Thanks to the 1976 Lesbian Switchboard (741–2610, in case you needed it), the map has an accurate listing of the women’s bars at the time.Ī sample of NYC section of the 1976 Lesbian Switchboard operator reference, listing the lesbian bars in Manhattan.īut it’s impossible to thoroughly document a history which has been intentionally erased over the years. It has been a special focus of OUTgoing to prioritize lesbian - or trans - locations. It was a 311 for gay nightlife and it kept a solid record of the bars and bathhouses, with constant updates of openings/closings. At one time there was a not-for-profit switchboard that any resident or visitor could call to find out safe and popular spots to go. It’s the harder-to-reach parts of the LGBT community that take some special effort. There are so many men’s bars throughout the years that they practically map themselves. The map now holds 969 locations of bars, clubs, bathhouses, cafes, restaurants and cruising spots across the city since 1859 - which will be enhanced by the stories and images behind the nightlife from the people who were part of it. So I sought, photographed and recorded the historic gay guides I found in a few archives from the New York Public Library and The LGBT Center. Outside of the internet, there were the decades of gay guides to the city, starting in the mid-sixties. Since the mid-sixties, gay guides have led the LGBT community to their places, and are now stored in LGBT archives and libraries. I found plenty of threads detailing clubs of the past, and following clues built up some great resources and a solid list of 100 or so spots. This launched a data-gathering spree and I grabbed every in-business location tagged ‘gay bar’ in the five boroughs from Yelp’s API, then went to the internet to find as many discussions of past gay nightlife as I could. I opened up a CartoDB map and started filling in the nightlife spots I knew had existed from memory and a scattering of others as inspirational starting points. I had been asked to give a talk on an LGBT issue and mapping, and decided to start this new queer history mapping project, OUTgoing, right then and there. So to compare the past to the present in order to speculate about the future, I started collecting and documenting data, informally at first. If our dating is going online, then the queer intake ritual should, too. Take into account that street cruising has now also gone online to the dating/hookup apps, like Grindr and Scruff, and you start really questioning what queer neighborhoods will look like in 20 years. Lesbians just lost their last space in San Francisco, the Lexington Club, a wonderful spot that my gay sister and I frequented in the 90s.
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Post-marriage-equality gays and straights normalizing to each other sets up a very possible scenario where queer culture is lost in a flurry of mixed straight-gay clubs and same-sex couples with strollers. It seems obvious the gay center of gravity would shift again, but it isn’t quite as clear where it is going this time, or how familiar it will look. Queer neighborhoods, sometimes informally called ‘gayborhoods’, have provided a safety, socialization and a place for people to learn to be gay since at least the late 1800s - moving from Mulberry Street (1890) to Greenwich Village(1920–60) to Christopher Street(1965) to 23rd street (1995) to 49th Street (2005). But it also makes you aware of the constant physical transition both the city and the queer community is in. After a few of these conversations, one starts to think every corner in Gotham was once a gay bar (which is actually true in the West Village, incidentally). Washington Square Park‘s historic nightlife from OUTgoing.Īs it turns out my local bank was a landmark gay dance club, The Saint, and my grocery store was Andy Warhol’s Electric Circus, on St. Which corner? Him: Southeast Me: Wait, that’s my hardware store now. Me: Your real family came to a cruisy bar to hang out? That’s amazing. My family used to come on Sundays to a potluck. It was cruisy, but it was a great place of community. Him: My favorite, Tunnel Bar, was on 7th and 1st.
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Recently I was chatting with a gay male friend in his 70s and long-time East Villager: Today’s gay nightlife experience feels sterile and conservative in comparison, and leads me to relive the past through stories. I’m a night owl and find the vice side of New York to be much more to my liking. The stories from iconic spots like the Anvil, Bonnie and Clyde’s or Studio 54 are unfamiliar now - spectacular, cruisy dance floors dark leather bars and a network of bathhouses. Lesbian, gay or trans, they went through the 1970s disco sexfest, followed by the brutality of the AIDS crisis which changed the lives of every LGBT person.
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It’s my nature to ask the queer survivors of 70s and 80s New York about the after-dark they experienced. OUTgoing: Mapping the Hidden History of New York’s Gay Nightlife