignorance and tolerance, everyone has accs to affordable health re, straight bars are safer and more vg for , and the Inter has ma “other” aspects of our liv “easier.

HOTON GAY BARS

" Ray Hill, the an of Hoton's gay muny, says he is not surprised by such closgs as EJ's, Chanc, the former lbian bar that was transformed to Unrbelly rtrant by Jam Beard Award-wng chef Chris Shepherd and Mary's, the former leather bar replaced by the ultra-trendy Blacksmh ffee hoe.

" He not that several Montrose gay bars owned by Charl Armstrong, cludg South Beach, JR's Bar & Grill and the Montrose Mg Company, have ntued to thrive by stayg current. On Friday, Washgton Avenue gay bar Pearl posted to Instagram that some employe had tted posive for COVID-19.

The bsman and his wife, Melissa, first plaed to the Front Porch proprietors about pre-dawn vendor liveri 2019, not long after the nservative Christian uple moved their fancial firm right next door to the rtrant, which fli a gay Pri flag.