Gay Urbana - Champaign County - Illois - USA

Contents:

•  ILLOIS LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• GAY URBANA (CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, ILLOIS)
• GAY AREA URBANA (ILLOIS)

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

Consirg gog to Urbana as a postdoc, n anyone tell me what gay life is like there?

“Not many people will remember the first actual ‘gay bar’ C-U, ” says Doug Barn, who grew up nearby Danville.

GAY URBANA (CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, ILLOIS)

Meetg other gays and jt the excement and feelg of beg able to be myself around everyone, I had been out most of my life, but beg that space was the begng of a whole new life. McNamara was the manager of a ltle bar lled Gvanni’s Place that opened Champaign 1975 and tered to the gay muny. McNamara lghs warmly about the lounge at the Inman, lled the Crystal Room, beg the first ‘gay bar’.

McNamara, now a rint of Palm Sprgs, Florida, remembers the Crystal Room, but says wasn’t the first ‘gay bar. One long-time fan posted to many ‘lik’ on Facebook, “C-Street was THE gay bar of C-U! “Chter Street Bar has always been hailed as ‘the gay space’ of the CU sce I n remember.

GAY AREA URBANA (ILLOIS)

“When you said you were gog to ‘the bar’ certa circl they knew meant you were gog to the gay bar. “I’d already been toyg wh the ia of hostg a dis night at Chanc R that weled gays and had been talkg to the owners about , ” nfsed McNamara.

’ At first was jt lled ‘the gay ncer’… they didn’t even know what was. He chose Pirao bee he knew that would rema a gay bar. “I hung out at Time Out, the Red Fox, and other gay bars Peoria, but those those bars were filled wh lols and mostly olr lols.

It was full of people of all ag, and a whole lot of young people bee at the time, all those ltle gay bars plac like Peoria and Rantoul you had to be 21 to get .