It’s official. A writer for Obit Magazine has delcared the death of the gayborhood. Portland isn’t the only city where “Vaseline Alley” has dissolved as LGBT has gone mainstream. Reporter Matt Katz writes of the dissolution of gayborhoods in San Francisco, Philly and DC:
- These rainbows should be flying at half mast.
As the gayborhood became broadly popular, gays migrated elsewhere. In D.C., my gay BFFs Aaron and Rick live in a hot neighborhood, U Street, which is unrecognizable from the place I remembered when picking up hypodermic needles for college community service in the ’90s. It doesn’t look or feel at all like the Fruit Loop, either, yet Aaron and Rick live in a new condo building where 90 percent (Rick’s estimate) of the residents are gay.
In a digital world, physical entities are less critical to community identity. So with more straights in Dupont and more gay people outside Dupont, maybe the gayborhood has grown passe. Why go to the gay bar in the gayborhood every night when you can hold hands at any old corner pub without risking your life
Gawker has a response to the declaration of gayborhood death: a contract between the gay community and our straight neighbors. Rule #1: You’re Welcome to Move in, But the Hood Is Gay Forever.
This is what happens when you let waifish wannabes run things.
We’re going to start over, but this time, things will be different:
1) The regayification will be led by Bears (food services, clubs, shops) and Lesbians (property services, bars, shops). There will be only one massive coffee shop with lots of seating.
2) Irony will be hunted down and mercilessly shot DEAD in the streets. Its tangled knot of semantics, cultural reference and anachronism will be left for the crows
3) Only bikes, subarus and priuses will be allowed. If you aren’t going to walk, take transit or sensible vehicles, you can’t come in
4) Vegan Alley
5) Apartments will be rent-to-own and on a 100 year no-condo covenant
6) NO MORE GODDAMN CUPCAKES, delicious as they are
7) There will be a Mayor of Beards
8) Fixie parking to prevent gear-tangling with non-fixies
9) Last call at 4am and no required closing times to prevent push-out
10) No noise ordinances
11) The entire stock of bookstores within the neighborhood shall maintain a 15 book per capita ratio
12) Once a month, a block party
13) Designated beard rubbing zones
14) A herd of cats living in a bookstore shall have rule over the neighborhood
15) Our own flag
I don’t know. The Castro seemed like it was still hanging on to it’s roots when I lived there.
No pun intended. Heh.
YOUR COMMENT DISGUSTS ME AND OFFENDS MY SENSIBILITIES, KIALA.
KIALA IS YELLOW JOURNALISM.
Dear Alexjon,
Bears are just the gays that have given up and want to be hedonistic and lazy. I think this shall be the basis of an irrational flame-war. Also, baseball is a more interesting sport athan soccer. Also, Joss Whedon is dumb.
Yours sincerely and truly,
Graham.
I never lived in the Castro, Kiala, but I was going to post something similar. It certainly doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, although it’s probably a little better-established than some of these others.
WTF? Is this complaining? So now that gays are not being treated as “different” in a number of popular locales people are bitching. This (non)story is GAY!
Dearest Graham,
Bears are not lazy. It’s a lot of work to dance to 80s music and electro, which is why, like a camel, many bears store up their energy. Of course, this ignores musclebears like Bo Dixon.
Agreed re: soccer, however.
Woofy hugs (,,,) HUGS (,,,),
Alexjon
I AM YELLOW JOURNALISM RAARRRRRRWRR!
So I’m moving to portland in November 2010 I want to live downtown with gay neighbors What area do I want to live?? (Street names please)