Church of the New Ideal

Wallasey

Church of the New Ideal

Location: Wallasey, Cheshire, England

Opened: March 1914

Closed: Before end of World War I (1918)




I found this news item while reading a newspaper from April 1914: 

There's more at this blog: Making a Track: 

In early 1914, adverts began to appear in women’s suffrage and local papers for the start of a Women’s Church in Wallasey, Cheshire.  Entitled the Church of the New Ideal, it was formally launched at its first service on 29 March 1914.  Held at the Liscard Concert hall,  this offered both mixed-gender and women-only services, but was organised and officered by women alone.  A proto-ecumenical adventure, women from seven different Christian denominations (including Anglican and Quaker) were represented in its management and it sought to include those who felt no place in any church: those women who, finding the Church

like a cage… (had) come away in sheer disgust at the attitude of the clergy towards the things which to women are dearer than life.

(Miss M.Hoy, letter to the Wallasey & Wirral Chronicle, 14 March 1914).
The Church of the New Ideal flourished initially but did not survive through to the end of the first world war, for by this time ministry opportunities for women were slowly beginning to open up.  Yet the Wallasey Women’s Church thus not only created unprecedented space for women but also attempted to offer a more feminine aspect of God, adding to the impetus building up within mainstream religious circles.

Hershee Bar

Hershee Bar

The closing of Hershee Bar

Location: 1083 W 37th Street, Norfolk, Virginia, USA 

Opened: 1983

Closed: 2018

From the Virginian-Pilot:

"We're losing our home": The last lesbian bar in Hampton Roads closes its doors
By Saleen Martin and Amy Poulter
Staff writers
Nov 1, 2018 Updated 5 hrs ago

NORFOLK
Outside of the Hershee Bar's main entrance, two lit candles sat on a bench Wednesday night. Sandwiched between them was a sign.

"Thank you Hershee Bar for 'being there' for me when no one else was," it read.

Inside, flashing lights lit up the dance floor. A 1990s R&B mix blared through the speakers as people dressed as Run DMC, Minnie Mouse and pharaohs flashed their driver's licenses to get in.

It was their last night to grab drinks and feast on shrimp and french fries at the bar on Sewells Point Road before the building is torn down and the property is sold to the city. At 1:45 a.m., supporters said on social media, police arrived and watched the doors from the parking lot.

Bernie Gerlach was there with her two friends, Christi Hogge and Rene Hayes.

She met them at Hershee in 1998, she said.

For the past 20 years, the trio has gone there to remember lost loved ones, attend wedding receptions and unwind, they said. The bar was a safe haven for lesbians when it first opened, said Gerlach, who's from Newport News.

"We're losing our home," she said.

In February, the City Council voted unanimously to spend $1.5 million on the property in the Five Points neighborhood. Hershee was told to leave after Oct. 31.

Charles Cooper, who owns the property, asked the city to buy the lot in 2017 after his family removes the buildings, The Pilot reported. Cooper's son has said the bar was not targeted and other nearby businesses would also be affected by the sale.

Most recently, a spokesperson for Gov. Ralph Northam said they had received four calls by Wednesday afternoon about the bar, but an application to designate the location as historic had not been filed.

Bar owner Annette Stone hugged customers as she walked in Wednesday night. Over 200 people showed up, she said.

"It's overwhelming," she said. "But I expected that because that's how great these people are. That's how much this bar means to them."

Stone and a group of her supporters both posted on Facebook in the early hours Thursday that several Norfolk police officers showed up about 1:45 a.m., minutes before the bar shut down for good.

Michael Carney also came to celebrate one last time.

He has been visiting the bar since it opened in 1983, and he was one of the few men allowed into the bar back then, he said.

"There were maybe four or five of us who could get past the door person," Carney said. "Men would come in and harass the girls."

When his partner died, he went to Hershee to find solace. He went through a three-day depression when he found out the fate of the bar, he said.

"Today was also a very emotional day," said Carney. "The reality of it. I've dealt with it, but a lot of people haven't."

Lakela Fuller, who has been going to Hershee since she was 18, showed up, too. The bar's staff has seen her at her best and her worst, she said, grinning and pointing toward Burt McManus, a bartender at Hershee for 34 years.

