Happy Holidays

I'll have some new stuff up first week of January.

Grant

1000!

I don't know if this breaks blog decorum, but OQH just went past 100 hits, way more than I ever expected to get! So to the hundred or so folks that have looked at this site 10 times (at least that's what I figure), thanks.

Grant.

Sketchy bars

Last week, I was interviewing Charles. He was talking about the Lord Elgin, what it was like there, to drink and to try and court someone there. Fascinating stuff. At one point he was describing the layout of the lower level bar (the name of which I now know but have forgotten, but at least I have it recorded!) and I thought I'd try out something I've read about people doing, but hadn't done yet; I asked Charles if he could draw the space for me. This is what I got:

I may not seem like much, and the top part of it did not scan (which shows that Elgin street ran along the top of the page), but It was great to be able to visualize the layout of the tables, the two swinging doors to the top of the picture, and the small door to the right of the room where the waiters came out of with drinks (there was no bar in the room). At the bottom of the drawing is the jukebox: it's the square marked with the X. The four squares in the picture are pillars, which apparently made sight lines difficult and selecting your table to look at the people coming in, or the person you found really hot, crucial. According to Charles, one did a circuit around the bar before you picked a table; luckily the layout allowed for this.
So now I can conceptualize the space a lot better, which is the strength of asking folks to do these. Although the map is not great, and does not hint at it's size or atmosphere, I have something, and with a lack of photos at this point, it is better than nothing. I email Charles afterwards to ask him about the color or the walls, ceiling height, etc.. and this is what he replied (thanks Charles):

"If my memory is correct, the walls were beige and there was dark wood railings and cross pieces (in the form of a large horizantal 'X' in the wainscotting part (i.e. lower third of the wall). The place was lit with 'ranch style' chandeliers with, along with the woodwork gave it a definite western feeling. I think the floor was carpeted in brown low cut (industrial style) carpeting but I'm not 100% sure on that..."

Underneath is another quick sketch, this of a bar in Hull called Sacks (sic?) that was one of the earliest and best disco bars of its time - late 70's- if I recall Charles interview correctly. I have to look it up. The circle was the stainless-steel dance floor, while the rectangle is the bar that had a few stools next to it. Apparently in the basement (again) and it was small, so small that it didn't have tables, and no divisions between dancefloor and the rest of the bar. Charles recalls this as a good thing, since the place was so small, people would end up dancing all over the place, not just on the steel. Compared to the formalized space of the L.E. I can see why this place was so busy!
Naturally I don't know how solid Charles memory is, but it's all I have so far. Does anyone see anything wrong with these sketches?

OQH and Archives Carleton: A home for your queer stuff.

One of the goals of my master’s thesis On Ottawa’s Queer History is to find a place that would be able to store and preserve the writings and interviews that my thesis will generate and the historic materials that I hopefully will encounter as I meet and talk to members of Ottawa’s queer community. Some of the individuals I have chatted with have made their preferences clear, that they would rather have their documents and materials kept in Ottawa than shipped to the archives in Toronto or elsewhere. On top of that, I hoped to find a place that would make the materials as accessible to the community as possible, and not keep them stored in a dusty vault, away from the people who created them.

Last month, I exchanged emails with Patti Harper and Lloyd Keane, who run Carleton University’s Archives and Research Center (ARC), located in MacOdrum Library. They were referred to me by my supervisor, Patrizia Gentile, as a possible institution that would be a match for these demands of security, accessibility and community interaction. I am happy to say it seems like I have a winner!

I sat down with Lloyd one afternoon to see what ARC could offer. I was pretty happy with what I heard. ARC wants to start an Ottawa queer archive and see an Ottawa queer archive as a research collection open to both academics and the larger Ottawa community to use. Lloyd stressed that ARC wants to collaborate with the local community and with other GLBTQ archives and centers to promote the archive. An example of this philosophy is that digital records could be referenced and shared with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto, or Western university’s GLBT centre. Another example of outreach would be the staging of exhibits and events based on the materials collected to which the queer community would be encouraged not only to attend, but to participate in as well. That said, Lloyd stressed to me that ARC is an archive, so while ARC ensures 100% reference accessibility, books and material cannot be loaned out like in a library. Furthermore, once material is donated, it becomes property of the archives so they can do what they can to preserve the materials.

ARC has a lot to offer in terms of support, especially for larger or more fragile collections. Staff can help you process materials before pick up, and can come and collect whatever boxes you have. Once they do, the materials will be reboxed into archives-quality containers. Then over a short amount of time (depending on the size of the collection, but quicker than a larger archive) each item entered into an online database. Materials that are fragile will be protected and/or digitized.

