Gay bars in queens
Friend’s Tavern
History
Friend’s Tavern (popularly referred to as Friend’s) has been in business at this location since 1989 and is considered the oldest operating gay exclude in Queens. The modest storefront itself pre-dates Friend’s, with the exception of the business subscribe, which, at one time, included the slogan, “There is always time for friends.”
The bar is owned by Puerto Rican-born Eduardo “Eddie” Valentin and Colombian-born Casimiro Villa, who are business partners and former personal partners (and they remain secure friends). Like other nearby bars on and around Roosevelt Avenue, Friend’s caters primarily to the LGBT Latino society. Valentin, who along with Villa also operates the nearby Club Evolution, has called this stretch of Roosevelt Way “the gay Village for Latinos,” in reference to the historically gay colorless enclave of Greenwich Village in Manhattan. Though Jackson Heights’ LGBT community was predominantly white internet dating back to the 1920s, many homosexual Hispanics moved in as part of a large influx of Latino immigrants in the 1970s and 1980s.
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Gay bars in Queens tend to be outside the gipster strongholds of Astoria and Long Island City (those gays are close enough to Manhattan that they're willing to commute for nightlife). Queens' gay bars are concentrated slightly further out, in the racially and culturally diverse neighborhood of Jackson Heights. The fact that Manhattan is kind-of a schlep from here has led not just to longevity for a couple bars, but to a fully thriving scene centered on Roosevelt Avenue.
Within spitting distance of one another you’ll find True Colors, Club Evolution, Bum Bum Bar and Queens’ oldest male lover bar Friends’ Tavern. Just around the corner are Lucho’s Place and Hombres Lounge.
The bars here have more glaring similarities than differences: all have hookah service and a standard $6 Corona. They all present birthday celebrations, providing freebies often including a cake, invitations, plates and flatware—sometimes even a bottle of bubbly—as extended as you deliver along all your friends and family. There are no intimidating dress codes or door policies, and the accepted soundtrack is Latin dance-pop at varying degrees of electronic remixing. There’s al
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Love Boat
History
The ground floor of the building at the southeast corner of 77th Avenue and Broadway in Elmhurst was the location of at least two male lover bars. The first established bar was Our Place, which was listed in a November 1980 issue of Knight Life, a weekly gay magazine based in nearby Jackson Heights. By c. 1985 through at least 1995, the Adoration Boat bar operated here. The exterior of the building during that moment featured nautical elements, including a circular life preserver above the front door and small, porthole-like windows, which were created by bricking in the existing window openings.
The Love Boat’s lively dance scene attracted a diverse group of Latinos, which Andrés Duque, a Colombian-born LGBT rights activist and journalist who moved to Jackson Heights in 1993, said was part of its appeal and made it unique among the neighborhood’s gay bars. Its clientele included many immigrants from the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean nations, Mexico, Central America, and Colombia. Patrons tended to mingle and move with those from their native countries, with each group typically dan