McManus and other staff at Hershee have taken care of her and helped her accept who she is, she said.

If the bar ever opens in another location, she said, she'll be there.

"Whatever place they tell me they're going, I will go," she said. "It's like a family."

Pilot writer Amy Poulter contributed to this story.

Women's Beer Forum

Women's Beer Forum

Women's Beer Forum

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Opened: 2011

Closed: 2018

It's true. The boys are even afraid of you sharing a brew with your gal pals. God only knows what you're talking about or you're planning. They need to be there to monitor!

By Beth Demmon

Oct 19 2018, 2:34pm

Women-Only Craft Beer Forum Shut Down By Men’s Rights Activist
Ting Su, co-founder of Eagle Rock Brewery and host of the event, now finds herself needing to raise money for a legal defense fund.

The Women’s Beer Forum, hosted by Los Angeles-based Eagle Rock Brewery, is the latest victim in a long line of so-called “gender-based discrimination” lawsuits initiated by various men’s rights activists (MRAs), who are lashing out events and promotions designed for women.

According to its GoFundMe page, the monthly meetup—started by Eagle Rock co-founder Ting Su—was created in March 2011 after Su witnessed women get “pigeonholed by their male counterparts into drinking only specific beer styles. And when women asked me (a fellow woman behind the bar) about beer-style recommendations," Su continues, "some men would interject by sharing what they thought women should drink. After seeing this so frequently I felt compelled to create an environment that was less male-dominated than anything else in the beer world.”

The group’s overall goal was “to serve as an educational platform for more women interested in learning about beer, tasting through different beer styles, and being with a community of other women who enjoy good beer.” In short, it was a group created to serve as a counterbalance to a culture in which roughly 70 percent of craft beer drinkers are men.

It's far from the only group with this goal; the national women’s organization Pink Boots Society, with over a thousand members across North America, was also designed to “assist, inspire and encourage women beer industry professionals to advance their careers through education.”

Aggressive exclusionary tactics to keep men out were never used, Su says. In fact, men often participated and even presented at the meetups in the past. But in November 2017, a self-described MRA contacted Eagle Rock Brewery regarding the upcoming forum and was told it was for women only. That’s when the threats began.

“He then proceeded to demand thousands of dollars from us, while also threatening a discrimination complaint through the government if we refused to pay. Since he had never purchased admission through our online sales portal, we were unaware about his request to attend the Women’s Beer Forum. We apologized about the miscommunication and offered him an opportunity to learn about the same flight of beers provided at the event for the same ticket price. He declined the educational opportunity and instead filed a claim through the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH),” explains Su on the GoFundMe page.

At the advice of her attorney, Su declined to name the activist. However, public court records and other media reports identify the man as Steve Frye, who once sued Donald Trump for being sexist against men.

See the rest here

Stouffer's Ladies Restaurant

Stouffer's Ladies Restaurant

Location: 4 North Court Street, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA

Opened/Closed: c. 1916

Here's an ad for a ladies restaurant that appeared in the Harrisburg Daily Independent, June 16, 1916:

Stouffer's at least appeared to have a strict code about admitting men, even relative to other local restaurants: "It is the only one of its kind in the city where a Gentleman must be accompanied by a Lady to be admitted. It is, therefore, practically a private Ladies' Restaurant...." 

Wonder what was on the menu? 

And, most importantly, do you take reservations???

Mr. M. M'Ginley's Ladies Restaurant

Mr. M. M'Ginley's Ladies' Restaurant

Location: Fifth Street, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

Opened/Closed: c. 1858

I wasn't even trying to do research on ladies restaurants when I happened to stumble across this little item. It's from the Pittsburgh Daily Post, Oct. 29, 1858:

Ladies Restaurant.--Mr. M. M'Ginley's Ladies' Restaurant, on Fifth Street, opposite the Exchange Bank, is a great public convenience. He has fitted up his rooms in elegant style, and the ladies can enjoy a dish of "stewed, fried or roasted" in the most complete privacy. When at a distance from their residences at meal time, the ladies will find this establishment fully prepared to furnish them with good things.

