Infamous Atlanta hotspot Backstreet
Gay in 1998
The Georgia Supreme Court strikes down the states ban on consensual, private adult sodomy.
Minority AIDS Initiative created in the U.S. after African American leaders declare a "state of emergency."
Matthew Shepard was killed Oct. 12 in Laramie, Wyoming, 11 days after the first issue of David hit Atlanta streets.
President Bill Clinton signs executive order banning sexual orientation discrimination against civilian federal employees.
Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) is the first gay person elected to Congress.
— Courtesy Southern Voice
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RYAN LEE
| 10.1.2008
THE SECOND HALF OF the 1990s was a booming time for Atlanta, especially gay Atlanta. The city was fresh off its big global debut as host of the 1996 Olympic Games, and was increasingly becoming a buzzing destination for partiers and transplants from across the country.
Atlanta’s gay population was more concentrated in the heart of the city than it is today, making Midtown the gayest district in the south. The gay presence in Midtown during the late ‘90s was even more remarkable considering that the neighborhood had been virtually uninhabitable — thanks to crime, homelessness and neglect — before gay folks moved in en masse a decade earlier and turned the area into the crown jewel it is today.
And if Midtown was the capital of gay Atlanta in 1998, then Backstreet was the gay White House.
“That’s when it was really Hotlanta,” says Charlie Brown, who used to host her legendary drag cabaret at Backstreet. “It was hot. It was good times then.”
Backstreet has now been closed for four years, but already its mystique and importance to the history of gay Atlanta is being forgotten or unlearned in a city of newcomers. The weekend parties at the 24-hour gay club were a ritual gathering from clubgoers from across the city, particularly after other clubs had closed for the night. But one of the truly magical elements of Backstreet was knowing that no matter what time your plane landed or you drove in from Beaufort, S.C., no matter what time you got off work or woke up, there was a party waiting for you at Backstreet.
In 1998, Backstreet was still riding a wave from Charlie Brown’s cabaret — including Shawnna Brooks, Heather Daniels, Raven and Lily White — being featured in an HBO documentary two years earlier.
“Oh man, people were really coming out of town from everywhere after that,” Brown says. “It really put our show on the map.”
Gay Atlanta and the rest of the city have changed a lot since then, as has the rest of the country and attitudes toward gay people. In October 1998, the same month that the first issues of David hit the street, America learned of the brutal beating and death of college student Matthew Shepard in Wyoming, sparking nationwide backlash against anti-gay violence. One month later, in November — just 10 short years ago — the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the state could no longer arrest people for being gay, a decision echoed five years later by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas.
BACKSTREET’S LAYOUT AND CLIENTELE were conducive to the gay circuit movement, which was peaking throughout the ‘90s. Virtually every other weekend featured a circuit party with a name like Harvest, Red Ball and Garden of Eden.
The granddaddy of Atlanta’s circuit parties remained the Hotlanta River Expo, which began in 1978 by combining a weekend of partying with white-water rafting down the Chattahoochee River. The Hotlanta River Expo was still thriving well into the late ‘90s, but then began to absorb massive losses as outside promoters began throwing rival parties and siphoning off Hotlanta crowds, and in-fighting among Hotlanta's own organizers hurt the overall event.
Within a few years, the two-decade-old Hotlanta River Expo collapsed and disappeared, signaling a coming change to Atlanta’s gay nightlife. In 1999, the Mr. Hotlanta crown and title went to a Canadian cutie named Tony Volpe, demonstrating the event’s strong draw. By comparison, is there anything in today’s gay Atlanta nightlife besides the two Pride festivals that brings people from Canada and other countries?
Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday weekend, definitely. Joining Hearts, maybe. Anything else? Trivia at Joe’s?
THE NEXT DEFINING MOMENT in Atlanta’s gay nightlife over the past 10 years was shortly after the turn of the century, when city officials and an influx of new, mainly straight, Midtown residents began targeting Backstreet, Blu and other 24-hour private clubs.
Neighbors complained about late-night noise and traffic, while Backstreet gained an unshakeable reputation as a place where drugs were sold and used. After years of legal wrangling and police raids, Backstreet was forced to close for good in July 2004, creating a vacuum in Atlanta’s gay nightlife that still hasn’t been filled.
Despite the loss of gay Atlanta’s flagship nightclub, other party institutions have endured remarkably well over the past 10 years. From Heretic and Blake’s, to Bulldogs and Burkhart’s, Atlanta’s neighborhood bars and clubs have continued to offer the city an enviable gay nightlife scene.
“Our business is roughly the same as it’s been 10 years ago,” says Bulldogs owner Michael Clutter.
Many gay bars have closed over the past 10 years, but many have also changed with the times and continued to make themselves current: Buddies became BJ Roosters, Loretta’s became Club 708, and Traxx left its longtime home on Luckie Street downtown for a pair of locations in DeKalb County in order to operate later. Warehouse960 became Blu, then WETbar. Brad Williams, the chameleon of Atlanta's nightlife, opened lounge/restaurant Red Chair, then dance club Jungle, then changed it to the Wild Mustang.
In 2003, the city of Atlanta dealt another blow to bars and nightclubs by shortening the time bars can serve alcohol by an hour-and-a-half. A gay nightlife scene that was used to partying at any hour it wanted was now restrained by a 2:30 curfew.
But established bars and new promoters continued to thrive in Atlanta’s gay nightlife, from the parties of OVAH, Fruitcake and C2 productions, to the formation of promotion groups like WassupNATL.
Ten years ago, Atlanta’s gay nightlife was centered around circuit parties and big dance clubs like Backstreet and Fusion, which Bill Kaelin used to operate. After a decade-long shake-up, there is still room for big parties, but the scene seems to be shifting to internet hook-ups or catching its breath at smaller lounges like Kaelin’s Bazzaar.
“Five years ago, we were really one of the first small, intimate lounges in the city,” Kaelin says. “There wasn’t really any of that going on five years ago, but now there’s, you know, a lounge on every other corner.”
Let us bow our heads and observe a moment of silence for all of the gay bars, nightclubs and hangouts that have left us in the last decade. They were our finest and our filthiest, but each had a unique way of providing fond memories:
Armory
Backstreet
The Belvedere Theatre
Blu
The Breaking Point
Chamber
Charlie’s Brown Cabaret
Club 836
Club 1800
Club Rarity
Club Redd
Colours
Da Boxx
Da Library
Deux Plex
Eleven50
Fusion
The Garage
Ground Zero
Guys & Dolls
Hoedowns
Jungle
Metro
Midtown Saloon & Grill
Millennium
Miss Q’s
The Otherside
The Palace
The Phoenix
The Playaz Club
Red Chair
Rico’s View
The Riviera
Scandals
Southeastern Meet Company
Steam
Tower II
Trinity
The Upper Room
Warehouse960
The Wearhouse
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