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Its content was created separately to USA TODAY. This story was first published on PRI.org. The bar is hosting a farewell party on Sept. But heritage and historical groups protested the proposal, and a local council blocked the redevelopment completely. Developers wanted to build apartments in The Yard's courtyard. The two pubs faced almost identical situations. Just across town from The Queen’s Head in Soho, a well-known gay bar called The Yard just won a two-year battle to stay open. “Public houses in total are closing at an alarming rate because they’re standing on prime real estate that can be made into extremely luxury apartments,” Sipson says. The number of UK pubs of any kind is down from 67,800 in 1982 to 51,900 in 2014, according to the latest data from The British Beer and Pub Association. “They just have to get on their phones, find a picture and off they go.”īut gay bars aren’t the only ones closing. “Today they don’t have to” visit the bar to meet partners, Sipson says. Gay bars once provided rare opportunities for LGBT people to meet.
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But today, Sipson says, the barriers are down.Īnother factor could be the rise of online dating apps like Grindr or Tinder. Heterosexual people generally mingled in one section, and the rest of the bar belonged to the LGBT community. The Queen’s Head own clientele suggests that a change has taken place.įor many years, straight bar patrons self-segregated. Gay bars once served as the centre of gay culture and were one. “The older generation like myself, we’re dying out.” A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender ( LGBT) clientele the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities. “A lot of the younger gay people feel like they don’t need to go to the gay bars like we used to do back in the '50s, '60s and '70s - places where (we) would be ourselves and discover ourselves,” Sipson says. One theory is that the gay bars may not be needed today as they once were, as mainstream society becomes more accepting of homosexuality. The dispute behind the closing of The Queen’s Head might seem specific, but it comes after a year of prominent gay bars closing abruptly across London. Here you can watch Paul Foot host the nightly shows for ‘the gay, the gayish and the beautiful of Soho’. One such place in London is the 99 Club Oxford Circus. “The gay community realized that, and so from then on it started to become a gay bar.” Comedy clubs are a great place to meet gay singles especially if you are looking for someone to share your interest in comic theater or performing arts. “We used to have the army barracks here, and soldiers used to come and frequent the bar,” Sipson says. Freddy Sipson, who has managed The Queen's Head for seven years, says it’s been known as a gay bar since about the 1920s. The bar itself is almost two centuries old. The Old Lady of Tryon Street - officially known as The Queen's Head - confirmed the rumor on its Facebook page. One of London’s oldest gay bars is closing next month, after the pub’s owners failed to come to an agreement with their landlord.