Page Three

Buddy Kent and friends at Page Three
(Lesbian Herstory Archives)

Page Three

Location: Greenwich Village, New York

Opened: 1940s?

Closed: 1965

Martin Duberman identifies Page Three as "one of the few lesbian bars in the village" back in the 1940s and 50s. The others he mentions are The Seven Steps, Bagatelle, Swing Rendezvous, Pony Stable, and Laurel's "(famous for its free Chinese food on Sunday afternoons)." This was also an era in which Greenwich Village lesbian bars were still considered "white women's bars" where Black women were "ignored or treated like an oddity."

Buddy Kent (aka Bubbles Kent), a lesbian club entertainer from that era, shared memories of Page Three (and other gay and lesbian bars of her youth) with Lisa Davis back in 2006:

She turned to another photo. “Here’s Kicky with me and Jacquie Howe and a couple of kids. Everybody in the Village back then knew Jacquie Howe.”

She paused. “We owned this place in the photo called the Page Three. You can see it had a nice little intimate room where we had some good acts. Tiny Tim got his start at the Page Three.”

“Jacquie looks like FDR with that cigarette-holder,” I said.

“Oh, she was a real character.” Buddy smiled a loving smile. “If somebody had told me that Jacquie went to bed with Queen Elizabeth, I wouldn’t have been surprised! She’d been to bed with everybody else!”

“So you always felt safe in the Village?” I asked.

“It was home,” Buddy replied, “and we had the best protection in the world from the Mafia. They ran everything.”

Buddy is also reported as saying the following about Page Three in this article:

Then Kicky and Jackie decided to get this little place that was doing nothing, The Page Three. We struck a deal with the owners and bought into the place. So finally we were working for ourselves and getting a little bit of the gravy. A lot of very big people used to come down there, like Jimmy Donahue. And the crowd followed us, the hookers and the madams and the kinky guys with money. Our show was a success from the first week.

Regarding Tiny Tim, we're told the following: 

In 1962, calling himself Larry Love, he [Tiny Tim] landed his first paying jobs, on the Greenwich Village lesbian bar circuit, and shortly the big vampire scarecrow - a singularly striking figure even amid the emerging period weirdness - began to develop a cult following. At this point, a manager took hold of Larry Love and sought to rename him Sir Timothy Thames. Herbie didn't like that much. Eventually, the two settled on Tiny Tim. IN 1965, following the shutdown of his chief Village venue, a bar called Page Three, Tiny Tim wandered up to midtown and got himself installed as a house regular at a happening disco called The Scene, which is where Mo Ostin of Reprise Records heard him in late 1967 and, there at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, signed him to a recording contract on the spot.

Stage Three is also mentioned in Ruby, a novel by Cynthia Bond. 

Bon Ton Cafe Ladies Cafe

Bon Ton Cafe Ladies Cafe

Location: Jackson, Mississippi, USA

Opened/Closed: c. 1917

Here's an ad for a ladies cafe in Jackson, Mississippi from October 1917. Needless to say, all the usual caveats about race and social/economic class apply. Still, what a menu!


Jackson Daily News (Jackson, Mississippi) - Oct. 21, 1917

Redz

The former Redz --2218 East First Street

Redz

Location: 2218 East First Street, Los Angeles, California, USA

Open: Late 1950s

Closed: 2015








From the Los Angeles Conservancy: 

Located in Boyle Heights, Redz is estimated to have first opened in the late 1950s and operated until 2015. For over fifty years, this popular lesbian bar catered to a predominantly Mexican and Mexican American clientele.

Over the course of its history, the bar's name evolved from Redheads to Reds to, most recently, Redz. It opened at a time when working-class lesbian bars were on the rise around Los Angeles, particularly in Westlake and North Hollywood. It represented an important intersection of race, class, gender, and sexual identity.

Though the bar closed its doors in 2015 and its appearance has been altered, it continues to represent an important story within Los Angeles' lesbian community.

Here's a great photo of the Redz from the LA Eastside blog. The blogger is clearly not a lesbian, as lesbian existence is clearly invisible to this individual: 

"I think someone said this was a gay paisa bar but I don’t know the picture of the hot girl is throwing me off." 

