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Originally Posted by Cajunmoon
I’ve been away from the Philadelphia Gay Scene since I moved to South Florida in 1984 but I return to the city frequently and get out on occasion and must agree that the “gayborhood” is quite compartmentalized compared to what the Philadelphia Gay nightlife use to be in the 70s and 80s.
The gay scene was not always predominantly east of Broad Street, it stretched west and south and into South Jersey as well with many clubs and diversity.
I remember a lot of them:
Allegro was on Spruce Street between Broad and 15th on the south side. The Westbury use to be in the Westbury building on 15th street and was a very active place where such notables as Richard Deacon (Mel from Dick Van Dyke Show) would congregate. Then there was the Mystique which was a great bar that burned down. And who can forget the wonderful Steps, located on Delancey Place off 16th Street between Spruce and Pine. Further up on 17th Street just south of Locust on the East side of the street was the 247.
There was a gay club in South Philly I believe it was called the RAR which was a fun place to visit.
When you got east of Broad Street the nightlife continued with Equus (currently 12th Air Command) which in its day was the place to go and be seen. It is said that Karen Young kick started her career there with her hit single “Hot Shot.” I worked at Equus in those days when Karen use to play piano and sing during happy hour downstairs. The upstairs bar was always packed and their T-Dance was a huge success on Sundays. After Equus closed people would flock to the DCA (currently Pure and formerly 2-4 Club after DCA) and dance the night away. Another club on Walnut Street Rainbows was immensely popular in those days and also after hours like the DCA and The Catacombs below Second Story.
Not only has the internet but health concerns have also taken away a lot of the glitz of days gone by as well as the overall atmosphere of the world and the seemingly great numbers of bizarre and dangerous people walking the streets. Folks use to trick out and go home with total strangers more so than today.
Across the Ben Franklin Bridge was a small gay club called The Lamplighter which was located off the lobby of one of the high rise apartments that stands to the left of the toll both when you enter NJ which still stands today. It was at that bar that I met my lover in 1976 and I am happy to say that 31 years later we are still together.
Nothing is forever and the gay night life in South Florida, specifically Fort Lauderdale has also diminished. Clubs like The Copa, Marlin Beach, Backstreet, Lefty’s, 826, Tacky’s and The Colliseum are all a thing of the past.
Thanks for letting me share. I am sure I left out some clubs and if some of you out there from that era would share it would be a hoot to hear from you.
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I arrived in Philadelphia the year before you left it.
The Allegro had already closed, but its building still stood; within five years of moving here, it was gone, replaced by a parking lot that was destined to be, originally, the new Philadelphia Orchestra Hall, now the Kimmel Center.
There was a club in the 2000 block of Sansom called the Allegro II that drew a black clientele. Its owner, a scumbag (literally -- he had a colostomy) with alleged Mob connections, reopened this club in a series of different locations, all east of Broad, after the A2 closed; none of these lasted longer than a year in any one spot, for the neighbors always complained, until he finally occupied the building that for decades been the Drury Lane/Cafe Lafitte. The scumbag died about four years ago, and along with him, the last gay club standing on the 1300 block of Drury, which once housed three: the aforementioned Drury Lane/Cafe Lafitte, Seasons, and one whose name escapes me now.
One of the A2's interim homes had been home to a fairly elegant gay restaurant, the Monster Inn. This building, just down Quince from the Bike Stop, was converted back into private residences three years ago.
When I moved here, the Steps no longer went by that name. It had briefly taken a different name, then, a year later, assumed what would be its terminal identity as a piano bar called Parks Place. Its building was demolished and replaced with a small office building.
The old Westbury Bar took its name across Broad to the bar and restaurant located in the Parker Hotel, probably because the owners figured no self-respecting gay man would go into the Parker Bar.
The Post -- recently sold to a lesbian couple that has closed it for a makeover, I've heard -- is now the sole gay bar west of Broad.
For a brief shining moment in the mid-1980s, Kurt's -- located in the Adelphia House basement -- was THE dance club for gay Philly. I don't know what caused its decline, but when it came, it came quickly.
The South Jersey gay bar I remember was Gatsby's, on Route 70 in Cherry Hill. It moved "around the corner", so to speak, to a building on Cuthbert Boulevard in the early 1990s and afterwards gradually went straight. I understand there is a bar somewhere near Lindenwold PATCO that draws a gay crowd now, and there still may be another on US 130 near Deptford.
There was also a gay bar/after-hours club right under the El just beyond the city line -- the CR Bar/MSA Club on Market Street in Millbourne. It died about a decade ago, leaving the Lark in Bridgeport as the sole surviving gay bar in the 'burbs until it closed last year.
Tavern on Camac was called Raffles when I moved here; it had opened only a short time prior. I had heard tales of another gay bar on this block called the Camp Williamsburg; when I moved here, the late lamented Deux Cheminees occupied its building; the gay-but-not-gay Inn Philadelphia took over the building after a fire nearly gutted it in the early 1990s and turned it into a really nice romantic restaurant -- for a while. (Speaking of gay-but-not-gay, I'd put Sal's on 12th in that category.)
There was also Back Stage on 4th just below South, and the Smart Place -- the city's black bar at the time, and a disaster waiting to happen -- on the 900 block of Race Street in Chinatown; Philly has always had at least one black gay bar, either by design or by default, as long as I've lived here; currently, that bar is Key West by default.
I guess if there's any point to all this, it's that change is the only constant.