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Making Time parties are popular, but keep in mind the club isn't strictly gay. Gay Bar Washington Square West 70 tips and reviews. So if the homophobes hadn’t thrown us out, we never would have been able to get this great location we’re in now. 1221 Saint James St (btwn S 13th & S Camac St), Philadelphia, PA. There was this electricity in the air that was very strong, this feeling: We are persecuted, we will bond together.Įd Hermance: Landlords would rent to us in back alleys, but nobody wanted to rent to us on the main avenues. Philadelphia is a city with a lot of history, and that includes the history of the Philadelphia LGBTQ community. Gayborhood is the area in Philly where the LGBTQ+ community is welcomed and celebrated. At the Allegro, I can remember guys with tambourines on the dance floor, and the excitement - we kind of knew that the future was wide open, and there was this kind of pride and pleasure in being gay. Philadelphia is a city that has something for everyone, and it wouldnt be complete with the LGBTQ+ community. I don’t know what happened there at 3 a.m. All the time, people still bring her up, Melendez said. A couple years later, the pair split up, and in 2015, Torres died. The Welcoming Committee is a movement of LGBTQ people who want to experience the whole world, and not just gay bars, in outrageous comfort. It was right next to McGillin’s, this rowdy college bar. The end of the gay bar spelled the end for Melendez and Torres, too. It was a great conversation bar, and without the pandemonium and thumping music of the Allegro. Thom Nickels: The Allegro was really the happening place, but the Drury was this charming piano bar they had great manhattans. Henri David: A lot of gentlemen told me that even before I was born, you’d know they were gay if they wore a red tie and a red handkerchief when they went to Drury Lane. It was like the gay bar for the Socially Registered. I went there once with two older lesbian friends of mine who were in evening gowns. Thom Nickels, author, Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia, and architecture columnist for the Bulletin and Icon magazine: Maxine’s was really elegant. The oldest gay bar in the country was Maxine’s, which is now Tavern on Camac. Center City is honeycombed with little streets like Drury Lane and Camac Street, and the gay bars were on those little tiny streets. There were so many clubs, and it was so much fun. Henri David, jeweler and party-giver: We always joke when we’re at the Kimmel Center that we’re sitting in the Allegro.