Gay bar threatened by MARTA plan, historil prervatnists say

Contents:

• BULLDOGS: ATLANTA’S LTLE GAY BAR THAT ULD
• LEGENDARY GAY BAR ATLANTA EAGLE IS REOPENG MIDTOWN
• ONCE UPON A TIME ATLANTA: STAGG REVOLUTN OM THE GAY BAR
• THE 5 BEST ATLANTA GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS ATLANTA
• ATLANTA GAY BARS
• GAY BAR THREATENED BY MARTA PLAN, HISTORIL PRERVATNISTS SAY
• MOVG TO LGBT ATLANTA, GEIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• GAY CLUBS
• ATLANTA GAY MAP

BULLDOGS: ATLANTA’S LTLE GAY BAR THAT ULD

Two patrons at BulldogsPhotograph by Rs Bowen-YoungbloodJt one story tall and tucked between 7th and 8th streets on Peachtree, a ty gay bar has built a reputatn that towers over many of the skyscrapers that surround .

LEGENDARY GAY BAR ATLANTA EAGLE IS REOPENG MIDTOWN

Although Bulldogs is known for a mature crowd, beme Thompson’s favore bar, and he nsirs a guipost for Black gay Atlanta, lkg generatns throughout s of dynamic change—although served a predomantly whe clientele until the late 1980s. “I thk we would kd of be lost when to nightlife whout Bulldogs, ” Thompson says of the bar that has been the only nstant a Black gay party scene which often feels transnal, wh promoters rentg venu across the cy rather than hostg at a nsistent lotn.

From young men drsed for the nway and others buff enough to be a UGA nng back to olr profsnals who look like they jt left the boardroom, the regulars at Bulldogs provi a snapshot of why Atlanta is nsired a Black gay a few years of Cochran startg to work as a doorman at Bulldogs 1998, high-rise buildgs were replacg gay bars and no-tell motels Midtown, and the stud apartments and triplex that attracted young queer people for s were beg phased out for sgle-fay hog and ndos.

ONCE UPON A TIME ATLANTA: STAGG REVOLUTN OM THE GAY BAR

Bulldogs has outlasted other legendary gay clubs like Backstreet and the Armory, and has stood s ground amid persistent threats om new neighbors and velopers. SpacUnfortunately, Future hasn't add any spac to their profile on The Google Maps PrsJun 12, 2023The InfatuatnThe Bt Gay Bars In AtlantaJun 12, 2023The InfatuatnThe Bt Gay Bars In AtlantaDetailsUnfortunately, Future hasn't add any addnal tails to their profile on The Vendry. “Certaly, ” Jim Auchmutey of the Atlanta Journal-Constutn wr, Atlanta is “the gay oasis of the South—the place wh the most gay bars and the most gay church” of any cy the southeastern Uned Stat.

THE 5 BEST ATLANTA GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS ATLANTA

Published a 1987 seri tled “The Shapg of Atlanta, ” Auchmutey’s article scrib the “fluenc” and numero ntributns of gay and lbian Atlantans om their power as a votg bloc to their “renovatn of town neighborhoods. ”2 Further, Auchmutey’s article picts a tensn among Atlanta’s gay-and-lbian-intifyg cizens between those who sire more out, overt, and direct polil actn and those who do not see a need for such activist anizatn.

Powell repeated siar beliefs var stanc across his long reer as the “proment, ” “gay as a goose” Atlanta bs-owner of such bars as the Cove, the Conference Room, Ms.

ATLANTA GAY BARS

Powell’s lack of polil actn and personal beliefs on the tactics of gay and lbian activists mak all-the-more ironic that one of the first book-length histori of “Atlanta’s gay revolutn” centers around this send bar he owned, The Sweet Gum Head.

GAY BAR THREATENED BY MARTA PLAN, HISTORIL PRERVATNISTS SAY

Like Auchmutey’s brief survey of gay Atlanta the late 1980s, Mart Padgett’s 2021 history, A Night at the Sweet Gum Head: Drag, Dgs, Dis, and Atlanta’s Gay Revolutn, v rears to trace the velopment, promence, and fluence of Atlanta’s gay muny through Padgett’s refully curated st of important cultural, bs, and polil figur across the 1970s. Unlike Auchmutey’s article, Padgett’s study both intifi and ntu terviews wh numero “proment” gay Atlantans that shaped Atlanta’s gay muny, some who rried signs the streets and some who flnted the bars.

MOVG TO LGBT ATLANTA, GEIA? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

In his anizatnal choice to follow Smh, Greenwell/Wells, and other “st” members, Padgett is perhaps spired by the work of Mart Duberman, whose 1993 Stonewall siarly traced a handful of historic actors volved the 1960s-1970s “gay revolutn” that encircled the events at the Stonewall Inn and bar New York Cy’s Greenwich Village.

GAY CLUBS

Wh ANATSGH Padgett tentnally sts Atlanta as a central se of lol queer worldmakg, placg the cy the pany of the more often celebrated hubs of 1970s gay liberatn like New York Cy and San Francis. ”6 Padgett views the “shapg of Atlanta” as separable om the “gays and lbians” who “streamed om plac” across the south and “fashned an oasis” the cy, largely begng his view durg the 1970s. For example, Padgett’s story of Bill Smh, an early pneerg gay activist who died of an overdose 1980, highlights both the promise and llapse of possibily for gay people the cy.

ATLANTA GAY MAP

10 Though Atlanta “drew gays and lbians om all over the South, ” Padgett’s acunt such an oasis was by fn fleetg, an Emerald Cy mirage ultimately undone by ternece bar wars, dg culture, broar culture wars, and the advent of the HIV/AIDS crisis. 11 Padgett’s fal chapter, “Midnight at the Oasis” (once a workg tle for the book), scrib the closure of the tular performance “oasis, ” the Sweet Gum Head on Augt 30, 1981, nearly two months to the day followg the publitn of a New York Tim story scribg a “Rare Cancer Seen Homosexuals. ”13 Though Padgett clus elements of tragedy, he foc his study before this “strange time, ” more closely followg the pleasur found Atlanta’s gay “bar culture” of the 1970s.