Transformation at the Triangle
For decades, a wedge along West Burnside has been a center of Portland's gay life. Will a wave of development change that?
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Stephen Beaven
The Oregonian
If you spread out a map and trace the black ribbon of West Burnside Street from the Willamette River to Southwest 12th Avenue and take a left, you'll find a scruffy, historically gay commercial district undergoing a facelift that would put Joan Rivers to shame.
A trendy hotel has opened on Stark Street, in the heart of what's known as the Burnside Triangle. Around the corner, a new movie theater feels more like home than a multiplex. A giant hole in the ground will soon sprout a 22-floor apartment and office tower, and a second tower nearby may soon throw shadows over all the fabulosity below. Plans call for a walkway north across Burnside to the rare air in the Pearl District.
All this comes at a cost, of course. Businesses catering to the gay community have moved or closed. Rising rents could force out others. And an area that gays and lesbians have embraced as their own is beginning to look like a "hot" neighborhood, with developers swooping in and outsiders following close behind them.
"We didn't bring a lot of money into this neighborhood," says David Fones, who works at Scandals, a gay bar on Stark Street. "But we made it fashionable. So now people are bringing the money in."
The redevelopment in the area has caused angst among some who fear its rich cultural past will be lost. But there's also a sense that the changes will provide the rest of the city with an open invitation to join gays and lesbians on their own turf.
"It allows the community to see people as themselves," says Douglas Neff, who works and socializes in the area. "There's no separation."
It's been called the Gay Triangle, the Burnside Triangle and the West End. The epicenter is the block bounded by 12th, Burnside and Stark. But with Burnside as its northern edge, the neighborhood is loosely defined as the area between Southwest Ninth Avenue, Washington Street and 14th Avenue, spreading south and east to cover about a dozen city blocks that for decades have housed social service agencies, the poor and a gay commercial center featuring clubs, restaurants and shops.
The neighborhood has been a meeting place for Portland's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community since at least the beginning of the 20th century and maybe earlier, according to a report completed in 2003 by the Burnside Triangle Advisory Group.
The group compiled the report for the City Council to aid planning and to help maintain the neighborhood's historic character. As part of the West End Development Plan, the city has promised the area's "continuation as a Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender friendly environment."
But city officials haven't always been so solicitous. The police targeted the area in the early and middle part of the century "to control the activities and suppress the civil rights of gays and lesbians," the report said. In 1912, it said, undercover officers working in the clubs arrested several prominent men on sodomy charges, though their convictions were later overturned by the state Supreme Court.
In the '70s, a gay business association called the Portland Town Council worked from the Burnside Triangle to bring civil rights protections to the gay and lesbian community.
And as the gay-rights movement evolved, the neighborhood grew as an entertainment district, especially for men. A string of bars and dance clubs, including CC Slaughter's, Scandals, the Silverado and Eagle PDX made Stark Street a one-stop social hub where gay men could be themselves.
It wasn't the only gay club scene in Portland, but it was the most prominent.
"It was convenient," says Walter Cole, aka Darcelle, who operates a storied drag club in Old Town. "You wouldn't have to spend all evening in one location. Just a few steps away was another doorway."
Many of the bars remain and the neighborhood maintains a gritty feel, thanks to low-income housing and landmark businesses such as Georgia's Grocery.
But upscale development is closing in from nearly every direction.
The Brewery Blocks sit on the northern edge. The city's retail core is expanding from the east. And a line of retail and residential projects is pushing up from the south. Combined, they've made the triangle and the area around it attractive slivers of dense commercial property, ripe for an overhaul.
Although there's not much publicly owned land in the area, the city and the Portland Development Commission have subsidized development in nearby neighborhoods, sparking the wave of private projects under way or in the planning stages, says Lew Bowers, a senior development manager at PDC.
The former Clyde Hotel was remodeled into the Ace Hotel, geared toward guests with a taste for good food, good wine and the arts.
Gerding Edlen Development is building a 22-floor office-apartment tower at 12th and Washington. The firm also plans to redevelop the building at 12th and Stark that houses Silverado and that until last summer held Club Portland, a gay bathhouse.
That building may be demolished and replaced with a tower with seven to 20 stories, says developer Mark Edlen. Or it may be renovated with an upscale restaurant on the ground floor. Either way, Silverado will move. The Living Room Theaters at 10th and Stark replaced a gay club called Panorama.
These are the kinds of changes that some in the gay community feared before the redevelopment began.
The neighborhood survey submitted to the City Council uncovered a concern that "people might want to 'straighten' things up to make it more sellable to a mainstream audience," says Melinda Marie Jette, who co-chaired the advisory group.
"When you do historic preservation, there's always the question of destruction and creation," says Jette, a former Portland resident who now teaches history at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire. "That certainly was our concern, that this would all be erased and the only goal would be to make money."
The survey found that many respondents didn't want anything changed, as well as a strong sentiment for public recognition of the area's history.
There's also the worry, say Fones and others, that gays and lesbians who remain in the closet will avoid the neighborhood, for fear of being outed, if more straight people show up.
For their part, the city and developers say they have no intention of breaking up the gay entertainment district or downplaying its cultural significance.
"I just don't think anybody is looking to do that," Edlen says.
Instead, he believes the redevelopment will open the doors to new businesses that will serve the gay community in different ways.
That's what Glen Dugger sees.
Dugger is the principal owner of Scandals and has owned clubs in the area since about 1980. The neighborhood's gay community "is firmly entrenched," he says. "That's not going to change."
Gay clubs remain, including the Red Cap Garage, Eagle PDX and Boxxes. The Ace and the Living Room Theaters are among gay-friendly new businesses.
Along with the construction crews and new businesses, there's also a new identity. The Burnside Triangle is still gay. But it's not the same down-at-the-heels neighborhood it used to be.
"This neighborhood, compared to 10 years ago, you don't have as many street people, you don't have the transients," says Dan Zilka, who owns a half-block of commercial property between Stark and Burnside.
"It's cleaner. It's different. It's not as ghetto-y as it once was."
Scandals, in many ways, reflects the new attitude on Stark Street. It moved to its current location in 2006 to make room for the Ace Hotel. It's an open, airy place, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the sidewalk. You might call it a "straight-friendly" club.
Fones says the neighborhood is less exclusive these days, and the need for segregated, clandestine gay bars has diminished. Gays and lesbians are welcome nearly everywhere in Portland and have several commercial districts where they can dance, have a drink and eat dinner. Opening up the neighborhood also gives the rest of the city a chance to experience gay culture close-up.
Still, the redevelopment of the Burnside Triangle doesn't mean the gay community is handing over the keys.
"Yes, the neighborhood is changing," Fones says. "But I don't think we're going to be disappearing."
Stephen Beaven: 503-294-7663;
stevebeaven@news.oregonian.com
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/o...660.xml&coll=7
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