Just blocks away and a decade earlier, men and women rioted after police raided a gay club, the Stonewall Inn. “And the clubs closing at 2 o’clock was like, what? I just needed to go back home.” 'The Government Just Didn't Care'īack in New York, Yorkie started working at a shop in the West Village. But after a few years in San Francisco, the couple decided to move to New York. Yorkie did, too, eventually, and they became a couple. “He had a big, huge personality and everybody loved him.” “Everybody was just being themselves, and I just loved it.”Īt work in his new office, Yorkie met a man with curly auburn hair named Michael Faino.
OLDEST KNOWN GAY BAR AUSTIN TEXAS FULL
It was the late 1970s and the city was full of hippies and punks, of Harvey Milk, Jim Jones and the Dead Kennedys. “It was like really going back in time to the old Jewish delis with the big barrels full of pickles, and there were things hanging all over the place from the fire escapes.”īy his mid-20s, he decided to leave New York and move to San Francisco, where one of his sisters lived. “Back then it was very Hasidim,” Yorkie says. The family spent weekends in Chinatown, Central Park and the Lower East Side.Ĭourtesy of Yorkie Louie Yorkie, left, grew up with six siblings in the suburbs of Long Island. He was one of seven kids born and raised in the suburbs of Long Island, but he described Manhattan as his playground. In these videos, you can hear Yorkie’s native New Yorker: Yorkie becomes Yawkie. RELATED | Subscribe to the ATXplained podcast
![oldest known gay bar austin texas oldest known gay bar austin texas](https://gaytravel-hotels.s3.amazonaws.com/42713/912x350_hero_img__medium.png)
(Yorkie calls his younger friends his kids or grandkids they call him Pop-Pop.) “But I’m here to tell you this Saturday, it’s only gonna get hella hotter.” “Hi kids, it’s another hot one on Planet Austin,” Yorkie says in one video posted last July, as he encourages people to spend the night at a party on Sixth Street. The 20-somethings behind the operation throw dance parties throughout the city, many of which Yorkie promotes on his Instagram account. His name is Yorkie Louie, but he’s crowned himself the "Godfather of Clubbing." An anonymous listener wrote to KUT’s Hi, Who Are You? project about him: "‘Keeping it Weird’ is embodied by Never met him, but regularly see him on the dance floor."Īt 67 years old, Yorkie goes clubbing every weekend, typically with a crew called Vibe Vessel. He fits in among the chaos because he’s just that: a shimmery oddity, a “sparkly unicorn,” as one friend describes him. The man carrying it dons a fur hat, sunglasses and a black kerchief around his neck. While Oilcan Harry’s will retain its street-facing facade and signage in the new space, its neighbors Neon Grotto and Coconut Club will likely be replaced by a “cool, chef-driven restaurant,” Ott said.ĭevelopers said they hope to have their demolition request considered by the full landmark commission at its May 4 meeting.Then a disco ball emerges – a disco ball on a stick.
![oldest known gay bar austin texas oldest known gay bar austin texas](https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/HXBYcIdXusPk0B-icclwjA/258s.jpg)
The gay landmark had operated in Studio City since 1968 until it became a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic in January 2021. Its name is a reference to the oldest gay club in Los Angeles, Oil Can Harry’s. Oilcan Harry’s at 211 West Fourth– the one tenant protected from the demolition– has been in operation for 30 years. “But also, to the extent there’s a business there that does have some lease term left, how can the developer come in and work with that business to ensure that they come back in, in a designed space that works for their needs and maintains the texture and quality at the ground floor that’s there today.” “Our intent is to…set an example here really about how responsible development can happen, and a developer can come in and at their own will and desire try to preserve facades-which we’re doing at Third and Brazos as well,” Ott said.