The Death of the Gay Bar - Boston Review

Contents:

• THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.
• THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR
• THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS
• GAY BARS ONCE THRIVED SAGAW, BUT NONE REMA. LGBTQ+ ADVOT SEEK A REVIVAL.
• WH THE WOODWARD’S FUTURE UNCERTA, TAKG STOCK OF DETRO'S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• CLOSG TIME: THE LOSS OF INIC GAY VENU IS A NASTY SI-EFFECT OF LONDON’S SANISATN
• LGBT HISTORY MONTH AND REMEMBERG CORNWALL'S LOST GAY CLUBS
• BLACK-OWNED GAY BARS ARE DWDLG. CAN THEY SURVIVE COVID?

THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.

Pike and McDaniel know openg a bar durg a panmic may be risky, but they say they’ve learned one thg om years of visg and workg other queer tablishments: If they want to survive, they first have to build a better and more clive than a barThe gay bar was long the ma, and sometim only, space where queer people uld gather.

She mentored foster children whose parents had kicked them out, and every Thanksgivg, she threw a dner for people whose fai didn’t accept 1987, Norfolk had four or five gay bars, and the number natnwi peaked at more than 1, 700. Those servg lbians and people of lor were h all gay bar listgs cled by 37 percent between 2007 and 2019, the number of queer bars servg people of lor cled by 59 percent, and bars for lbians cled by 52 percent, Mattson Francis lost the Lexgton Club, and Rubyu Jungle shut s doors New Orleans.

THE DEATH OF THE GAY BAR

“Gay bars were never jt hookup plac, but they were plac to meet other LGBTQ+ people, and now that you n meet them om your bedroom or while you’re wag for the b, that has taken away some of gay bars’ monopoly on beg the place where you fd other LGBTQ+ folks, ” he bars are also no longer the only place some queer people, pecially Whe and cisgenr men, feel safe. Pike did secury for Nellie’s Sports Bar, and McDaniel bartend at APEX, Cobalt and other gay bars before workg alongsi Pike at A League of Her Own (ALOHO) Adams was one of jt 21 lbian bars left the untry when Pike and McDaniel worked there, but durg the early days of the ronavis panmic, the uple cid they wanted to create a new spot, one they owned.

THE CASE OF AMERI’S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

As You Are won’t have secury guards; stead, Pike is trag a fleet of “safety managers” — a change Pike hop will attract applints who are ls ncerned wh actg tough and more terted creatg a safe atmosphere for and McDaniel know that some people thk the gay bar era is over, that spac like theirs are no longer need, but people who say that tend to have more privilege, McDaniel said. “My experience of tryg to fd safe space here the Stat, and parg wh trips back to vis fay Mexi, has probably rmed my fervor for creatg a space where you are able to jt exist regardls of how or where you were born, who you want to love and how you intify, ” Castellanos, the owner of Hershee Bar Norfolk, nsirs herself an “old-school gay girl, ” but she’s rootg for the next generatn of queer bar owners. Provcetown, which turns to one of the gayt plac on Earth every summer, enacts this diversy on a granr sle wh themed weeks voted to wtern dancg, women of lor, bears, fai, gay pilots, and so forth.

Gee Chncey, Jr., ntends Gay New York that the ban on alhol ma the “crimalized mimon of the speakeasi” possible, while the advent of motn pictur forced many Tim Square theaters to turn to burlque. Moreover, if L’s book do have an argument, is that we have gotten the signifince of the gay bar backwards: their magic is not the ways that they foster muny, but the ways that they explo .

At the same time, they are also plac that rm that to be gay is to like a specific kd of mic, that enforce certa norms of bety, that all too often exclu those not mascule enough, wealthy enough, or whe enough. Herman Niev’ memory stretch back to when the epicenter of San Francis’s gay scene wasn’t the tony Castro, or the leather-and-Levi’s bars South of Market or even the htler hangouts Polk Gulch. ’s nightlife pal, saw two of s three gay bars shutter, a loss ma all the worse bee one was the last full-on lbian bar left the cy (the Lexgton Club), and the other a workg-class venue that tered to the dimishg Lato populatn (Esta Noche).

