They survived homophobia and Thatcher. But is gentrifitn now soundg the ath knell for gay clubs and pubs? We meet the artists battlg to save them
Contents:
- THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
- LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE
- KEV SPACEY DEFENDS COMG OUT AS GAY AFTER BEG ACCED OF SEXUAL MISNDUCT: ‘I WAS UNR A LOT OF PRSURE’
THE FIRST GAY PUB I DARED SET FOOT NOW HAS A RABOW PLAQUE. HERE’S WHY THAT MATTERS
* lost gay london *
The mols didn’t reprent buildgs of any great distctn, but to members of the dience they were a faiar lp: the Black Cap, the Joers Arms, the Glass Bar, the Lbian and Gay Centre. “Some of the media narrativ were around technology and Gaydar, Grdr, how that’s changed everythg, ” says Campk. ”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.
Some – like the London Lbian and Gay Centre (LLGC), which closed 1992, and First Out Cafe, swept asi by the Crossrail velopment – functned as muny spac durg the day. 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.
Once the centre was su, however, hosted a dis, fe, bookshop and a women-only floor, as well as spac for mpaigng … a diary om the London Lbian and Gay Centre. Qulan se gay spac changg, but not everywhere. “A lot of our work looks at this shiftg moment between what I would ll ‘gay bars’ and a more queer inty.
LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE
Geni Pictur has optned Emmett Monterey’s memoir about growg up gay and disabled 1980s London for TV adaptatn. * lost gay london *
But even people who have issu wh gay-bar culture have a sentimental attachment to the spac. ”Central London’s gay clubs took on an almost mythil stat for Sahib while he was growg up Ealg. “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.
Photograph: Courty the artist and Southard ReidSahib’s Helix IV memorialis yet another kd of space: Charts gay sna, Shoredch, which closed 2016. I met people there who didn’t intify as gay or exclively as men.
But, some ways, I met a more diverse range of people than the gay bars I go to. Frankly, I’d have served a prison jt for him to hold my hand, like he did his off-whe Vxhall Nova on the drive there, breakg only to change, he took me for strawberry cir the Gloucter, a pub at the park’s edge, takg my tremblg hand his and reassurg me: “It’s actually a gay bar.
KEV SPACEY DEFENDS COMG OUT AS GAY AFTER BEG ACCED OF SEXUAL MISNDUCT: ‘I WAS UNR A LOT OF PRSURE’
Gay pubs are far more than bars; they’re refug. On Sunday, the first a new seri of rabow plaqu will be stalled at the Gloucter – now the Greenwich Tavern – cementg s place gay home the workg-class Medway area of Kent, where we met when he sold me a phone cred rd at the lol petrol statn, “queers” like were wily perceived as predatory, perverted, spic or simply scum.
”After the strawberry cir, served by a man a tight whe vt – the only other gay man I’d seen real life – the squiggly summer sunlight ma a strobe effect through the park’s tre. The first time I saw wh him, when I was 18, I realised he had echoed the love story of the two protagonists, who also had their first kiss the twilight of Greenwich Park’s tre, and their first experience of a gay pub at the Gloucter. The explanatn for his obssn is now clear: there was such a pcy of same-sex love stori that this was the first time many young people had seen a same-sex kiss, or peeked si an actual gay bar after dark.