Contents:
GAY AND LBIAN HISTORY: MAP
Office, Kgston’s first official gay bar, opened the early 1980s on the rner of Montreal St. Although the Office was the first openly gay bar, a number of other gay bars have occupied space at the Plaza, until as recently as 1997, when Dreammakers, the last lbian bar the buildg, closed s doors. Sce the openg of the Office, a number of gay bars have occupied var Kgston lotns, cludg Robert’s Club Vogue, which then beme Club 477, a reference to s addrs at 477 Prcs; Wally’s, a dance bar on Bath Road; and Shay Foo Foo’s marti lounge the basement of the Rt Inn on Prcs Street, the recent closure of which has left Kgston whout a gay bar at the time of wrg.
Although openly signated “gay bars” did not exist Kgston before the early ’80s, this absence did not stop gays and lbians om rvg out a place for themselv. Jt as gay men uld cise the park as long as they remaed a subtle, somewhat hidn, prence, lbians and gays occupied space bars on the ndn that their behavur did not visibly transgrs nventnal sexual norms. The list of gay-tolerant bars is surprisgly long: the Elbow Room, the Cat’s Meow, the Indian Room, the Wagon Wheel, The Grand, Chez Piggy, and the Black Sheep Inn.
Except for the Black Sheep Inn and Chez Piggy, all the gay-tolerant bars were primarily workg-class stutns that acmodated a mixed-class clientele.