The bar charged membership fees to deter outsiders and keep patrons from being outed. Lenny’s on Court Street, which existed until 2015 through a series of incarnations as Risky Business, Prism and finally Merlin’s, first functioned as a private club for gay men. “We were on the edge of a greater awareness and acceptance in the community.” “It was an exciting time,” he wrote in a Facebook comment. It was also home to Partners, Binghamton’s first gay women’s softball team.īinghamton community member John Cramer shared memories of hanging out outside the Cadillac before he was old enough to go inside. The Cadillac served as a social center for much of the Binghamton Gay Liberation Group, a group that consisted heavily of Binghamton University students. In the ’70s, crowds flocked to the Cadillac Bar and Grill, which was located at the corner of Court and Front near what is now Peterson’s Tavern. When it was razed for urban renewal, the owner opened a new bar called the Gaslight House, and the crowds followed. As early as the ‘50s, Binghamton was home to an LGBTQ social scene that became increasingly less covert with the advent of the gay liberation movement.Īccording to Greene community member Bob Bullock, a bar called Poor George’s beachcomber served as a clandestine meeting place in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. While she missed out on a lot of the party scene because she was working while going to night school, she still frequented many of the era’s popular bars. Originally from Deposit, New York, a town in nearby Delaware County, Strong moved to Binghamton in the mid-‘70s to work at General Electric. Squiggy’s Bar is owned and run by Binghamton community member Jo Strong, a veteran of the Triple Cities’ thriving gay and lesbian social scenes of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. Tucked in a Chenango Street parking lot, Binghamton’s last gay bar carries on the tradition of an area once rife with LGBTQ hotspots.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |