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Following the city’s recognition, the neighborhood was officially called the “Gayborhood” on major online maps, and it’s referred to as the Gayborhood by the city’s Office of LGBT Affairs.īut the neighborhood claimed its identity long before the name was official. It was recognized by the city in 2007, when Mayor John Street dedicated 36 rainbow street signs around the neighborhood-a number that has since almost doubled. The name “Gayborhood” was first used by a journalist to describe the area in 1995, around that year’s Outfest, an annual block party that celebrates the neighborhood and the LGBTQ community. The changes to the Gayborhood mean more residences, more retail, and more customers at small businesses, but they also raise concerns about identity and loss, as well as an important question for the LGBTQ community: What place do queer neighborhoods have in modern-day cities? History of the Gayborhood But as the neighborhood changes-with a new name, “Midtown Village,” and new projects like the $400 million retail and residential development, East Market-some longtime residents wonder if its first identity is in danger of slipping away.
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Those places were mostly found in the city’s Gayborhood, which was then full of LGBTQ-focused bars, restaurants, private clubs, and gathering spaces: safe havens for a group of people with few other spaces to call home. Instead, young queer Philadelphians had to call the community center to get information from the booklet about places to meet other members of the community. The cards, which date to the 1970s, tell the story of a more dangerous time for queer men and women-a time when gay-friendly resources, community centers, businesses, and bars weren’t listed in the yellow pages. Others list running groups for lesbians (“Frontrunners”) and bike groups for gay men. One card holds the number for a suicide hotline, another for a lawyer who specializes in helping gay men who are being blackmailed and harassed. The booklet, with cards directing young queer people to LGBTQ-focused spaces in and around the Gayborhood.