“Portland is a more welcoming place for the LGBTQ community today than it was 30 years ago.”
So tweeted the Bangor Daily News last week, and to prove this assertion the BDN pointed to Blackstone’s, a popular Portland, Maine, gay bar that endured repeated homophobic vandalization for years since opening in 1987. Since 1991, the management simply boarded up the smashed facade with plywood and plexiglass.
Now, some 28 years later, plate-glass picture windows have replaced those boards.
“It’s a pretty big deal. Everyone’s responding to it amazingly well. It changes the whole dynamic of the bar,” the bar’s manager Carl Currie told BDN. “We put the glass in because we’re at a point now where the bar is safe. It’s time to open it up and acknowledge that.”
Reports the Bangor Daily News, which also includes a great interview with Currie:
For the first time in nearly three decades, you can see inside the city’s oldest—and last—gay bar without opening the door.
The new, full-length front windows at Blackstones are both of symbol of the city’s bigoted past and how far it has come in accepting all its residents.
First opened in 1987, Blackstones has always had a laid-back, neighborhood vibe. That didn’t stop anti-gay vandals from repeatedly smashing the front windows out with rocks and bricks back in the day.
The Pine Street watering hole’s owners and patrons refused to be bullied out of the neighborhood, though. Instead, they boarded up the windows with plywood and plexiglass, then went back to playing pool and drinking beer.
That was 28 years ago.
Now, Portland has changed. The bricks and rocks have stopped flying. It has become a more welcoming place to the LGBTQ community.
Blackstones hasn’t changed much at all. It’s still a chill bar filled with West End regulars and the clack of pool cues and eight balls. Except now, it has large front windows heralding a new, more open era of inclusiveness.
On Sunday, manager Carl Currie pulled down the plywood. Behind it, he found ghostly shards of hateful broken glass. They’d been in there since 1991.
“When you look at the broken glass, it’s important to recognize that those things happened—there was a huge issue of bigotry in this city—but it also reflects on how Portland [has now] accepted the LGBTQ community completely—or nearly completely. There’s been such broad acceptance. That’s why we’re the last [gay] bar,” Currie said to BDN.
Not a subscriber? Sign up today for a free subscription to Boston Spirit magazine, New England’s premier LGBT magazine. We will send you a copy of Boston Spirit 6 times per year and we never sell/rent our subscriber information. Click HERE to sign up!
