The Starlite Lounge Says Goodbye
The Starlite Lounge, one of Brooklyn’s oldest gay bars and possibly the first black-owned gay bar in Brooklyn, has been having rough times for about a year now. After the building came under new ownership this past December, there was a petition to landmark the building and protect it from demolition. It wasn’t demolished, but…
The Starlite Lounge, one of Brooklyn’s oldest gay bars and possibly the first black-owned gay bar in Brooklyn, has been having rough times for about a year now. After the building came under new ownership this past December, there was a petition to landmark the building and protect it from demolition. It wasn’t demolished, but we recently received an email that said the Starlite Lounge is closing its doors for good on July 31st. There will be events there until Saturday celebrating the end of a neighborhood staple in Crown Heights.
Starlite Lounge in Danger of Closing Forever [Brownstoner]
Curtains for Starlite Lounge [Brownstoner] GMAP
Is there any “rough trade” there?
“t’s funny cuz it’s true. except these days all these new yuppie like bars attract a different kind of “undersirable” element.. at least for me.”
one man’s meat is another man’s poison. (nh)
quote:
Bars, the supposition went, would only attract more of this “undesirable” element.
it’s funny cuz it’s true. except these days all these new yuppie like bars attract a different kind of “undersirable” element.. at least for me.
*rob*
Montrose, then it may be one of the “joints” that got people into a lather back in the day!
Could it have been gay from the start? Now that really would have given the good ladies of Dean Street palpitations!
NOP,it’s on the corner of Bergen and Nostrand, southwest side of the street, and is not exactly eye catching. It’s been there since the 60’s as I understand it.
So Montrose, how old is the Starlite? I don’t remember ever seeing it.
Then again, I wasn’t on the lookout for bars and didn’t go to my first until I was in college. (Then you couldn’t keep me out of them!)
For God’s sake Rob, stop with the over generalizing. I know someone who was mugged in Park Slope. That doesn’t make Park Slope dangerous.
Yes, there are those, especially in some parts of the Caribbean community who don’t like gays. But there is an element of anti-gay people just about everywhere, unfortunately. I happen to know quite a few gay homeowners and renters here who love it here, have never had a problem, and probably never will. Most people, even here, manage to keep their prejudices under wraps enough to allow all kinds of people to walk down the street unmolested. There has been a black gay community here for a really long time, hence the bar. If they were afraid or unwelcome, they would have left years ago. They didn’t.
Dave, I’m game. Gather the gang and I’ll be there.
I wonder how old the Starlite is.
Back in the 50’s and 60’s when I lived in Crown Heights as a boy, the neighbors were up in arms about changes in the zoning code that “allowed bars on every corner”! The change was perceived as part of landlords’ efforts to accelerate the neighborhood’s social shift, from families to singles and transients, at a time when black and white residents were trying to stabilize the community. Those days, Brooklyn bars were considered “lower class” and were twinned with prostitution, perfect for the “hot sheet” single-room occupancy dwellings that were starting to invade the area’s apartment buildings.
Of course, race was implicit in the outcry. Young people moving into the neighborhood were mostly black and although the “old guard” was racially integrated, the new comers with their “conked” hair and flashy clothes were suspect, not at all like the “churched” black folk in their rambling row houses on the sidestreets or the striving professionals in their Art Deco apartments on St Marks Avenue. Transient, the new people came and went, allowing landlords to jack up the rents with every new lease. Bars, the supposition went, would only attract more of this “undesirable” element.
Now, of course, hipsters bring their babies into bars. But back then, bars were dark and mysterious places. To hear of my father’s bohemian haunts in the Village widened my little brother’s and my eyes to saucers. Nicely lit, Dad would wait until our mother absented herself then share a ribald joke learned from his cronies at the Cedar Tavern. Male bonding, I guess you’d call it. I can remember some of his jokes to this day.
Nostalgic on Park Avenue
They should move to Flatbush. Church/Nostrand would be ideal.
***Bid half off peak comps***