“When I started with AID Atlanta, the HIV test wasn’t even out, so we just thought most of us were positive,” Teague says. The dance floor became a place to escape the grief.
“It was a horrible moment, but the gay community really got together and gave what they could,” he says. While the AIDS crisis brought the gay community and its bars together, COVID is driving them apart.Īt the height of AIDS, Grooms remembers attending up to five funerals a week-followed by benefits at the bars. And gay nightlife is now further imperiled by the threat all bars face as a result of the pandemic. In the 1970s, there were 2,500 gay bars across the country today, there are half as many.
Yet as queer culture has gone mainstream enough for the crosswalk near Blake’s to be repainted as a rainbow, the gay bar scene in the city and nationwide has contracted. “Then, there’s a new wave that is a little more artistic and free.” “The South has always had a particular style that’s very glam: big hair, jewelry,” says Future Lounge entertainment director Phoenix (who goes by only his first name). Even the drag shows, past and present, have been fashioned to appeal to specific subcultures: classic pageant in Midtown and more alternative in East Atlanta. “I’m not going to argue with the fact it was segregated, but Atlanta was and is the gay capital of the South, and so, you went to the bars that catered to what you liked,” says Reverend Duncan Teague, one of the first Black AIDS outreach workers for AID Atlanta. “We called it ‘doing your ABCs,’” says Mitch Grooms, a bartender at the Armory from 1987 to 2001. But almost everyone ended their nights at the Armory, Backstreet, and the Cove because they were open so late-or never closed. In the 1990s, lesbians counted the Otherside Lounge and Revolution as mainstays, and the Black gay crowd frequented the likes of Bulldogs. “Gay bars felt like a safe space to open up the possibility of figuring out who you were.” Doug Craft, a bartender at Blake’s on the Park for 30 years, says the purpose of a gay bar transcends mere socializing: “I’ve felt like a counselor who helped others make the transition into self-acceptance.” “We were still not really out as a society, even in the 1990s,” says Alli Royce Soble, a mixed-media artist and queer documentary photographer.
Back then, those were the only places where he could comfortably hang out and be himself. When Smith first discovered Atlanta’s gay nightlife, the scene was booming with dozens of places to drink, dance, and watch drag. They decided the next day to move to Atlanta. “We were so overwhelmed by the feeling of inclusion and energy in the gay scene,” says Smith, who lived with his boyfriend in Nashville at the time. As beautiful as the facility is, one would think the service would be better but hey.Revelers at leather bar the Eagle in 2015, six years after an infamous police raidĪrt Smith’s first Atlanta gay bar experience was when he danced in the new year at Backstreet during a weekend getaway at the end of 1982. I will never again patronize The Park Tavern. If your going to leave then do so." Never in my life have I ever been so rudely disrespected and treated less an human. Before leaving I have one last stitch effort to speak with the owner before leaving and he proceeds to say "ma'am we're busy tonight and this conversation is over. Once the GM arrived he came with the owner of the establishment and they escorted us into the "kitchen" suggested we eat with "the help" and the OWNER told the GM "look we have other things to, end this concersation and lets go!" At this point I refused to stay and walk in the fashion show. Before the GM arrived the gentleman returned and proceeded to snatch the table cloth from under our tray stating "ya'll can stay seated but I'm taking my damn table cloth!" Not only did my entire drink spill on the table but my IOS6 almost fell to the floor as a result. Once we sat down an older black gentleman came up to us and said "ya'll need to move before you mess up my damn table cloth!" At that point I asked to speak to a manager and he replied "I am one!" I then called park tavern while seated and requested the GM. Once our good was delivered we went back upstairs to the holding area and sat in the banquet room to eat. Upon waiting for the evenings festivities to begin we visited the bar and ordered drinks and food. I visited the venue with my hairstylist as a special guest of the "Girls Night Out" presented by LivieRae Lingerie & Q100. I am Jessica Ammons of Lifetime "Big Women: Big Love" and I was in this facility this evening and was completely flabbergasted by the treatment of the owner and upper level management.