Its him gay bar
Beginning with the opening of places fond of the G Lounge in 1996, the late ‘90s in New York Municipality saw a go up in what felt like a brand-new type of lgbtq+ bar—”the lounge” as it was called—a place where the interior decor blended a perfect hybrid of upscale and garish, where sitting down replaced standing around and dancing, and where a menu of classy, crafty cocktails boasting Cosmos and Manhattans reigned supreme. This exact time period also saw the beginning of the gay migration northwards—when primarily queer men began moving on up, so to speak, from the West Village and Chelsea, forging the newest gay-borhood that became Hells Kitchen. It’s hard to believe now, but Hell’s Kitchen was once rough-and-tumble, with hardly a queer in sight. In a NYTimes article from as tardy as 2007 on the gentrification of gay HK, homosexual pioneer Addison Smith proclaims: “When I first moved here [in 2001], I felt specifically that it wasn’t a gay neighborhood. Hell’s Kitchen didn’t really have an culture other than its identity being danger.”
Such was the breeding ground for the birth of Barrage Bar, located at 401 West 47th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues in Manhattan. Barrage Bar, or s
Bar-Hopping In Hell’s Kitchen
The Gay Capital of the World has a way of re-energizing the mind like nowhere else on earth – and I had clearly forgotten what I [heart] about New York…
By Doug Wallace
What undertake you call a pub crawl of just one person? I know what some might dial it: sad. Me, I’m calling my bar-hopping memory of Hell’s Kitchen alive by labelling it “research.”
Honestly, my first evening in Modern York does launch off with a friend, for a tête-à-tête in the rarified, quiet confines of the Baccarat Hotel across from the MoMA. The Champagne-hued Grand Salon is an ocean of glass and red roses, waiters hoisting trays of cut-crystal cocktails to the beautiful people. I consider it a sign – a gift from the gay gods – that my first celebrity sighting of the trip is Wanda Sykes. Turns out she’s doing a week-long stint as guest host of the nearby Daily Show. My friend and I just smile at how cool-by-association we are, and undertake the Toronto thing and ignore her completely.
The night is still early when I escort my friend into an Uber, so I carry on with my plan to wander the Ninth Avenue gay bars – they are too numerous to do all in one night
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Harvey Fierstein Took Matthew Broderick to his First Gay BarPlus what made Fierstein quit the casual sex scene.
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After 29 years, Chelsea’s legendary male lover bar Barracuda is closing
Barracuda Exclude, the longtime lounge, drag demonstrate stage and celebrity hot notice, will close permanently on Sunday after nearly 30 years in Chelsea.
A luxury condo construction proposal at the site of the massive Cinépolis Chelsea movie theater, which closed in 2023 and shares a wall with the bar, has significantly damaged Barracuda’s interior and made it “impossible to conduct business as usual,” according to a statement from Barracuda owner Bob Pontarelli.
“It breaks my heart,” Pontarelli said by phone. “There’s very little left in Chelsea now that was there when we opened.”
When it opened in 1995, Barracuda was immediately different from the city’s typical “stand-and-meet” gay bars, Pontarelli said in his statement. Instead, it was a living room-like lounge environment pieced together from furniture he and his business partner picked off the street.
Barracuda soon became a regular hangout for the Broadway community, with show promoters hosting parties and cast member performances as a way of building buzz for their new musicals, according to a 2001 article in the New York Times.
A stage in the bar featured sponta