'Cause all "gays" are men, ya know. 




And, of course, lesbian bars almost always have THAT yelp review. The one where some straight person decides to be intrusive, then gets bent out of shape about something or other. In this case, it was a straight girl using her boyfriend as "a shield" against, well, whatever it was that she needed shielding against. From Maggie in 2013:

[W]e come across Redz Bar which is a couple blocks down from Mariachi Plaza and I know it's open because there's some loud paisa music blasting from the shut door. I see a ferocious, heavy woman in a bright blue dress walk out with her music box and I realize I missed the cabaret show on Sundays that start at 8:30.

The bar is mysteriously yet cautiously dark, with Spanish music ranging from Reggaeton to Enrique Iglesias playing from a record player. I look up, and the ceiling is covered in records with glimmers of light shining from the tacky disco ball. I expect the usual looks from middle aged Mexican men staring down a gringa who so happens to love her Micheladas. I use my guy best friend as a shield to repel any sort of contact because I'm here for a drink, but a conversation with the best friend is out the door because the music is ear numbingly loud.

It turns out that Maggie is so unbelievably dense that she manages to convince herself that this is an "underground brothel." She just can't believe that the bartender was refusing to serve this man who was sitting next to (harassing) this "promiscuous, young woman wearing a very skimpy dress." This just doesn't make sense!

The Martinique

The Martinique

Location: Salem Avenue, Dayton, Ohio, USA

Opened: Early 1970s

Closed: Early 1990s

From Daytonology:

This being Dayton building demolition rears its ugly head in any story, and it does here, as The Martinque, Dayton’s third oldest gay bar was torn down, perhaps twice!

The Martinique started out as a cocktail lounge on Salem Avenue, between the bridge and Grand Avenue, opening in 1967. Presumably it served the singles who were living in the new apartments buildings in Grafton Hill.

And perhaps those buildings attracted a gay population, too. There was an ownership change in 1970 or 71, and after that the place turned gay. Eventually it became Dayton’s lesbian bar (the first?) until being closed and torn down in the early 1990s. It was in a converted old house when I moved here, but I am not sure if that was the original location.

Que Sera

Que Sera

Ellen Ward, (left) the first openly gay woman
to be elected to the Signal Hill City Council,
stands behind the bar at The Que Sera
with the establishment's current owner Ilse Benz.
Ward used to own the lesbian bar
and live-entertainment venue,
known as the place where Melissa Etheridge got her start.
However, she turned it over to Benz,
her former manager, in the mid-1990s.

Photo by Sean Belk/Signal Tribune (2013)

Location: 1923 E. 7th Street, Long Beach, California, USA

Opened: 1975

Closed: Sold in 1996 or 1999 (both dates are reported). When it ceased to be a lesbian bar is not clear, though it was still open as of 2015.

According to the Historical Society of Long Beach, Que Sera was founded by Ellen Ward, a lesbian who moved to Long Beach for college, and eventually ended up working in local government and the city recreational departments:

In 1975, Ward bought a bar called the Monarch Room, which she renamed Que Sera. Que Sera is still standing, though Ward sold the bar in 1999 to her longtime bartender and friend Benz. It is a dark bar with no windows located on Seventh Street and Cherry (just three blocks north of the present location of the LGBTQ Center of Long Beach). The lack of windows is a signal for those that were historic gay bars. Windows meant people could see what was going on from the outside, and patrons of gay bars were often afraid of their anonymity being broached. While many people placed the Gay Ghetto neighborhood on a map that marked Fourth Street as the north border of the neighborhood, a few pushed that boundary to Seventh Street simply because of Que Sera. The bar was Ward’s fall-back plan in case her employment opportunities in the field of recreation dried up. She wanted to make Que Sera a nice bar for lesbians, something she felt was lacking in Long Beach in the 1970s. Though it’s a darkened dive bar now, in its heyday it was, according to Ward, the nicest lesbian bar around. It had couches and a fireplace and attracted a lot of professional women. Melissa Etheridge credits the bar with helping to launch her career, something Ward remembers fondly. Etheridge lived in Long Beach from 1982 to “about 1985” and played Que Sera every Wednesday and Friday for several years. Etheridge explained, “I played at Que Sera year after year, and finally Chris Blackwell (founder of Island Records) came to see me play, and the rest is history.” Etheridge has written several songs about her time spent living and playing in Long Beach, including “Cherry Avenue” and “Breakdown.” In “Cherry Avenue,” she sings,

And so you meet me

Down at the bar

7th and Cherry

That’s where we are

And I promise not to take you down too far

Beetle takes a dollar

Benz will make a drink

Two will see you holler

No one wants to think

And it’s que sera sera in black and pink.