GAY BARS ONCE THRIVED SAGAW, BUT NONE REMA. LGBTQ+ ADVOT SEEK A REVIVAL.

Daniel Erickson, a barback at one of North Brooklyn’s olst extant gay bars, the 12-year-old Metropolan Williamsburg, has observed the scene change om unr him even jt the past few years. “The bars ed to be the unrground scene, but that changed, and gay bars beme ol for everyone to hang out , and people’s expectatn of a bar has shifted towards specialty cktails, ” he says.

Even the Castro, once the polil base of Harvey Milk, and still home to bakery lled Hot Cookie and a sgle-screen movie palace that ns a sg-along Sound of Mic every year, has taken on some trappgs of an airbshed, tourist-iendly gay herage district, rather than a livg, breathg gay neighborhood. But to some, spac “for everyone” reprent the end of the sanctuari that a more overtly separatist gay culture built the 1970s and ’80s; to others ’s jt the next logil evolutn a cy where gay people have been assiated to mastream nightlife culture.

In the se of San Francis, over the last half-century the cy’s gay bars have gone om visible and forbidn to public and numero—and, ultimately, may be fallg victim to their own succs.

WH THE WOODWARD’S FUTURE UNCERTA, TAKG STOCK OF DETRO'S DISAPPEARG GAY BARS

”The loss have clud fixtur of the London scene: the Coleherne Earl’s Court, which had been gog sce the 1930s; Islgton’s olst gay pub, the Kg Edward IV, and the Black Cap Camn, which closed 2015 after 50 years. The LLGC, set up a poultry facily Smhfield by the Greater London Council the early years of the Aids epimic, faced hostily, not least om the people who might have helped to nvert – Campk says simply fdg a non-homophobic nstctn pany was a stggle.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

“I ed to tune to ble om the next-door neighbours and I’d stay up till midnight to watch 10 mut of Freeview off the gay channel, which had footage of plac like Heaven and the Fridge. Some historians cred San Francis’s Mona's 440 Club, which opened 1936, as the first, but the blog Lost Womyn’s Space not the 1933 repeal of Prohibn led to Chigo’s first lbian and gay bars, so ’s possible Roselle Inn opened before Mona’s. Black and Puerto Rin women attend New York’s downtown bars, and Ntle spoke of a thrivg bar life for black gays, lbians and passg folks Harlem and Spanish Harlem om the 1930s to the 1950s.

Julie Mabry, owner of Pearl Bar, not that, even before Covid-19, women had ls disposable e, which means lbian bars typilly don't ask for ver charg or provi bottle service, yet they pay the same creasgly high rents as gay and straight bars. When The Woodward, Detro's olst-nng gay bar, burned a massive fire last week, spurred a nversatn about the history of the bar self, but also where was suated Detro gay history more broadly — and how to remember and celebrate s signifince the gay muny while lookg toward the future. The fire happened the middle of Pri Month, and not jt any Pri Month Detro: This year marks 50 years sce the cy's first Pri march, held June 24, 1972 to mand "full civil rights for gay people" and a repeal of all anti-gay laws, the Free Prs reported back then.

The march, officially lled Christopher Street '72, was self a remembrance of the uprisg at the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street New York Cy on June 28, 1969, when protts broke out rponse to a police raid at a gay bar. In s 70-odd years, The Woodward has been part of many tersectg stori of gay life and culture Detro, cludg policg of gay spac, ownership shifts, racial segregatn and populatn trends the cy.

CLOSG TIME: THE LOSS OF INIC GAY VENU IS A NASTY SI-EFFECT OF LONDON’S SANISATN

"It was technilly illegal to operate a bar that was a renzvo for homosexuals, " said Tim Retzloff, adjunct assistant profsor of history and LGBTQ studi at Michigan State Universy. It dat s foundg to 1973, when the former supper club was purchased by Tony Garne — a gay man and one of the founrs of Bars and Towels, Inc., an early associatn for owners of gay bars and bs.

