Yet in the wider Philadelphia culture, LGBTQ representation and acceptance are at an all-time high. Franny Price, the veteran producer of Philly Pride - one of the country’s largest annual gay celebrations - is stepping down after more than 25 years, with no successor in sight.Ĭoloring all of this loss are a host of gentrification and diversity issues with which the city’s LGBTQ community has only recently begun to grapple. Mazzoni, the city’s leading LGBTQ health-care center, relocated and lost its executive director and senior management amid staff turmoil. Two popular Gayborhood bars, Venture Inn and ICandy, have closed down, and Voyeur and Woody’s have tried to broaden their customer base by hosting bachelorette parties, exotic male revue shows for women, and even NFL watch parties.
![black gay bar philadelphia black gay bar philadelphia](https://www.metroweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Galaxy_S6_edge_Gold_Platinum_Art_Photo3.jpg)
The area’s legendary staples, 12th Street Gym and More Than Just Ice Cream, are no more. Over the past few years, the “death of the Gayborhood” - a phrase once uttered in mock horror whenever a favorite hangout changed hands or a well-known institution screwed up - has taken on an air of inevitability. “There goes the neighborhood,” I thought as the last illusion I had of this part of the city as an inclusive yet uniquely gay space dissolved before my eyes. Worse, the racial segregation was unmistakable: Black and brown attendees were packed in a smaller upstairs lounge that was pumping out hip-hop hits, while the main floor was predominantly white, with a DJ spinning mostly dance/techno pop music. For me, it was a sea of straight women cheering on a sash-wearing bride-to-be and refusing to share space on one of the dance floors on which I had spent so much time growing comfortable with my own identity. It wasn’t long, for example, before visibly uncomfortable alumni were side-eyeing transgender women going to get drinks at the bar. The reunion committee’s idea had been innocent enough: Given that most other clubs in Philly shut down at 2 a.m., why not venture where we could let the good times roll until 3:30?īut once we were inside, all of us, gay and straight, saw things we weren’t expecting. The occasion was the official after-party for my five-year college reunion, which was held at one of the most popular dance parties in the Gayborhood. It was a drunk former classmate - at least, I hope he was drunk - who said it: “Isn’t this where the fags go?”
![black gay bar philadelphia black gay bar philadelphia](https://i1.wp.com/www.davidmariner.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/panicdefense.jpg)
It was around one o’clock in the morning, and I was standing in a long line of mostly straight Penn alumni waiting to enter Voyeur Nightclub. Is this the end of Philly’s Gayborhood? Illustration by Matt Harrison Clough