The Booksellers That Built a Communy - Philalphia Gay News

Contents:

• HOW GVANNI’S ROOM REVENTED SELF TO SUCCEED AS THE OLST GAY BOOKSTORE THE UNTRY
• MOVG TO LGBT PHILALPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• PHILALPHIA GAY SHOP
• THE LAST DAY AT GVANNI’S ROOM, AMERI’S OLST GAY BOOKSTORE
• LANDMARK GAY BOOKSTORE TO REOPEN PHILLY
• 1920S AND 30S: GAY BARS SURFACE

HOW GVANNI’S ROOM REVENTED SELF TO SUCCEED AS THE OLST GAY BOOKSTORE THE UNTRY

Then-owner Ed Hermance told the Inquirer they benefed om a gay “rmatn revolutn” — a sh of lerature published about LGBTQ life all at once.

MOVG TO LGBT PHILALPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

In 1987, when Jam Baldw vised Gvanni’s Room — Philalphia’s gay and femist bookstore that took s name om his semal novel — was a hasty affair. As was mon for openly gay bs at the time, the tr — who met each other through their volvement wh Gay Activists Alliance — found difficult to secure a lotn.

Sometim clientele — most of whom knew ltle of Philly’s LGBT world — would enter the shop and ask where the gay bars were; other tim they’d ask more sensive qutns, to which they’d be referred to muny rourc such as the gay swchboard or the Erom Center. When the three men were discsg what to name the shop, Weberg, who had read “Gvanni’s Room” the 1960s, suggted the tle as they brastormed ias, which clud The Bookstore That Dare Not Speak Its Name, after Osr Wil’s quote on gay love, and, jokgly, The Well of Lonels, after the Radford Cliff novel.

In the mid ‘70s, as the activist group Gay Rairs stormed broadst news programs to crease natnal LGBT visibily, lol visibily improved apace.

PHILALPHIA GAY SHOP

Hill was asked to appear on a gay-themed episo of the Edie Huggs Show, a daytime show on WCAU, as well as speakg engagements at universi cludg Temple and Prceton.

Olshan and Hermance had met through their volvement wh the gay muny center at 326 Kater Street, where they served as -ordator and treasurer, rpectively.

THE LAST DAY AT GVANNI’S ROOM, AMERI’S OLST GAY BOOKSTORE

The publitn New Gay Life, eded by Tommi Avilli Mec, for a short perd kept s office the back of the shop (which had prevly been a doctor’s office).

Around the time Olshan and Hermance took over the store, openly gay edors like Michael Denneny began to ph for more work by LGBT thors and for disntued tl, such as those by Baldw and Chrisopher Isherwood, to be reprted. “They heard that we were a populatn that was really unrserved and that they uld make money off of the gay and lbian and femist muni. “I thk was dumb luck that we started jt at the moment when publishers were begng to produce gay and lbian books sufficient quanty that was possible to make a livg om them, ” Hermance wrote a 2015 say.

1976 had seen the release of Jonathan Ned Katz’s “Gay Amerin History, ” one of the first amic books of the post-Stonewall movement, as well as a sndalo tle at the time, Fr. McNeill’s “The Church and the Homo- sexual, ” which challenged the Catholic Church’s antigay stance and argued that the Bible did not nmn homosexualy.

LANDMARK GAY BOOKSTORE TO REOPEN PHILLY

Hermance relled he and Olshan drove to the natnal nventn of Digny Chigo — which had no gay bookstore at the time — to sell pi of McNeill’s book.

In 1979, three years after the bs had moved to 1426 Spce Street, the buildg was sold to a suburban fay who did not want a gay, lbian and femist bookstore as their tenant. Among the spac they were refed was Center Cy One, where the realtor said the shop would “attract too many homosexuals to our property. Archect Steve Mirman volunteered to help resign the space, and around 100 other volunteers tore down walls, built bookshelv and a skylight, stalled lightg, put up drywall, spackled, pated, and moved and stalled the inic blue-green sign featurg an Amazon Queen on horseback and the tle “Femist and Gay Books, Etc.

As the world weled the 1980s, Gvanni’s Room weled s first sal to overseas bookstor, among them Gay’s The Word London, Prz Eisenherz Berl, and L Mots a la Bouche Paris. The owners and staff at Gvanni’s Room, like those at Gay’s the Word, unrstood and appreciated the impact their bs had on the lol LGBT muny.

1920S AND 30S: GAY BARS SURFACE

The store also saw the loss of several of s employe and volunteers to AIDS, cludg Black gay wrer and activist Joe Beam, who had worked at Gvanni’s Room for six years before his ath 1988, and -founr Bernie Boyle, who had been the one to first troduce Hermance to the store, 1992.