(PDF) Ottawa's Le/The Village: Creatg a Gaybourhood Amidst the 'Death of the Village' | Nathaniel M Lewis

Contents:

• A COMPREHENSIVE GAY GUI TO OTTAWA, ONTAR
• OTTAWA TRODUC FIRST 'GAY VILLAGE'
• GAY OTTAWA
• MOVG TO LGBT OTTAWA, ONTAR? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!
• OTTAWA’S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE ‘ATH OF THE VILLAGE’
• CALLS TO REGNIZE OTTAWA'S GAY VILLAGE
• T'S PUBOTTAWAMENUHOTELS · LUXURYHOTELS · MID-RANGEBARSDANCE CLUBSSNASGAY MAPT'S PUB
• OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'
• OTTAWA GAY MAP

A COMPREHENSIVE GAY GUI TO OTTAWA, ONTAR

The roughly six-block span of Bank Street (and to a lser extent O'Connor Street) between Somerset and Gladstone mak up the heart of this GLBT hub, which has jt one gay bar but several shops, rtrants, and f wh strong muny ti.

A short drive wt of downtown, Wtboro Village has a handful of very good rtrants, cludg a uple of gay fav: Canvas Retso-Bar, which has a cute pat out ont and a zy dg room where you might try foie gras wh warm pear and pen salad, thyme-roasted Cornish hen, polenta and prawns, and other treats sourced mostly wh lol and anic gredients; and Foolish Chicken, a quirky and laid-back spot si a vaguely chalet-spired hoe servg barbecue chicken and ribs, pulled pork sandwich, and richly creamy cheek. "Ottawa has s first official "Gay Village" after a downtown uncillor put the fal touch on a six-year whe signs wh a rabow logo are now posted along Bank Street between Nepean and Jam Street Centretown wh the words "The Village.

Diane Holm orred the signs, which were stalled late last week, after she nducted her own survey on the Crawford appld the cy after years of batg for followg through on the Gay Village signatn for Bank Street Centretown Ottawa. Bars beme an important place for our muny to socialize, meet romantic/sexual partners and iends, and mobilize spac that were queer-iendly closed or changed polici to shun gays, such as the Honeyw bi Unn Statn or the Lord Elg, new plac opened specifilly for the LGBT muny, such as Shas and the list shows all the known gay bars the nearly 50 years of LGBT liberatn. Lols are hopg to turn Bank Street to an official gay village, like siar gayborhoods Toronto and Montreal, and The Village signs wh rabows mark signifint rners on Bank om Nepean to Jam Streets, but there are some other important clubs jt off Bank on Somerset, and as far up as Sparks and Queen Streets towards the river.

OTTAWA TRODUC FIRST 'GAY VILLAGE'

This area is the home of over 20 bs and servic that directly serve the GLBT muny, many of which are gay-owned and -operated, wh another nearly 40 other lotns that proudly support and serve the Village and Ottawa’s GLBT muny.

The Bt Gay Neighborhoods In OttawaOttawa’s Gay VillageWtboroThe Glebe ByWard Market and Lower TownLGBTQ+ Communy Organizatns In OttawaLGBTQ+ Communy Events OttawaLGBT-Owned Bs In OttawaFal Thoughts On Movg To LGBTQ OttawaFdg Gay Realtors In Ottawa. IntroductnOn November 4, 2011, six blocks of Ottawa, Canada’s, Bank Street were signated by Mayor Jim Watson and the municipal ernment as Le/The Village, the official gay village of the bilgual, mid-sized natnal pal (populatn 883, 391) stg roughly halfway between Toronto and Montreal. 1 Send, the signatn was temporally out of le wh the trajectori of well-known Canadian gay villag such as Church-Wellley (Toronto), and Le Village Gai (Montreal), which were signated as villag by the early 2000s and had roots gay liberatn movements of the 1970s (Nash, 2005, Nash, 2006, Podmore, 2001, Podmore, 2006).

’ The fdgs challenge an tablished disurse of gay village evolutn and an emergent disurse of gay village cle, both of which posn gay villag as sted for creasg relevance the face of mercializatn, gentrifitn, and advanc gay rights. This study therefore seeks to challenge sentialist notns of gay villag, reame work on the lks between gay inty and gay villag, and add to the body of work on gay and queer liv smaller ci (Brown, 2008) first sectn of this article tails the emergent disurse of gay village cle, s lks to evolutnary narrativ of both gay villag and gay inty, and unterarguments drawn om ethnographic rearch that se perceptns of gay villag as ntgent upon where they are loted and the subjectivi of those who enunter them. In sum, this se study begs to nsir alternate formatns and trajectori of gay villag, and how ‘new’ gay villag might challenge privilege rather than perpetuate villag have been central to sexualy and space rearch durg the past two s.

