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The Lord Elgin turns 75 this year, and doesn’t the old doll hide a few polished pearls behind the ageless grey face and royal lineage?
The landmark hotel — Mackenzie King’s limestone aspiration — was for many years home to a gay bar, in an era when, officially, there were no gay bars because, legally, there were no gay men.
But the nameless beer hall sure existed, so much so that historians — scholarly or first-hand — say the basement bar was part of the city’s gay tapestry during a period of tectonic social change in Ottawa, if not all of Canada.
The bar, after all, was thriving in a period when admitted homosexuality could get you fired, jailed, publicly shamed and even shunned by your own family.
In fact, authors Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile open their book, The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, with a story that today sounds hard to believe.
But a gay man named David is describing being in the bar — nicknamed “the LE” — in 1964. Downtown Ottawa is full of criss-crossing military men, based a block away, and the Cold War is on, all shadows and whispers.
LE regulars knew a cop when they saw one, and here is an RCMP undercover man sitting in a chair, holding up a newspaper, like a scene from a bad movie. (The hidden face always a giveaway.)
David and others swore these secret agent types were taking photographs with hidden cameras on the inside, or staking out the doors outside, from a parked car. The book relates how gay men would later be contacted by the police and, more than anything, asked to give up names of their gay friends, so that master lists could be created.
In the 1970s, the gay rights movement began to galvanize. Gays of Ottawa (1971) became prominent, there were demonstrations on Parliament Hill and activists often met at the Lord Elgin.
A gay rights march is held on Parliament Hill in 1979.
“I think this is part of what is nationally significant about this (hotel),” says Randy Boswell, a Carleton University journalism professor and author of a new book about the early years of the Lord Elgin, named for a governor general (1847-1854).
“It is mentioned over and over again by various scholars as one of the earliest safe places to socialize for gay people in Canada.” Adds Boswell, a longtime Citizen writer: “In my view, it’s a badge of honour for the hotel.”
Ottawa resident John Duggan, 66, remembers going to the Lord Elgin during the 1970s. “It was a place where self-accepting gay men could meet other self-accepting gay men. It wasn’t like other taverns or bars where you had to hide who you were.”
The 1970s, of course, was a time when sexual discrimination was normal, if not encouraged, and authorities “cracked down” on gathering places like bathhouses. Neither forgotten in the local chronology is the famous “vice ring” bust in 1975 that resulted in the publication of names of men accused in a supposedly “sordid” escort club.
One public servant living in Nepean, Warren Zufelt, jumped to his death with the public exposure. Shame was heaped on police and newspaper editors. Homosexuality may have been decriminalized in 1969, but evidently there was lots of bias and phobia to work out.
“A lot of people lived in fear of being found out,” said Duggan, a longtime activist. “It wasn’t only your job and career you had to worry about. In some cases, it was your family, your extended family. It was a very heavy thing.”
He remembers the strangely bright lights at the LE, which had a jukebox and benches along the walls.
“After I’d been there a couple of times, I asked why it was bright in there. I was told, ‘They’re afraid if they dim the lighting, it might encourage us.'” (A Citizen story in 1981 said there was frequent sex in the bar’s washrooms, but our scribe’s sources sounded iffy.)
Barry Deeprose, 73, arrived in town in time for the early struggle for gay rights and acceptance.
“Ottawa was very closeted,” he said of the mid-’70s. “The LE is where the more out and radicals went to drink. It was where people went to socialize and strategize and cruise, to be quite frank.”
He has no doubt the RCMP were spying on gay men, and points to hundreds, if not thousands of names that went on a security list, often with serious consequences.
The bar closed in about 1981. The space, ironically perhaps, was converted to meeting rooms, sometimes booked by the federal public service.
The Lord Elgin’s anniversary commemorations culminate on July 19, the official opening day in 1941. The Capital Pride festival, meanwhile, turned 30 in 2015.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
The landmark hotel — Mackenzie King’s limestone aspiration — was for many years home to a gay bar, in an era when, officially, there were no gay bars because, legally, there were no gay men.
But the nameless beer hall sure existed, so much so that historians — scholarly or first-hand — say the basement bar was part of the city’s gay tapestry during a period of tectonic social change in Ottawa, if not all of Canada.
The bar, after all, was thriving in a period when admitted homosexuality could get you fired, jailed, publicly shamed and even shunned by your own family.
In fact, authors Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile open their book, The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation, with a story that today sounds hard to believe.
But a gay man named David is describing being in the bar — nicknamed “the LE” — in 1964. Downtown Ottawa is full of criss-crossing military men, based a block away, and the Cold War is on, all shadows and whispers.
LE regulars knew a cop when they saw one, and here is an RCMP undercover man sitting in a chair, holding up a newspaper, like a scene from a bad movie. (The hidden face always a giveaway.)
David and others swore these secret agent types were taking photographs with hidden cameras on the inside, or staking out the doors outside, from a parked car. The book relates how gay men would later be contacted by the police and, more than anything, asked to give up names of their gay friends, so that master lists could be created.
In the 1970s, the gay rights movement began to galvanize. Gays of Ottawa (1971) became prominent, there were demonstrations on Parliament Hill and activists often met at the Lord Elgin.
A gay rights march is held on Parliament Hill in 1979.
“I think this is part of what is nationally significant about this (hotel),” says Randy Boswell, a Carleton University journalism professor and author of a new book about the early years of the Lord Elgin, named for a governor general (1847-1854).
“It is mentioned over and over again by various scholars as one of the earliest safe places to socialize for gay people in Canada.” Adds Boswell, a longtime Citizen writer: “In my view, it’s a badge of honour for the hotel.”
Ottawa resident John Duggan, 66, remembers going to the Lord Elgin during the 1970s. “It was a place where self-accepting gay men could meet other self-accepting gay men. It wasn’t like other taverns or bars where you had to hide who you were.”
The 1970s, of course, was a time when sexual discrimination was normal, if not encouraged, and authorities “cracked down” on gathering places like bathhouses. Neither forgotten in the local chronology is the famous “vice ring” bust in 1975 that resulted in the publication of names of men accused in a supposedly “sordid” escort club.
One public servant living in Nepean, Warren Zufelt, jumped to his death with the public exposure. Shame was heaped on police and newspaper editors. Homosexuality may have been decriminalized in 1969, but evidently there was lots of bias and phobia to work out.
“A lot of people lived in fear of being found out,” said Duggan, a longtime activist. “It wasn’t only your job and career you had to worry about. In some cases, it was your family, your extended family. It was a very heavy thing.”
He remembers the strangely bright lights at the LE, which had a jukebox and benches along the walls.
“After I’d been there a couple of times, I asked why it was bright in there. I was told, ‘They’re afraid if they dim the lighting, it might encourage us.'” (A Citizen story in 1981 said there was frequent sex in the bar’s washrooms, but our scribe’s sources sounded iffy.)
Barry Deeprose, 73, arrived in town in time for the early struggle for gay rights and acceptance.
“Ottawa was very closeted,” he said of the mid-’70s. “The LE is where the more out and radicals went to drink. It was where people went to socialize and strategize and cruise, to be quite frank.”
He has no doubt the RCMP were spying on gay men, and points to hundreds, if not thousands of names that went on a security list, often with serious consequences.
The bar closed in about 1981. The space, ironically perhaps, was converted to meeting rooms, sometimes booked by the federal public service.
The Lord Elgin’s anniversary commemorations culminate on July 19, the official opening day in 1941. The Capital Pride festival, meanwhile, turned 30 in 2015.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn
查看原文...
