GAY BARS IN BOSTON THAT CLOSED SERIES
The South End was originally settled by middle-class business owners, bankers, etc., but a series of financial crises at the turn of the twentieth century, as well as newer trendy neighborhoods like Back Bay popping up, lead to many wealthier people leaving the South End. Site 4: Boston's South End (Corner of Berkeley Street and Columbus Avenue) You could dance with a lesbian, or you could sit down." Park Square was also home to one of the most popular bars of the 1950s and 1960s, the Punch Bowl, which entertained huge crowds - and, on occasion, the vice squad, which longtime Boston resident Preston Claridge describes in an interview with The History Project: "About once a night they would flash the emergency lights, which meant that the vice were coming and you had to stop dancing with your boyfriend, since it was illegal back then. Park Square and the Greyhound Bus Station formed a hub of gay activity in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Site 3: Park Square (Intersection of Arlington and Stewart streets and Columbus Avenue) Its legacy lives on, though, in the Napoleon Room, a piano bar and lounge in ClubCafé, a GLBT restaurant and club on Columbus Avenue. The Napoleon Club closed in 1998 and much of the contents of the establishment put up to auction. Regular crooners were joined by such luminaries as Liberace and the Queen of Queens herself, Judy Garland, who visited the club every night for a week shortly before her death in 1969. It wasn't until 1952, though, when under new ownership Napoleons became a gay bar and eventually a piano bar.
The Napoleon Club opened as a speakeasy in 1929 and later operated as a private club with a sizeable gay clientele. Site 2: Napoleon Club (52 Piedmont Street)
Opened in 1938, Jacques became a gay bar in the mid-1940s. Site 1: Jacques Cabaret and The Other Side (79 Broadway) We celebrate the awakening of a vigorous gay pride and self-respect." We and others across the nation commemorate that event this June. They stood up when the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street was raided. The Flyer: "Two years ago on June 27, homosexuals in New York City for the first time refused OPPRESSION AS USUAL. This walking tour follows the route of Boston's first Gay Pride March in 1971 and offers information about different services, community organizations, issues, and individuals related to this route. We demand an end to this now! We will not be put down any longer." Speaker Laura McMurry told the throng, As gay people, we have been given a second-class citizenship. When the marchers arrived at the State House, a call was issued to include homosexuals in civil rights legislation and eliminate anti-sodomy statutes dating from Puritan times. At each stop, a speaker presented a list of demands. The march route encompassed four major stops: the Bay Village bar Jacques, Boston police headquarters on Berkeley Street, the State House on Beacon Hill, and St.
GAY BARS IN BOSTON THAT CLOSED FULL
This was a distinctly political event that was preceded by a full week of workshops on various issues affecting the emerging gay community, such as coming out and gay spirituality. The first official Gay Pride March in Boston was held on Saturday, June 26, 1971.