“We used to have Boxxes, the Brig and Panorama complex. This fall, CC Slaughters shuttered after 39 years. After 48 years, the Embers Avenue closed its doors in 2017. Today, only one of those venues still exists. Since 1995, his drag persona Bolivia Carmichaels has been entertaining Portlanders at the Embers Avenue, Darcelle XV & Co., and C.C.
Elliott, performing as Bolivia Carmichaels in 2020. “So, I started doing drag, and that’s where Bolivia Carmichaels was born.”ĭaniel P. making people smile and laugh and feel comfortable in their own skin,” he said.
“I was like, 'Wow, they’re combining their talents and their makeup and their queerdom. “And I was like, ‘Wow, these are the leaders of my community.’ I found people that were like me.”Įlliott was a theater kid and grew up playing the trumpet, so when he saw the performers at the City Nightclub, he knew he wanted to be a part of it. And when I got there, there was 14- and 15- and 16- year old kids there dancing, and they were out and they were proud,” Elliott said. By 18, Elliott was a regular at the City Nightclub, a haven for Portland’s LGBTQ+ youth in the ’80s and ’90s. They find a family there.”Įlliott knew he was queer from a young age, but was worried about coming out, fearing backlash from his friends and family. “People that feel disenfranchised with their own families, or their own life, they could go to the club and actually be who they are without fear of someone looking down on them or ridiculing them. “It’s very sad because these queer spaces, they’re a home to people,” Elliott said. Elliott grew up in Portland, so he’s seen that change first hand. Smaller in size than San Francisco’s Castro District or New York’s Greenwich Village, the area colloquially nicknamed Pink Triangle, or Vaseline Alley in some circles, had been home to queer-centered spaced for decades.ĭaniel P. Through the 1960s and ’70s, queer-centered gathering places continued to flourish, despite an attempt by the city, under then-Mayor Terry Schrunk, to shut down six gay bars by trying to pressure the state liquor commission to revoke their licenses.īy the ’80s and ’90s, a stretch of what’s now Harvey Milk Street was home to many LQBTQ+ bars and gathering spots.
Schneiderman’s Music Hall, on SW 10th, had classic vaudeville acts as well as drag performers. Women seeking women made their way to the the Buick Café on 12th and Washington, while gay servicemen home from the war would frequent Rathskeller on SW Taylor Street. That has resulted in many iconic local haunts shutting their doors, leaving some folks to bemoan the loss of their favorite sushi spot or neighborhood dive bar.įor Portland’s LQBTQ+ community, it’s just the latest blow in a string of closures to queer-centered spaces.Īs far back as the 1940′s, a small triangle of streets in Southwest Portland was already becoming known as a place to gather for the queer community. In September, the state’s Economic and Revenue Forecast found that revenue for Oregon’s bars and restaurants is down by 56%, and the leisure and hospitality sector as a whole has lost more than 50,000 jobs so far this year.