There is also this from a 2013 article in the Signal Tribune:

To the LGBT community, however, Ward was more known as the former owner of the Que Sera, a longtime lesbian bar she opened in 1975 that today is celebrated for helping launch the career of Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician and singer Melissa Etheridge in the 1980s. One of the first items collected for display was one of Etheridge’s gold records that the singer gave to the Que Sera.

Ilse Benz, who took over the black- and pink-colored bar located at 1923 E. 7th St., after first working as the manager, said it was at the venue where Chris Blackwell of Island Records discovered the now famous musician.

Although Etheridge first started by playing cover songs, she later snuck in her originals that became popular among both straight and gay crowds, Benz said, adding that Etheridge’s song “Cherry Avenue” was written about the Que Sera and her time living in Long Beach.

“Music brings people together to where you don’t care about whether you stand next to a lesbian and that a woman maybe has her arm around another woman,” Benz said. “They listen to the music, and it makes them happy, and we all have that in common so that sexual orientation thing went by the wayside.”

Que Sera also got a mention in the Los Angeles Times back in 1996:

Que Sera (as the sign out front abbreviates it) can lay claim to the title of "grandmama" of the Long Beach alternative music scene, having outlasted Bogart's, Fender's Ballroom and a myriad of smaller venues. Ever since a then-unknown Melissa Etheridge trod the small stage more than a decade ago (Que Sera is one of the longest-running predominately lesbian bars in the Southland), the club has booked live music two to three nights a week.

But as Club Planet documents, while the music lasted, the lesbians did not:

Que Sera - Melissa Etheridge got her start at Que Sera, playing acoustic sets to enthusiastic fans back in the '80s. Times have changed for this joint as this bar no longer specifically caters to the lesbian crowd--all people are welcome. DJ's spin techno, house, and even '80s tracks on the wheels of steel, and rock bands sometimes take the stage. The legend of Melissa still lives on here

Ellen Ward passed away in August 2015 at the age of 78. From her obituary:

Part of her impact in the gay community is the fact that Ward opened Que Sera bar in 1975, a business she owned and operated for 23 years. The establishment is also known as the place where musician Melissa Etheridge got her start.

However, Ward’s scope of influence surpassed simply being the owner of a gay bar before homosexuality was as acceptable as it is today, according to Ilse Benz, who now owns the bar and met Ward there in the late 1970s when Benz was a patron. Benz, who is from Stuttgart, Germany, said they bonded because Europeans like herself are very politically minded, and so was Ward.

As Benz described her relationship with Ward to the Signal Tribune, her voice cracked when she referred to Ward as the woman who helped her make a new home in the United States.

“I’m heartbroken to lose my mentor, my rock,” Benz said. “She had also created a home away from home for me, and I’m just so saddened by her leaving.”

Benz said Ward would keep Que Sera open on holidays to offer it as a safe haven for gay people who were not welcome to join their families.

“We could never be closed on holidays at the Que Sera,” Benz said. “People got put out by their families and would not be invited on Thanksgiving. So she wanted to make sure everybody knew there was a place they could come to and get a turkey dinner or, you know, a hot dog for Fourth of July— to prevent suicides. During the holidays, I had to work for 30-some-odd years, every holiday— never had a holiday off— because I truly believe that she is right. That it would maybe make a difference, even if it’s just one person. A door is open that they can walk in.”

Benz ended up serving as manager for 20 years before purchasing the bar from Ward in 1996.

Notice there is no explanation in any of these selections as to why Que Sera "no longer specifically caters to the lesbian crowd" or the process by which this happened. 

