Binghamton, NY (area)
Looking back, it seems like I was in Binghamton for a fairly long period -- probably because those were key years in terms of developing a sense of who I was. But, I actually only lived there for about two years during the period from August '73 to December '75. However, I developed strong friends there that were important mentors in my development both as a gay man and my early development as a scholar.
| While these buildings
may look unremarkable to most people, the green building was particularly
remarkable for me -- it was the home of the Cadillac bar, the only gay bar
in Binghamton when I came out in '73. It was actually a straight
friend who first took me there, but once I became comfortable going on my
own it became my community center for the next few years. It was what was then a fairly traditional gay bar with many customers being closeted. In fact, most people didn't actually use the front door of the bar, but went in and out the back door where there was almost no risk of being seen by anyone. It was mostly us college students who were becoming activists, who used the front door... |
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The next most important place for me in Binghamton was the public library. For most of the time that I lived there I worked at the library and the friendships with co-workers made it into sort of a second home. |
| Downtown Binghamton is small, bounded by the Susquehanna river on the south and the Chenango river to the west. Climbing out of the river valleys, you're quickly in fairly dense forest. |
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In the later 70's a second gay bar opened in Binghamton (at the rainbow flag in the picture). It was bigger, had a bigger dance area, and seemed to fit better with the new generation of gays who were more open. Not long after it opened, the Cadillac closed. I don't recall the bar's name when it first opened, but it is still a gay bar and now called Merlin's. |
| Most of downtown and in
quite a bit of the surrounding areas are retail and factory buildings built
in the late 1800's and early 1900's. When I was there in the 70's
there was an effort to encourage business in those buildings, but it didn't
seem very successful. On my visit in August, 2007, the conditions didn't
seem to have changed very much -- many buildings appeared to have relatively
successful retail businesses on the first floor and many empty spaces above.
It is always disheartening to me, to see the dramatic architecture from those earlier eras being unused -- but that seems to be just part of the business cycle. The next several photos on this and the next page are of various buildings downtown. |
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| The brown building towards the center of the picture is a good example of what happened all too often in the 60's and 70's -- putting a modern facade on an older to make it more marketable. This example is surprisingly odd, since usually there was more of an effort to try to hide the age of the building. The blue building on the right side of the picture was a very nice restoration that seemed to be occupied on most floors. |
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