Harriett Guthrie, owner of Hobo's at 120 N.W. If they don't want to dance, they can go to a drag show or a restaurant,' Wilgus said. 'If (customers) don't want to lounge, they can go to a dance floor. He said he's betting on the synergy created by the concentration of gay clubs in Old Town/Chinatown. Karl Wilgus, owner of Casey's and the Tunnel, two adjoining gay clubs, said his establishments are the first new gay-owned clubs in Portland in 20 years.
More of them are doing it than ever, according to a number of club owners.
'But the very people who said they would never cross Burnside started doing it every night.' 'Twenty-eight years ago people said, 'Why do you want to move there? Nobody's going to cross Burnside,' ' Suss said. Broadway, not because he foresaw the increasing popularity of the area for gay night life, but because the price was right.Īt the time, Suss said, Darcelle XV Showplace on Northwest Third Avenue was the only gay club in the north-of-Burnside neighborhood.īut Suss found a 24,000-square-foot building that had been empty for four years with rent that wasn't nearly as high as he was finding in the downtown area. In 1981, Suss moved the club north, to 110 N.W. And soon there will be only two left in the traditional triangle.Īmong the first to start the trend - 26 years ago now - was Steve Suss, who bought the Embers Avenue in 1971 when it was a traditional nightclub at Southwest Park Avenue and Yamhill Street. With the addition of Casey's, there are now eight gay clubs and bars in the Old Town/Chinatown area. 'We're calling it Gay Town/Chinatown now,' said Andrew Miller, until recently manager at Casey's Lounge, the newest gay club in town, at 610 N.W. The new epicenter of gay nightlife in Portland, they say, is in the Old Town/Chinatown area, north of Burnside roughly between Broadway and Naito Parkway.Įxcept some aren't calling it that anymore.
One after another gay club and bar has closed or left the 'Gay Triangle' in recent years as property values in that traditional center of gay life in Portland - roughly bounded by Southwest Stark and West Burnside streets and Southwest 10th Avenue - have risen.īut a number of nightclub and bar owners say the choices for gay night life have never been more numerous - on the other side of Burnside. Rising rents shift night life center, but not all leaving 'Triangle'.