G Spot

G Spot

G Spot

Location: 2031 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors, Florida, USA

Open: 2017

Closed: 2018

Sadly, this place didn't last more than a year. 

From South Florida Gay News: 

Lesbian Bar Closes Down in Wilton Manors

Michael d'Oliveira 02/21/2018 11:33 am

A little over a year after opening, G Spot Bar is the latest Wilton Drive business to close its doors. Lisette Gomez, co-owner of G Spot, Wilton Manors’ only lesbian bar, announced the closing on social media on Feb. 16. G Spot closed Feb. 18.

“I would like to thank everyone who supported us from day one and never stopped supporting us. I appreciate you! Unfortunately, it was not enough. This was not my choice and it doesn’t come easy. I worked hard to build a place for the ladies to call their own, investing my retirement because I believed there would be support. My partners trusted me when I said the ladies would support us and that was not always the case,” Gomez wrote.

She went on to write that G Spot lost revenue because it was forced to close multiple weeks because of Hurricane Irma and another incident of fried air conditioning units.

“If I could save the bar I would, I just do not have the resources to buy out my partners . . . Also, if anyone knows me well, they know that I have something else in the works. I still believe that this community needs a space inclusive of everyone. Not just the boys or the girls but a place where there it doesn’t matter how you identify. That’s what I’ve been trying to create here and my Friday and Saturday nights were becoming more diverse. So STAY TUNED, this is not goodbye, this is see you real soon.”

Although G Spot is a lesbian bar, when she opened, Gomez told SFGN at the time, that it was a place where everyone is welcome. “We want to label ourselves as a bar for girls who like girls but there are a lot of gay boys who like to hang out with the lesbians. We’re not discriminatory. There will be Sunday football, drag king shows, as well as [a place for] our straight allies. We want it to be open to everybody.”

Although it’s a place where everyone is welcome, female patrons still expressed their disappointment in losing Wilton Manors’ only lesbian bar.

“This is a huge tragedy for my friends and our community and I'm really sad to see G Bar go but I fully support Lisette Gomez and I know that we will come back stronger and just work that much more harder to make a safe place for women and lesbians to be represented and enjoy ourselves in our neighborhood!” wrote Minnie Perez.

“G Bar was the first place where I felt included after coming out. Thank you for putting yourself on the line to create this wonderful space. I am grateful to know you, and I look forward to working with you to continue to create community and make waves,” wrote Darlene Hollander.

“Thank you for creating this and so sorry it has to end! My gf and I would drive down from West Palm sometimes on Saturday nights and it was so disappointing to see it empty week after week. Kudos to you for investing in spaces for us. It will be exciting to see what's next!” Stephanie B. wrote.

Serene Bar

Serene Bar

Location: Schwiebusser Str. 2, 10965 Berlin, Germany

Opened: ?

Closed: 2015





According to DJ Ena Lind, in a 2017 article called "Berlin's Lesbian Party Scene is Changing":

The last lesbian bar in Berlin, Serene Bar, closed two years ago.

That's all she says about it. The rest of the article is all about "inclusive" queer women party crap that only gets dumped on women, and never on men. (If women like Lind had any historical knowledge, they would know that this is not "radical," edgy or new, but the way most so-called womyn's space has operated in a patriarchal context. Even in the nineteenth century, women's cafe's and the like were always pressured to include male escorts and the like, in a way that men's spaces were not.)

Anyway, here is the description of Serene Bar from ellgeeBe: 

A lesbian institution near Tempelhoferfeld, Serene has a laid back atmosphere (you can dress down or dress up) and draws a middle-aged crowd. It's also one of the last outposts of 80s, New-Wave-Berlin style Stammdisco ("regulars' disco"), where the chart-hits come all evening and everybody knows your name.

And from The Rough Guide to Berlin: 

Great lesbian hangout, particularly on Sat when the big dance floor gets packed. The bar is used by many special interest groups as a meeting point: table tennis, amateur photography and so on. The entrance is a little tucked away down an alley. Tues 6pm until late, Wed & Thurs 8pm until late, Sat 10pm until late. 

A little depressing that the city where lesbian bars were once so strong almost 100 years ago now (!) [i.e. the Weimar era] are extinct--just as they are nearly everywhere else.