The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, September 23

Jim Burroway

September 23rd, 2014

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From David, May 1972, page 17.

From David, May 1972, page 17.

When I go looking for information on a long-lost gay bar, the last place I expect to find it is Zillow. But lo and behold, there it is:

Originally a charming Victorian Age Carriage House, this property is most well-known as the previous location of long-time bar and nightclub the Napoleon Club, which existed on the site for over 40 years, from the 1950s until 1998, when the previous owner abruptly closed the door, forever. Although the fascinating history goes back even earlier as this site first opened as a speakeasy in 1929, called Nappies. The Napoleon Club was a Boston institution for many years and is now ready for a buyer of exquisite taste.

Keith Orr eulogized the bar’s closing in 1998:

Mind you, Napoleon’s was not so much a bar as it was a cocktail lounge, where drinks were served in real glass, patrons took the time to say hello to each other as they bellied up to the bar, and a dedicated group of regulars made the club as close to a gay version of Cheers as you could find. Many luminaries crossed the threshold, including Liza and Lorna’s mom, Judy; Liberace; and just about every chorus boy from every bus and truck show to set up camp in Boston’s Theater District.

For those of you who never had the pleasure, you missed out on one of the most amazing nocturnal experiences our little town had to offer. My favorite memory is from a night a couple of years ago. It was fairly early, before the evening crowd had arrived, and without any prompting, a fairly plain-looking guy in an Anderson Little suit moved from the bar and parked himself at the piano. Placing his drink atop a coaster, he launched into the most spirited rendition of “Oklahoma” that I have ever heard. I fully expected Shirley Jones to come around the corner in full costume to complete the scene. I imagined that he had just spent the whole day working downtown at a bank he managed, singing the song over and over to himself, and when that last teller cashed out, he beelined to Nappy’s to get it out of his system. And in true Napoleon’s tradition, the few patrons in the room either moved to join him around the piano or just smiled to themselves and sang along from their places at the bar.

The old club has been converted to a three bedroom, four bath, 2,400 square foot home that sold last summer for a cool $1.8 million.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
  Beacon Hill Resident Congratulates Beacon Hill for Its Tolerance: 1965. Residents of Boston’s historic Beacon Hill prided themselves on gentility, openness and tolerance, even as those virtues were being challenged in the tumultuous 1960s. And they had no compunction about patting themselves on their collective backs, as exemplified in a letter to the editor that was published in the September edition of the neighborhood’s newsletter, The Beacon Hill News:

The only people I would consider as being so-called undesirable elements are the “immature set”… The so-called odd-balls, beatniks, and homosexuals give the Hill the charm it has today, along with the elderly ladies and gentlemen who have been living in this area for so long.

It is amazing how the rich, poor, the young, old, the students, beatniks, and homosexuals can be so compatible within this little community in the heart of Boston. Eliminate the immature, who are included in all types, and you have the most prejudice-free community, where everyone minds his own business and lives side by side in almost complete harmony. This is an example of the way all communities should be in America. This is Beacon Hill. This is America.

I’m sure that those odd-ball students, beatniks and homosexuals may have had a considerably different perspective on their fellow neighbors’ tolerance, but the mere fact that a welcome mat for homosexuals could appear in the prestigious neighborhood’s newsletter (“Where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God”) ought to count for something.

[Source: “Cross-Currents” The Ladder (December 1965): 12.]

 

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
60 YEARS AGO: George C. Wolfe: 1954. The playwright and director grew up in Frankfort, Kentucky, where he first pursued his theater interests in high school. After college, he taught for several years in Los Angeles in New York, and earned an MFA in dramatic writing and musical theater at New York University. He began to gain national attention for the 1991 musical Jelly’s Last Jam, a story about jazz musician Jelly Roll Morton, which received eleven Tony nominations. In 1993, he directed Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, which won a Tony for best play that year. He also directed the sequel Perestroika the following year.

In 1995, Wolfe created Bring In ‘da Noise, Bring In ‘da Funk at the Off-Broadway New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, and took it to Broadway the following year. The musical tells the story, through tap dance, video montages, and commentary, of Black history from slavery to the present. The New York Times called it “beautiful and the dancing exuberant, but Funk is serious business, with vicious, funny send-ups of Uncle Tomism in Hollywood.” Bring In ‘da Noise received nine Tony nominations; the production won four Tony’s, including Wolfe’s for Best Direction of a Musical.

Wolfe continues to direct plays, including Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change and a 2011 Broadway revival of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, which won a Tony for Best Revival.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

FYoung

September 23rd, 2014

Chad becomes 37th African state to seek ban on homosexuality

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/22/chad-37th-african-state-seeking-ban-homosexuality

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