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1 Hanlan’s Point beach – Named after champion sculler Edward “Ned” Hanlan, aka “the boy in blue” (the short shorts and handlebar moustache should have been a dead giveaway), Hanlan’s has been a place of nude worship for gay men as long as anyone can remember. Scenes from Gordon Stewart Anderson’s powerful manuscript The Toronto You Are Leaving, which was published after his death, unfold here, describing the freewheeling 70s before AIDS.
2 Fly by Night (Filmore’s) – A backroom at the notorious Toronto strip club Filmore’s seems an unlikely place to plant the seeds of a lesbian rebellion. Then again, maybe not. The divine intervention here came from former-nun-turned-lesbo-activist Pat Murphy.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
3 David A. Balfour Park (Mt. Pleasant and Roxborough) – The densely treed slopes of David A. Balfour Park dive steeply, hiding in its bushy cathedral the romps of men hunting for sex with other men. On a steamy summer’s night, the trees groan and the ripples of water in the creek turn into a mighty rush.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
4 St. Charles Tavern (488 Yonge) – The Babel of its day, the St. Charles was a beacon for the fast-growing gay subculture and homophobes alike in the late 70s, the latter showing up on Halloween to pelt patrons with eggs and rotten fruit. Back then, the all-??lesbian Halloween Brigade acted as human shields to thwart the attacks. The Charles a catalyst for lesbo-??gay solidarity? Who knew.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
5 Glad Day Bookshop (598A Yonge) – A Yonge Street fixture and pioneering gay bookstore, the first of its kind in Canada, Glad Day has been at the forefront of gay lit and groundbreaking battles for freedom of sexual expression since the 70s. Political. Playful. Where else can you pick up a copy of The Big Penis Book?
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
6 AIDS Memorial (Cawthra Park) – When the design competition was launched in 1990 for the AIDS Memorial, the brainchild of Michael Lynch, the criteria spelled out that it “should in some way be able to function as a focus for public gatherings – in mourning, anger, celebration.” And it has, with locals growing to love a monument with so many sad stories to tell. Lynch’s poem Cry, published in the 1989 collection These Waves Of Dying Friends, anchors the installation. “Mourning through a city garden widens….”
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
7 Church of the Holy Trinity (Holy Trinity Square behind the Eaton Centre) – When benefactor Mary Lambert Swale of Yorkshire declared more than 160 years ago that the pews of the Church of the Holy Trinity should be “free and unappropriated forever,” little did she know that this 19th-??century Tudor-style church would become “the gate of homo heaven. “For gays coming out of the closet, dances at the church provided a haven. The first public meeting of the Community Homophile Association of Toronto also took place here in February 1971, with George Hislop presiding.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
8 Club Baths (231 Mutual) – The bathhouse raids of the early 80s marked a turning point in gay liberation in Toronto. Club Steam was there, one of four raided by police. Almost two decades later, the bust of the Women’s Bathhouse Committee, aka the Pussy Palace raid, took place here. Cops had to apologize. But Club makes no apologies, flying a rainbow flag from its rooftop.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
9 The Albany (91 King East) – Private club for Tory backroom boys founded by Sir John A. MacDonald and frequented by gays in early 80s when Laura Branigan’s Gloria was at the top of the charts. Gay author and activist Rick Bebout opens a chapter in his online memoir, Promiscuous Affections, at the Albany. In a letter to Jane Rule, Bebout ponders the club’s “euphoric, mindless, joyous being together” amidst the emerging AIDS scare.
Photo By Michael Stuparyk /CP Photo
10 King Edward Hotel (37 King East)– What is it about gays and piano bars? The scandal sheets of the 50s often mention the costumed fun and frolics at King Eddy’s, a decorous place that attracted gays, transsexuals and anyone in pursuit of a sex-??soaked dressy affair. Stories of bathroom sex were as frequent in the tabloids as sightings of Noel Coward.
enzom@nowtoronto.com