GAY OTTAWA

Alternately referred to as ‘villag, ’ ‘ghettos, ’ and ‘gaybourhoods, ’ the urban llectns of gay and lbian rints, gay-oriented or gay-owned bs, muny spac, and events such as paras and protts, are plac where personal and llective gay inti are formed and polil stggl are leveraged (Castells and Murphy, 1982, Castells, 1983, Fort, 1995, Sibalis, 2004; Nash, 2005, Nash, 2006).

In 2007, a New York Tim mentary observed that US gay villag were sted to bee passé: agg populatns were not stag lol bars and street parti, hog pric were too high to attract new gay rints, and onle workg had renred bricks-and-mortar muny venu unnecsary (Brown, 2007).

MOVG TO LGBT OTTAWA, ONTAR? HOW TO FD YOUR PERFECT GAY NEIGHBORHOOD!

And sts a pretty penny to hang your hat Chelsea and Greenwich Village, New York’s origal gay enclav … Seattle, Hoton, Philalphia, Atlanta: they’ve all experienced a drop the number of gay people livg close to the re (Babe, 2008). Usg s om the Uned Kgdom, Colls (2004) argu that over time gay villag (1) occupy limal neighbourhoods where sexualy is ls regulated, (2) expand through enterpris foced on gay male social and recreatnal outlets, (3) experience a wing service-sector base, (4) assiate to the mastream mercial base of the cy, and eventually, (5) lose their viabily as specifilly gay the trajectory that Colls outl is more market-driven than culturally or historilly specific, the se studi employed (Soho London, as well as Canal Street Manchter and Kemptown Brighton) suggt a tac alignment of village evolutn wh a particular historil timele.

The emergence of marked gay spac peripheral neighborhoods, for example, followed the crimalizatn of homosexualy the late 1960s, and the brandg and marketg of gay villag rerced the property-led downtown revelopment schem that beme popular the 1980s and 1990s.

OTTAWA’S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE ‘ATH OF THE VILLAGE’

Although the timele nnot be generalized to all ci wh gay villag—San Francis’s Castro and New York’s Wt Village, for example, were never peripheral neighbourhoods—the marketg and brandg of mega-villag like those London (Anrsson, 2009), Manchter (Bnie and Skeggs, 2004), Montreal (Podmore, 2001, Podmore, 2006) and Toronto (Nash, 2010), suggts that those villag are now posned for cle (Colls, 2004, p. G., the abily to open new gay bars when the maximum number of liquor licens have been granted a jurisdictn), Rutg (2008) fds that the cle of the Oxford Street village Sydney, Atralia, has stemmed om growg numbers of heterosexual patrons who fd the neighborhood trendy and the changg preferenc of gay men and lbians who are lookg for ‘alternative’ plac to live or media outlets have also creasgly voked the ‘preference’ argument, ditg that gay village tablishments have cled bee they are ls culturally relevant among a younger generatn of ‘post-mos’ wh tablished rights and more flexible inti. In a ntroversial 2011 article The Grid, a Toronto, Canada, magaze, Pl Aguirre-Livgston the post-mo trope to expla why, ostensibly, the ‘Church Wellley [gay] village has all but lost s rabow lours and is a shell of s former self’ (Aguirre-Livgston, 2011).

G., the ‘nouve gay’ who chews Gay Pri paras and village bars) and the availabily of grtier, more cuttg edge, queerer spac such as weekly dance parti at ually ‘straight’ bars and rtrants wt of the cy’s central bs district (see also Gorman-Murray, 2006a, Anrsson, 2009).

E., the village is not gay enough) and bee enlightened, already-liberated ‘post-mos’ favour out-of-centre neighborhoods and alternative entertament venu that transcend the outdated, llective versn of gay inty reprented by the gay village (i. The village is th posned as both a failed stutn and one that has outlived s work on the changg posns of gays and lbians society also suggts that gay village cle might be the by-product of 20th-century trajectori of gay rights, polics, and inti. Commentari such as Gay and After (Sfield, 1998), Beyond the Closet (Seidman, 2002), and The World We Have Won (Weeks, 2007) and cy-specific historgraphi such as Gay Seattle: Stori of exile and belongg (Atks, 2003) suggt that gay men and lbians have already ‘opened the closet door’ by tablishg visible muni and earng ‘mastream’ social acceptance and equal rights.

CALLS TO REGNIZE OTTAWA'S GAY VILLAGE

As Cathere Nash (2006, 4) argu, however, the narrativ problematilly posn gay village creatn as part of a ‘heroic, logil, and seemgly thought out historil leage’ where gay villag bee the spatial assertn of a llective, relatively uniform, and quasi-ethnic gay inty (see Ksman, 1996, Sfield, 1998, Sfield, 2000, Warner, 2002).

