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LGBT people don’t necessarily have to go to out to bars in order to meet people. Social media has also revolutionized the way people meet. With growing social acceptance in the late 2000s, LGBT populations began to believe they didn’t need lesbian bars as much, and attendance dwindled at businesses like Phase One. One of the women I interviewed said she barely recognized it anymore. Barracks Row Main Street is flourishing but gentrified.
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Phase One was the only bar that managed to survive. The program did really well, but as a result, rents rose, property taxes went through the roof, and several LGBT establishments closed. At that time, in the 1960s, and ‘70s, it was illegal to be gay.īarracks Row then created a Main Street program in 1999, which aimed to revitalize that area of 8th Street. The Marines would beat up women, especially masculine-presenting women, around 8th Street. There was a lot of crime, and many of the individuals I interviewed were rightfully afraid of being mugged or attacked. That was one of the only “safe” neighborhoods where LGBT people could exist, although it wasn’t really safe. Club Madame-another lesbian bar-and The Roundup opened in 1978. Phase One moved to 8th Street in 1971, and a lesbian bar called Jo-Anna’s arrived in 1968. At that point in time, many Washingtonians wouldn’t go to 8th Street because it was unsafe, but those areas actually became safe havens for the LGBT community.įrom 1968 onward, the number of LGBT establishments in that area began to grow rapidly. It had once been a very bustling commercial district, but a lot of businesses were boarded up after the riots. was assassinated, there were riots, and many African American communities in the city burned 8th Street never really recovered from that. After that happened on 8th Street, the neighborhood became a middle-class African American community. experienced a lot of white flight, where middle- and upper-class white people left the cities for the suburbs. Tell me a bit more about the history of “The Gay Way.” Why did 8th Street Southeast become such an attractive area for LGBT bars?ĭuring World War I and World War II, that entire area was heavily industrial and used mainly for munitions. I decided I wanted to tell the story of Phase One, but I also wanted to tell the history of how other spaces existed around Phase One, and why Phase One had managed to last for 45 years. It was open from 1971 to 2016, and it was located between Pennsylvania Avenue and the Southeast-Southwest Freeway. I started researching more on my own time and found out that Phase One was the longest continuously operating lesbian bar in the United States. Then, when I turned 21, I found out through my research that the only lesbian bar left in Washington, D.C., Phase One, had closed in January of that year. I was really struck by that lack of information and wanted to learn more about that history, expand on it, and make it tangible. During my internship, I noticed that a lack of written or recorded lesbian history, with the exception of the location of specific places-lesbian bars, bookstores, and clubs. Preservation League, writing and researching the LGBTQ Historic Context Statement of Washington D.C. Why did you choose to focus on Phase One and other lesbian bars in Washington, D.C. Below, Ginter tells us more about this neighborhood’s impact on the LGBT community, as well as what we can do as preservationists to continue telling their story. This neighborhood was once known as “The Gay Way,” due to the number of LGBT establishments on the street during the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. For their master’s thesis, Ginter is taking a closer look at Phase One (a popular lesbian bar that closed in 2016) and other 20th-century lesbian establishments on 8th Street Southeast in Washington, D.C. Today, groups like the Rainbow History Project and individuals like Ty Ginter, a graduate student studying historic preservation at the University of Maryland: College Park, are working to preserve the history of these once-thriving businesses and the communities they represented.