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GAY BARS PHILADELPHIA MAP SERIES
The Kennel Club closed its doors in 1996 and then went through a series of short-lived reincarnations before the building caught fire and was razed. It was reborn as the Kennel Club in 1983 and became a popular venue on the punk rock and new wave scene. Once a ballroom dance academy, the building became Rainbows, a gay disco, in 1980. The changing priorities of consumption in the Gayborhood are reflected in the story of 1215 Walnut Street. Meanwhile, gay clubs began to disappear, and those that remained eventually adapted to fit in with the evolving neighborhood aesthetic. LGBT Archives, Au Courant Photo Collection The crowd at Woody’s celebrating the bar’s 3rd anniversary in 1983. In 1999, the name “Gayborhood” began to appear for the first time on official tourism maps, although several years later it was changed to “Gayborhood/Midtown Village.” A final confirmation of the Gayborhood’s new economic viability came in 2002, when the Philadelphia Gay Tourism Caucus was established to help the city cash in on the burgeoning LGBT tourism industry. Whether that was “Blocks Below Broad” or “Midtown Village,” the goal was to distance the neighborhood even farther from its vice-ridden past. This renewal was accompanied by several unsuccessful attempts to change the area’s name. Under Mayor Ed Rendell, the Gayborhood began to see major investment from developers like Tony Goldman, and soon sidewalk cafes and boutiques sprang up along 13th Street. Indeed, prostitution and drug dealing abounded along 12th and 13th Streets until 2000, when the combination of online sex work and increased development drove most hookers and dealers out of the area.
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Its reputation as a red-light district was reinforced when the 1986 Vine Street Expressway construction project pushed prostitution, gambling, and drug dealing further south into the Gayborhood.
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It was in the Gayborhood that the LGBT community organized politically in the post-Stonewall years, staging their first Gay Pride demonstration in 1972 and founding a gay and lesbian community center, William Way, on Kater Street in 1974.įor much of the 20th century the neighborhood was also home to the infamous Locust Strip, several blocks lined with dodgy clubs, some with connections to organized crime. In 1962 Phildelphia magazine’s Gaeton Fonzi described a variety of “haunts” in the area where gay men could associate after hours, from smoke-filled clubs to bath houses and x-rated movie theaters. The area now known as the Gayborhood has long been home to the largest concentration of lesbian and gay commercial establishments and residences in Philadelphia. Occurring years after the emergence of LGBT organizations and landmark political gains, this makeover owed more to market forces than increased tolerance, and the neighborhood’s story highlights the uniquely deceptive nature of gentrification in historically gay neighborhoods.
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The area’s transformation from “gay ghetto” to a thriving commercial and residential district occurred relatively recently, much of it taking place in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Go back in time another ten years, however, and this portion of Center City was better known for prostitution, open air drug deals, and some of the last downtown strip clubs. The 21st century Gayborhood has become a well-established part of Philadelphia’s cultural geography and one which is aggressively promoted by Visit Philadelphia to gay and straight tourists. It’s been ten years since Mayor John Street dedicated 36 rainbow-colored street signs, formally designating the area from Chestnut to Pine Streets between 11th and Broad Streets as the Gayborhood. Participants convened in Rittenhouse Square and marched to Independence Hall. Philadelphia’s first Gay Pride Parade in June 1972.