Other notable Detro gay bars of the 1970s clu The Famo Door, on Griswold near Grand River Capol Park, which had been a straight bar until was purchased 1972 by Ernt Backos, the owner of the old Club 1011, which by then had been sold and molished for parkg. Dpe the massive stris the lbian, gay, transgenr, bisexual, and queer muni have ma the last few s, the shockg horror of the weekend’s shootgs ma clear the ntued relevance and importance of the bars and nightclubs.

While the protts and march at The Stonewall Inn turned the bar to a symbolic headquarters for the Gay Pri movement, gay nightlife has always served as val space for muny buildg and pg societal persecutn.

LGBT HISTORY MONTH AND REMEMBERG CORNWALL'S LOST GAY CLUBS

The people behd the plac have sparked polil activism (Joe Scialo, the late former owner of The Monster, supported employe the ‘80s fightg AIDS and even traveled to Mexi to brg back life-savg dgs) and have fostered mic and creative exprsn for s (gay clubs such as the Warehoe Chigo and Paradise Garage New York gave birth to hoe and var stras of electronic mic). Jt a ltle more than 60 years ago, famo police raids Miami attempted to shut down the cy’s gay nightlife, rultg newspaper headl such as "Perverts Seized Bar Raids, " "Crackdown on Deviant Nts Urged, " and "Great Civilizatns Plagued by Deviat. The notor "Purple Pamphlets" dissemated by state Senator Charley Johns, who had led wch hunts agast gays state ernment and led vtigative mte that fired hundreds of gay schoolteachers, portrayed the culture as viant and dangero.

The sgle-sex arrangement of ary life, as well as creasg pennce (and enomic advanc) of women workg on the homeont, offered many gay Amerins the abily to ngregate greater numbers for the first time.

BLACK-OWNED GAY BARS ARE DWDLG. CAN THEY SURVIVE COVID?

While this risg awarens helped create new gay rights anizatns, such as the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis, was quickly untered wh a nservative backlash of nformy and Communist paranoia, exemplified by Senator Joseph McCarthy. His vtigatns, part of an anti-gay wch hunt the feral ernment lled the Lavenr Sre, would persecute leftists for years, and along wh sual bigotry and wispread amement over terms such as ‘pixie, ’ would help falsely lk beg gay wh viance and anti-Amerin behavr the popular imagatn. In Provcetown, Massachetts, the A-Hoe, a gay hangout, beme one of the landmarks of the northeastern vatn muny, famo for a nu photo of Tennsee Williams strollg a lol beach hangg on the wall.

The Cab Inn, opened by Nat "Big" Ivy Chigo’s South Si Bronzeville neighborhood, put on regular drag shows featurg a chos le of black men, while Esta Noche, a pneerg Missn District gay bar, opened for a predomantly Hispanic clientele 1979. Durg the ‘50s and ‘60s, ps nstantly harassed LGBTQ tablishments, pullg cisers up near the entrance to disurage anyone om gog si, parkg police wagons ont of the door durg equent raids, and even sendg unrver ps to try and get someone to h on them—a daily occurrence every bar, gay or straight—which would trigger a lewd nduct charge. By 1964, when Bob Damron’s Addrs Book, a self-published gay travel gui, was first issued, ntaed more than 750 bars, rtrants, and clubs across the untry, all personally vised by the thor, a bsman who was equently on the road.

Woln was cricized, lost the electn, and as was often the se when crics or moralizers attacked the LGBTQ muny, merely broadst to others that San Francis was a great place to meet fellow gay and lbian people. By the end of the , that anonymy would be replaced wh mands for rights and regnn, as the gay rights movement began to achieve velocy, pecially the wake of larger lls for civil rights. After pourg their drks, a bartenr Juli's Bar ref to serve John Timms, Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, and Randy Wicker, members of the Mattache Society, an early Amerin gay rights group, who were prottg New York liquor laws that prevented servg gay ctomers, New York, New York, April 21, 1966.