'Gay Bar' Tracks The Wave Of A Whole Culture — And One Life : NPR

Contents:

• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• A GAY UPLE RAN A RAL RTRANT PEACE. THEN NEW NEIGHBORS ARRIVED.
• ONE OF NEW YORK CY’S OLST GAY BARS IS NOW A HISTORIC LANDMARK
• HISTORIC GAY BAR SIGNATED AS NEW YORK CY LANDMARK
• 'I WANTED PEOPLE TO HAVE FUN.' AFTER 27 YEARS, LOUISVILLE SAYS FAREWELL TO INIC GAY BAR
• NYC HONORS HISTORIC GAY BAR WH LANDMARK STAT
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, Jeremy Atherton L. "We go out to get some, " wr Jeremy Atherton L his new book, Gay Bar.

Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg.

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

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat. That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts.

He's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap. In a gay bar, am I penned to mory stat, swallowg drks that nourish my opprsn — have gay bars kept me my place?

ONE OF NEW YORK CY’S OLST GAY BARS IS NOW A HISTORIC LANDMARK

" The prospect of losg gay bars leads him to reflect on their prence his life.

He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk.

" He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way. " That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place.

HISTORIC GAY BAR SIGNATED AS NEW YORK CY LANDMARK

Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive. " Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism. About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental.

The gay bars were born that way.

'I WANTED PEOPLE TO HAVE FUN.' AFTER 27 YEARS, LOUISVILLE SAYS FAREWELL TO INIC GAY BAR

They were nceived specifilly to take gay men's money. " Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people.

NYC HONORS HISTORIC GAY BAR WH LANDMARK STAT

Gay Bar is a book that's beyond imprsive, and Atherton L's wrg is both extremely telligent and rehgly unpretent.

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

And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball.

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. (Front Porch Market and Grill)What’s more, the Washers say, the ad rat was jt one more sult that the uple, who once planted an “all liv matter” sign their ont yard, have endured sce movg next door to a rtrant owned by a gay uple. They married 2020, five years after they opened the Front Porch, which quickly beme a statn The Front Porch has been flyg a Pri flag on s pat sce 2016, not long after a gunman killed 49 people a gay bar Orlando.