What we lose when an LGBTQ bar closes

by Michael Yamashita

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Shortly after the new year, I was stunned after learning another neighborhood business was closing. I was surprised by the abrupt message handwritten on a sign outside – and perhaps ironically revealed on Instagram – Harvey’s, an LGBTQ+ bar in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro district announced its last day before closing for good. Once ground zero of the national gay liberation movement, as it was called in the 197090s, it is located at the southwest corner of Castro and 18th streets, once known as the gayest intersection in the world.

If you’ve ever been to the neighborhood, you would have passed the bar named in memory of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California and who served for 11 months in 1978 on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors until he was assassinated by a disgruntled former colleague. You probably stopped in for a drink, looked in the plate glass windows passing by, were taken there by locals, or it was pointed out by the guide of the neighborhood history walking tour. An iconic bar of gay pride and liberation for a founding generation of LGBTQ+ residents, it was quietly and abruptly closed for business Jan. 22 amid an outpouring of wistful reminiscences and resignation on social media – perhaps, a sign of the times. Some of the staff organized a closing party Jan. 28.

What do LGBTQ+ people lose when a “gay” bar closes (or the later iterations lesbian bar, queer bar, leather bar, or drag bar)?

To understand what we lose when a “gay” bar closes, we have to look at our own history.

It’s no accident that the contemporary LGBTQ+ movement was purportedly born in 1969 at a gay bar, New York’s Stonewall Inn, where drag queens and others led a spontaneous rebellion that fought back against police harassment. It was a clarion call for all LGBTQ+ people to come out of the closet and live openly, and fight back against shame, discrimination, violence and hatred.

People enjoyed food and beverages at Harvey’s Restaurant and Bar in the Castro on January 22, its last day in business.

Up until that time for most of the 20th century, as LGBTQ+ people became aware that we were not alone, we mostly socialized in private homes or private clubs or speakeasies before moving into more public spaces. After World War I and especially after World War II, many LGBTQ+ people left their small towns and found each other while serving in the military or moving to urban centers. Bars catering to LGBTQ+ people were usually dark and dingy dives that poured expensive watered down drinks, were run by the mafia, and prone to raids and shakedowns by the police. In the drive to find community, many risked a night out that could end in a police raid, being charged for breaking indecency laws, spending time in jail, having one’s name, address and crime published in the morning newspapers, and ultimately losing one’s job, home, and family.

On November 27, 1974, two gay men –Fred Rogers and David Manducca – opened the Elephant Walk at 500 Castro, the former site of Anderson’s Pharmacy. Named after the film starring gay icon Elizabeth Taylor, it sported an upscale tropical theme, posters from the movie, elephant motifs, and automated waving palm fans on the walls. Following the lead of another bar up the block, large plate glass windows were installed – a statement that patrons no longer needed to feel ashamed being seen in a gay bar. Gay men and lesbians were both welcome – a break from the usual segregated bars. Sylvester, legendary disco superstar and singer of “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” was a regular performer on Sunday afternoons with backup singers, Two Tons of Fun (later the Weather Girls). The gay bar became a symbol of LGBTQ+ entrepreneurship, neighborhood institution, community, safety, pride and liberation.

By the mid-1970s, San Francisco was the gay mecca of the universe and LGBTQ people migrated to the Castro, transforming a largely Italian and Irish American neighborhood into the gayest ZIP code in the country.

In an historic election in November 1977, an initial glass ceiling of LGBTQ political power was finally shattered when Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors for the district that included the Castro. The next year he served for only 11 months before being assassinated in his City Hall office by former supervisor and former police officer Dan White, who also assassinated the mayor, George Moscone, that same day on November 27, 1978. Later that night, stunned, grieving citizens of San Francisco marched from the Elephant Walk in a silent candlelight memorial that ended at City Hall.