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Ralston, who came to Gatsbys in the early 1990s, said he knew no one when he walked in. Trenton had Buddies, Casa Lito, and Club 21. New Hope still had the Cartwheel, Prelude, and the Raven. The 1996 edition of Gayellow Pages advertised the Lark in Bridgeport and the CR Bar in Upper Darby. Marcus Hook had three bars: Captain Jack’s, Paradise, and George’s. They included Andy’s in Chester and the Lamplighter in Camden. More suburban bars opened up around this time, Skiba said. In the 1970s, ownership of these bars shifted from underworld types, who often paid off police, to gay proprietors. Their numbers rose again after World War II when an entertainment district sprouted along 13th Street and Locust. They proliferated with speakeasies in the 1920s.
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‘When you go to a smaller bar (in the suburbs), it’s probably less interesting, less upscale, has fewer people and the same people.’īob Skiba, director of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) archive at the William Way Center in Philadelphia, said gay bars date to the 19th century in Philadelphia. ‘It’s very difficult for the suburban bar to compete with the city,’ said Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the Equality Forum. Suburban gay bars also have had to compete with Philadelphia, an increasingly safer and younger city with a thriving ‘Gayborhood’ that allows folks to bar hop. Straight bars, for instance, are offering gay nights. Younger people in particular – both gay and straight – are more interested in mixed settings. ‘I think that’s what has attracted people to non-gay bars now.’ ‘A lot of people I know have talked about feeling uncomfortable because someone 40 years their senior is aggressively flirting with them,’ said Bumgarner, 28, who studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2011, Slate magazine noted a 12.5 percent decrease in the number of gay bars nationwide since 2005.īrett Bumgarner, who is writing his dissertation on how gay men meet, said gay bars are perceived less as singles places now, their original purpose replaced by cellphone applications such as Grindr that signal users when another interested gay man is nearby.
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‘The very best of them will endure the rest won’t,’ the magazine wrote.
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In 2007, Entrepreneur magazine listed gay bars – along with newspapers and record stores – among 10 businesses facing extinction in 10 years.