In only a matter of weeks, the campaign raised $165,000. He was on the brink of ending his lease, he said, when donations suddenly surged.
(Courtesy Alibi Lounge)ĭesperate for assistance, Minko reluctantly set up an online fundraising campaign for his bar. Owner Alexi Minko in his bar, Alibi Lounge, in Harlem. Club Langston in Brooklyn closed last year after nearly two decades in business. Of the city’s dozens of remaining gay bars, just two - Lambda Lounge and Alibi Lounge, both in Harlem - are known to be Black owned. Though the reasons are not entirely clear, experts suspect the overall decline in gay bars is related to decades of skyrocketing rents and gentrification, which have disproportionately impacted small, Black-owned businesses the emergence of online dating sites and apps and circuit parties that rotate among venues, which have become increasingly popular among younger crowds.Īccording to online listings, there are more than 60 LGBTQ bars across the five boroughs of New York City, one of the metropolitan areas hardest hit by the pandemic, and many of these spaces are struggling to stay open. The closures have had a disproportionate impact on bars catering to women and people of color: Between 20, LGBTQ bar listings dropped by an estimated 37 percent, and those serving people of color plummeted by almost 60 percent, according to the study.