This type of thkg not only posns gay village creatn as part of a lear rights-claimg procs wh a teleologil end, also flattens the manifold meangs of the gay village and the multiple inti that shaped and were shaped by (Nash, 2006).

T'S PUBOTTAWAMENUHOTELS · LUXURYHOTELS · MID-RANGEBARSDANCE CLUBSSNASGAY MAPT'S PUB

Neoliberal criqu of gay and lbian advancement, ntrast, suggt that gay villag and rights such as same-sex marriage are tools ed by stat to enurage ‘homonormative’ liftyl anchored nsumptn rather than the radil liberatn of sexual non-normativy (Duggan, 2002, Rhbrook, 2002). The studi brg forth three related them that ntextualize the Ottawa se study: (1) the ntted nature of gay village formatn (2) differg meangs of gay villag among different class, age, and genr subjectivi, and (3) the role of terlocutors shapg the, ntrast to evolutnary narrativ, several studi have shown that gay villag are shaped by lol historil and cultural ntext and ntted across state and lol stutns and the var segments of gay muni. For example, Sibalis (2004) observed that public skepticism over the signatn of the Marais as Paris’ ‘gay ghetto’—the victory of muny over society, as some media portrayals scribed —was a functn of French antipathi toward givg social (or spatial) privileg to any particular group.

(2002) and Bnie and Skeggs (2004) found that as the cy shed to brand Canal Street as part of s ‘smopolan’ velopment scheme, gay venu began excludg lbians, people of lour, workg-class gays, and other groups perceived to impe prof-makg.

OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'OTTAWA'S LE/THE VILLAGE: CREATG A GAYBOURHOOD AMIDST THE 'DEATH OF THE VILLAGE'

More recently, Doan and Higgs (2011) observed that Atlanta’s Midtown, new heterosexual rints filed plats about Pri events and clamored for the closure of gay bs, while cy planng documents fell silent on the needs of the gay muny.

Meanwhile, Sydney’s Darlghurst, recent claims that gay rints and patrons were beg harrassed and attacked by ‘newer’ heterosexual nsumers—while eventually found to be exaggerated—went pletely unheed by the police and were dismissed by the, the experience or meang of a gay village or scene is ntgent upon the genr, class, and life urse subjectivi of those who enunter . Both early, entreprenrial gay villag and late-stage heavily brand super-villag have been scribed as exclnary toward women (Knopp, 1990, Prchard et al., 2002, Ray, 2004), people of lour (Bnie and Skeggs, 2004, Bassi, 2006), and workg-class gays and lbians (Visser, 2003, Bnie and Skeggs, 2004, Nash, 2006). Collectively, the place-specific studi provi the theoretil space to nsir why Ottawa has signated a gay village 2011 spe claims of imment cle larger ci such as neighbourg, reprentatns of gay village growth, evolutn, and cle are also pennt on the voic of the terlocutors that terpret them.

In 2005, Vcent Miller suggted that Vanuver’s Davie Street gay village was more a ‘referential illn’ (Barth, 1986)—a spatial ia nstcted through the terpretive muny of the cy’s gay media—than was a fed space anchored a particular set of stutns, venu, or historil moments such as municipal signatn (see also Fort, 1995, Gorman-Murray, 2006a).

OTTAWA GAY MAP

Dependg on the posnaly of the thor or outlet, an article might seek to create a sense of alarm marked by termologi such as ‘unravellg’ and ‘crisis’ (Babe, 2008), but also perhaps a self-satisfied sense of ‘already knowg’ about shifts the lotns of gay populatns (A-Ville Daily, 2011), or even a sire to distance onelf om a gay village perceived as outdated or passé (Aguirre-Livgston, 2011). The disurse of village cle, like many trop of gay culture (Knopp and Brown, 2003), emerg om a few large metropolan areas such as Toronto, New York, and Vanuver–plac where there are tablished gay venu to which ‘alternativ’ n be sought. Although the area has been rmally known as the ‘gaybourhood’ for over a (Crawford, 2009), has not evolved the same way as landmark villag The battle for Le/The VillageThe signatn of a Le/The Village was hotly bated Ottawa between 2006 and 2011, receivg prs over 50 articl several gay and mastream outlets.

This logic not only obscur the differenc between state-regnized rights and day-to-day experienc of secury or discrimatn, but appeals to a ‘metronormative’ visn of gay liv thatThe privilege of dismissg the villageMany recent terventns have amed gay villag as cloned, smopolan llectns of stor, rtrants, and nightlife venu that ter to the most privileged and assiable sectors of gay muni (Duggan, 2002, Rhbrook, 2002, Bnie and Skeggs, 2004, Aguirre-Livgston, 2011).