Gaybats

There used to be a nightclub on Belmont Street in Chicago tucked between a grilled cheese restaurant and cellphone repair shop. The windows were blacked out and featured authentic art, the facade was adorned in black and white tiles, and flamboyant queens often — and rightfully so — skipped the long line that backed up under the train tracks of the L’s Belmont Station. The interior was exceptionally obscure, the walls painted inky and the accent lights deep shades of indigo and crimson. There were three bars, the biggest of which ran the entire length of the right-side wall and featured above it a big mural of elegant partygoers, clad in tuxedos and ballgowns and sipping from coupe glasses. There were, of course, several shirtless, muscular men painted into the scene as good. They didn’t serve as a juxtaposition though; the big gay party in the painting intimated the energy of the year-old bar it presided over.

This alternative, loud, bawdy room was Chicago’s legendary Berlin Nightclub. It was a venue dedicated to welcoming the new, especially in the form of exist performance. Without q