THE CLAIM
In the 1980s the gay area of Manchester was a secret with just two or three pubs.
THE REALITY
This is a half truth which takes advantage of the fact that people who weren’t around then don’t understand how gay life has changed.
Bloom Street in 1990.
In the late 1980s Bloom Street was considered to be THE gay street in Manchester. There was nothing to speak of on Canal Street — just the side doors of The Rembrandt and The Union.
The term “village” was only just starting to be used and the “Village Chippy” on Bloom Street was a reference to that. However friends have suggested to me that the term “village” started off as a joke.
Also on Bloom Street were Clone Zone, the Bloom Street Cafe, the Gay Centre (until 1988) and New York New York pub. Napoleons club was on the corner, with Thompsons Arms a little further up Sackville Street.
However these were far from being the only gay venues in Manchester in the 1980s. Others were spread out across the city centre: Stuffed Olives and Heros club were at Ridgefield near Deansgate, No 1 club near the Bootle Street police station, Manhattan club in Spring Gardens, Dickens up Oldham Street and High Society (which had a “Saturday Night Fever” style illuminated dance floor) was off Princess Street. The Archway was on Whitworth Street and in the late 80s Rockies was on Whitworth Street West.
Further afield, neighbouring towns had gay pubs, gay nights or venues that were considered meeting places, sometimes because there was a gay landlord or owner. There was the Egerton Arms in Salford, the New Inn and Bakers Vaults In Stockport, the Copper Kettle and Olivers in Chester. Bolton alone had five venues and Blackburn had two…
As you can see, there were many venues all over Manchester and the north-west. In those days you couldn’t get into some unless you were a lesbian woman or gay man, think about how many of us must have been out and about… Maybe even more than now because the venues were very gay and safe.
So, although the “gay village” had a handful of venues, it’s misleading to give the impression that’s all there was.
The side of the New York New York pub in early 1990.
As for it being a big secret… In 1987, on the side of the New York New York pub and visible across the car-park, was a huge neon sign showing the Statue of Liberty with a limp-wrist and her hand on her hip.
In 1988 James Whale visited the Clone Zone shop as part of his late night ITV show and the same year the prime time ITV current affairs programme This Week featured the Manchester Gay Centre which was in the basement at 61A Bloom Street. It included this shot of the outside, which I think looks nice.
As you can see, on the door is a pink triangle — the symbol that gay men were forced to wear in the Nazi concentration camps. At the time some of us wore that as a badge as a sort of memorial. Just inside the door is a big sign which states “Welcome to Manchester Gay Centre.”
Throughout the 80s the Manchester Evening News, which was quite a nasty homophobic newspaper in those days, was always publishing stories about how much funding the City Council gave to the Gay Centre. The Centre was so well-known that there began to be fears that someone might throw something inside, perhaps a smoke bomb. That had happened at the Black Cap pub in London.
I strongly suggest that the Bloom Street area wasn’t much of a “secret” at all…