Two sides of the Phoenix cabaret in 2012 via Google Streetview, wreath visible above main door, R. For 5 years after it closed in 2011, a wreath adorned what used to be The Phoenix Cabaret and Embers Disco in Birmingham, Alabama. Don’t ask why I was looking up closed gay bars in a … More A Christmas Wreath for the Phoenix Cabaret
I’ve been reading the blog Lost Womyn’s Space for a while now, but it’s proving invaluable to track what the author ruefully calls “the Great Lesbian Bar Die Off.” You can read about my interest in lesbian bars here. It’s impossible to contact the author: the blog is anonymous, there’s no “About” section, and comments … More Lesbian bar closures, Lost Womyn’s Space
This piece was picked up by The Daily Beast, thanks to Melissa Petro of Becoming Writers and including suggestions from TDB editors and several friends. Read it here, or contact me for the archived version. Save Save Save
Gay bars have always been sites of danger, Terrorists and gay bashers have long used gay bars to find LGBTQ people- only last weekend, my boyfriend and I had “faggots” shouted at us from a speeding car outside a Columbus, Ohio gay bar. The massacre at Pulse’s nightclub is the worst mass shooting in U.S. … More Terrorism and gay bars
What if the paucity of lesbian bars represented not a present failure or a return to a bad gay past, but the future of queer sociality for everyone? This was the challenge posed by Lyndsey Beutin when she, Crystal Biruk and I hung out a couple weeks ago. When San Francisco’s Lexington Club closed in … More Lesbian bar, queer futurities?
I haven’t yet told you why I go to gay bars to get loaded on Christmas Day. I go to hear the stories. You haven’t heard anything until you’ve gone to a gay bar on Christmas Day and heard the stories… I have discovered that among those of us hanging out in bars on Christmas … More Christmas in a gay bar
Another of my journal articles on San Francisco gay bars appears in the current edition of Urban Studies. My very simple point is not all gay neighborhoods are (or were) the same. The point was so simple it languished in 4 journals for 7 years, going through 9 revisions. But now it’s out – complete … More Style and the Value of Gay Nightlife: Homonormative Placemaking in San Francisco
Finally my bar research sees the light of day in City, Cuture and Society 6(1). Bar districts, agglomerations of drinking establishments, are important to urban economies by nurturing urban subcultures. Their vernacular nature presents important contrasts to planned urban entertainment districts (UEDs). Unlike UEDs, bar districts are not necessarily amenities for middle- and upper-class consumption … More Bar Districts as Subcultural Amenities
Greggor Mattson 