Finally, what sealed it for me is that as part of the university library system, ARC has access to plenty of space, and has steady funding not only for archiving, but for adding rare books on queer history and theory to their collection supplementing the donated data.

If you have any questions or would like to reach ARC in person please contact me through my email (gburke@connect.carleton.ca) or contact:

Patti Harper, Department Head, Archives and Research Collections

Or

Lloyd Keane, Ph.D., Archives and Rare Book Coordinator, at:

Archives and Research Collections

MacOdrum Library

Room 503

Carleton University

1125 Colonel By Drive

Ottawa ON K1S 5B6

http://arc.library.carleton.ca/

Tel: 613-520-2600 x 2739

Fax: 613-520-5600

Thanks for reading, and please donate!

Grant Burke, researcher, Ottawa Queer History.

Submission!

A little while ago I created an online questionnaire for anyone who wanted to participate, but did not want to be interviewd for my thesis. Frankly, I didn't know if I would ever get one reply from it but thought i should avail myself of as many tools as possible.

I am happy to say that I got one! Huzzah for me! But more important huzzah to "Abe" (totally an alias) for taking the time out to respond! Here are a few exerts, and if you want to see/fill in the questioniare, scroll through the previous posts until you come the one call "questionnaire."


And now, here's "Abe", How many people recall places like Pips, The Vault, and Daphne and Victor's? I have never heard of them. I'd love to hear for people out there reading this, of if you feel like filling out the questionnaire, please do!



ME-How would you describe it as a place for a GLBT person to live?
ABE: OK. There have always been a lot of closeted people in Ottawa, who leave the city to "have their fun". Ever notice how the gay population seems to drop on any long weekend? With Montreal so close, people in the Ottawa LGBT "communities" often go elsewhere to let their hair down. Honestly, there were more places to go out to in Ottawa/Hull in the 80's than there are now. There was also more of a community feeling. Gay social spaces were more mixed. Less "competitive". It wasn't about having the perfect body. People seemed generally more friendly and human/humane. Everything seemed more "innocent", less "corporate". I guess the "gay dollar" hadn't been discovered yet by marketers.

ME-How would you describe Ottawa’s GLBT community, if you were/are a part of it?

Abe: I don't like the word "community" as it implies homogeneity. There is no one LGBT community - anywhere. We are many communities. Ottawa's seems small, because many people keep to themselves and lead more quiet lives.

ME: Please list 5-10 of your favorite queer places in Ottawa over the time you have (try to date the span of time you frequented the places. They can be whatever sort of places you thought of as queer: bars, baths, parks, bookstores, tearooms, community events, etc…

Abe: The Vault and Shades on Laurier W, Club 100/101? on Metcalfe at Slater (on the ground floor of the same building my father worked in!!!) It was a coffee shop in the day and a gay club in the evening. 166-B on Laurier (that place was a dump). Pips in the Market Square. Taktiks on York Street. Daphne and Victors on William. Coral Reef in the basement of the parking garage on Nicholas (behind what used to be Ogilvy's department store), Le Club, Le Pub, Club Zink in Hull. What was first known as Central Park (now CP on Somerset). A zillion places to have sex - University of Ottawa, 240 Sparks, Rideau Centre, The Bay on Rideau, Place du Portage in Hull, Majors Hill Park (before the National Gallery was built), L'Esplanade Laurier, Carleton University, any mall or shopping plaza in the city including on the Quebec side, what used to be the Holiday Inn and also what used the be the Skyline Hotel at Place de Ville, Place de Ville too, Place Bell, some of the shopping arcades that used to be along Sparks Street. This was all before major police crackdowns on sex in more public spaces (hangover from the 70's? before HIV/AIDS?) and also before the phone lines and the internet. The nudest area at Meech Lake. I didn't "do the canal" but it was a popular cruising spot. I actually lived for a short while in a basement apartment on Gilmour, near the Canal, but wasn't really in to cruising at that time as I had broken up temporarily with my partner. Of course my friends would never believe that I didn't take advantage of all the action outside my door - and the cars would circle the block all night long! lol) I was more pissed off by the lights that kept shining in my window.

Introducing Michael.

He has some great memories, especially about coming out, which he graciously shared with me. Imagine coming out in letters nowadays? So inefficient, but he had his reasons.

Does anyone remember the space he is talking about in the video?