By, For & About the St. Louis LGBT Community
LGBT Community and bars… At a crossroads?
This past weekend while I was updating my listing of local LGBT Bars for the Bar Map I posted, I noticed how much change has happened over the years.
A quick look in my email shows that Faces has been closed for three years now, yet so many (other) places still list it as the “afterhours” bar in town.
And recently Bar 5 was given, literally, a new lease on life but the future of Club Escapade and Nancy’s Place are still a question. And then other bars just seem to be hanging on by a thread these days with no updates in a decade even.
Are the bars really still important in this era of Internet dating and cruising websites?
Personally, I see many organizations still use bars to meet at, while other organizations refuse to deal with bars on principle.
I don’t have an answer, but how many bars do you remember and when they closed?
There’s a history to each and every one of them. St. Louis Gay History (or Blog) has details on some from WAY back, but there’s a gap on the recent history of bars.
Many people in the community aren’t familiar with Alibi’s, The Drake or Char-Pei’s.
Can the bar business be revitalized? And if so, what steps are necessary by the various bars?
More a rhetorical question for each of us. But how will we look back 20 years from now and try to explain how and why the bars had such an importance? Or how they lost it?
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St. Louis LGBT Bar Map
about 1 month ago - No comments
It’s been barely 24 hours and there’s already two new features on the Gaystlouis.com website. First it was the online Calendar. And now, it is the Bar map. The next goal is for the Guide, but I quickly wanted to get a map of all of the bars up and running. Not a lot of
about 1 month ago
And before I get asked: Club Espcapade posted a message on their Facebook asking if anyone wanted to buy them in mid-June. And Novak’s weekly email in late May included a question asking if anyone was interested in purchasing NP’s and preferably keeping it a gay bar.
about 1 month ago
I heard that Nancy is also selling Bar 5… goodness!
about 1 month ago
Yeah, per their Facebook page, the bar was set to close at the beginning of July, but after no replacement was found by the landlord, he offered a deal for a year where Bar 5 can stay open (presumably with a better arrangement). So while it may not be around beyond the year, it is still here now. *yeah!*
about 1 month ago
I think there will always be “The Gay Bar” … now whether that eventually takes the form of “gay nights” or themed partys is anyones guess. But I do think we’ll always desire a public house, if you will, where we can mingle, drink and be merry (or “Mary”) with our tribe. I agree with you that the days of a community of bars seems to be slowing giving way to something else. The Internet and Social Networking probably has a lot to do with this. We’ve got brave teens coming out at a younger and younger age and forming their own friendships and community. The days of going to the gay bar as a right of passage, which was the case with my generation, are likely gone.
I do think there is a natural ebb and flow to things and we’re definitely in a dry spell. But it is my hope that our nightlife will liven up once more. I think there’s a lot of folks who’ve been doing this for A LONG time and are likely burned out both emotionally and financially. It will be interesting to see what lies ahead. But I think we’ll always have “the bar”; just likely not on the level that you and I came of age with. Which is kinda sad. I wonder if the younger generation can imagine just how cool Faces was at it’s best and to dance literally until dawn.
about 1 month ago
It always amazes me how some lump the concept of lgbt community and the locale of a bar scene in the same sentence. Looking back, can’t we see now that organizing our community around bars has been a colossal mistake? Look at the much more cohesive African American community, who structured their rights movements around churches and other actual community groups.
I’m a teetotaler and an atheist, so for me it’s been very very difficult to find my place in this bar-centered lgbt community.
I think GAY does much better, much more positive, community building BECAUSE they are forced to stay out of bars by their age. Those kids will grow up feeling like they are part of something much bigger than themselves and for that I will always think the world of Scott Emmanuel.
about 1 month ago
30 years ago, the LGBT community WAS the bar scene. There was little to no acceptance of the gay community and the bars were a place where someone could go to be themselves. There were no publically accepting churches. There were no company support groups. The bars were it.
While it is true that those growing up now will never understand that, denying it is not a good policy. (Just because youth grow up now in a world where Obama’s a president, do we discount Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King’s importance? Should we end their recognition because their goals have been, mostly, achieved? No, that’d be ludicrous.)
Just imagine, in 30 years, would it be wise to discount Growing American Youth’s impact just because schools themselves teach about sexual preference in an equal way? No. Just because their purpose will have changed doesn’t mean that it should be glossed over.
The Gay Community exists here because of the bars and the countless other organizations and businesses that are no longer here. Had those businesses and organizations stayed alive, our community would be flourishing far more than it is now. The diversity would be even more diverse.
Are the bars going to be as significant in the future as they were? I doubt it. But I think they deserve some respect. I’ll be honest, without Complex, Mag’s and Outpost, this website wouldn’t be here. They gave me a place to be when I first came out and got comfortable with myself. and I don’t think I’m alone in that regard…
about 1 month ago
Wow, where’d the forums go? Ok, I’ve been back in Houston now for a little over 6 months and I’m still amazed at the difference in quality of what passes for a Gay bar here in Houston compared to the watering holes in Saint Louis.
Think, oh, I dunno, Appleby’s Decor or The Bread Company compared to Magnolias or the Complex. Bars here actually are appealing places to hang out in. You don’t feel like you’re in the worst part of town going to them either.
As far as I’m concerned, that was ALWAYS Face’s failing. It was a scarey place to park and take people to not just because of it’s East St. Louis local but because of the dark black interiors and that downright frightening back room in the basement.
Frankly, I stopped even going to the bars in 2001 in Saint Louis because I out grew the whole “Party Boi” scene and the bars didn’t offer much for the more mature members of our community.
about 1 month ago
The forums died. No one was using them, at least aside from spammers.
And agreed. Even Chicago has quite a few “bright” bars, though a few dark ones as well. Houston is also more of an outdoor city. I’d bet that every one of those bars had a patio (think Alibi’s where it’s 2/3rds the space of entire bar.)
But honestly, are the bars anywhere “doing well”?