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I guess they will have to take a lesson from the bar across the street. It fought back against those bluenose homophobes wanting to clean up the area.
I presume we all have heard about THE STONEWALL?
I guess they will have to take a lesson from the bar across the street. It fought back against those bluenose homophobes wanting to clean up the area.
I presume we all have heard about THE STONEWALL?
Heard from a few friends who live down that way and it just isn't "homophopes". But quite a few both gay and straight residents of the "NEW" GV do not want a bar or rather yet another bar in the area.
In case it needs mentioning marriage equality has produced a good number of bougie households of the stroller brigade sort. They want a WV that is quiet has a family safe environment (think Park Slope). Never mind there have been bars on that part of Seventh Avenue much less the WV for ages and they co-existed with families for decades. But guess since back in the day we were talking about working and middle class suppose things are different now.
but it was there for 40 years, so if you moved to the street after that, basically tough...and if you moved in before b & s, then that was 40 years ago and you should be too old to really give a rats *****at this point.
God,
I remember the joint when on Tuesday nights they had $.25 drafts. When they called last call everyone ordered 4 beers...AND they gave you barrelfuls of free peanuts.
It can't afford the rent, and therefore it can't stay.
The only reason the entire Christopher Street strip hasn't been bulldozed is because it's basically been landmarked. Even so, the pressures of real estate will eventually wipe those places out.
What's not said here is the racial/ethnic/class issue. Well to do Manhattan people don't hang out in those Greenwich Village gay bars and certainly not anyone who lives in the village (well, some senior citizen whites on social security who live in rent controlled apartments might come out early). Basically those bars are full of ghetto people from Newark and the outer boroughs.
It's why little by little they've been finding ways to shut down the West Village gay bars. Chi Chis is gone, plus one on the Westside highway is gone.
It can't afford the rent, and therefore it can't stay.
The only reason the entire Christopher Street strip hasn't been bulldozed is because it's basically been landmarked. Even so, the pressures of real estate will eventually wipe those places out.
What's not said here is the racial/ethnic/class issue. Well to do Manhattan people don't hang out in those Greenwich Village gay bars and certainly not anyone who lives in the village (well, some senior citizen whites on social security who live in rent controlled apartments might come out early). Basically those bars are full of ghetto people from Newark and the outer boroughs.
It's why little by little they've been finding ways to shut down the West Village gay bars. Chi Chis is gone, plus one on the Westside highway is gone.
Indeed, it is right by the Path train. Hangar will probably be the next raunchy bar that will leave the strip.
It can't afford the rent, and therefore it can't stay.
The only reason the entire Christopher Street strip hasn't been bulldozed is because it's basically been landmarked. Even so, the pressures of real estate will eventually wipe those places out.
What's not said here is the racial/ethnic/class issue. Well to do Manhattan people don't hang out in those Greenwich Village gay bars and certainly not anyone who lives in the village (well, some senior citizen whites on social security who live in rent controlled apartments might come out early). Basically those bars are full of ghetto people from Newark and the outer boroughs.
It's why little by little they've been finding ways to shut down the West Village gay bars. Chi Chis is gone, plus one on the Westside highway is gone.
Christopher Street ceased being "the" main gay bar drag after the ravages of the HIV/AIDs crisis in the 1980's and 1990's. Besides patrons many owners of bars and other gay owned businesses succumbed.
Many places moved to Chelsea/8th Avenue which became the "new" center of gay entertainment (such as it is) activity. Things moved again as Hell's Kitchen and even Astoria (or is it Jackson Heights?) became another mecca.
Long story short is much of what had been once "white" gay Christopher Street was left to it's own devices and a more sinister element moved in, and the worse things got the more persons stayed away.
The City finally cleaned up Christopher Street, Washington and West Street areas and also reached another long sought goal, got the trannie hookers and other criminal elements out of the Meat Packing District as well. Enter the "High Line Park".
While that area of GV was never "cheap" enough of it retained it's working/middle class roots that pockets of affordability remained. Not no more...
As the Village has grown in affluence and wealth things have changed, even among gay residents. We saw this in how Saint Vincent's was seen as a "dump" of a charity hospital that few to nil of the more well heeled residents would set foot in (thank you Susan Sarandon). These same persons were not unhappy to see STVH go just as they are equally happy that from basically 23rd Street down through Tribeca and onto FiDi has become one of the wealthiest areas of Manhattan/New York even surpassing the UES in some demographics.
A natural and organic development of all this affluence is that rents/housing prices for both commercial and residential are going up and up. For service businesses such as bars they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
The Guliani era nuisance laws are still on the books and can mean any bar or club will be shut down for an excess of complaints. This even when their existence predates the new bougie arrivals that knew there was a bar downstairs but still want a nice quiet street. OTOH the sorts of crowds/parties that many bars had in the old days just won't fly. This at a time when gay bars in general have experienced drastic dropping off of numbers in response to the changes in the gay community and or social attitudes.
The first salvo was the Internet/AOL explosion. That has now been joined by apps such as Grinder. Either way gay males no longer have to go out to get their freak on but can "order in" so to speak. Once you removed the "cruising" aspect of gay bars and clubs that takes no small amount of patrons out of the equation.
One would like to say growing acceptance of LGBT including same-sex marriage has lessened the need for gay bars but from what one hears from gay male friends and co-workers there is still a whole lot of creeping outside the marital bed. Again instead of going to bars it all happens online. Indeed if Grinder usage was ever mapped out by area in NYC it would be very interesting map.
The problems B&S is having is really no different than many other bars and clubs gay or straight. It also explains why to those of us that knew NYC "back in the day" what passes for nightlife today stinks. Dive bars all over NYC are closing and even more high brow venues are going as well. The sanitation that began with Times Square has spread out in all directions. Peeps spending millions for an apartment/townhouse and or thousands to rent are doing so for the "suburban" and clean NYC, especially Manhattan.
I don't think the internet is what killed gay bars. I think old time gay bar owners would have loved to demonize the internet, but that isn't what's going on.
With many more professionals openly gay, gays don't have as much of a need for gay bars socially. With more gay men openly gay, whether involved in relationships or not if they want to fool around there isn't the same need for underground cruising places, dark corners in bars, etc.
Lastly, this isn't the 70s. The 1970s had comparatively cheap housing so gay men working in gay businesses or other low wage jobs could easily afford places close to these gay bars. A constant stream of young gay men came to NYC.
Today, you cannot come to NYC out of high school at hit the club scene. You'll be homeless in no time. You'd need a good education to move to NYC from out of the area and maintain any realistically good standard of living. That's dried up some of the base for gay bars, and of course any professional gays cannot spend that much time in a bar. People who are successful or in the process of being successful (students, those establishing their careers) do not have the time to be in the bar every night.
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