Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, August 25

TODAY’S AGENDA is brought to you by:

From Arizona Gay News October 5, 1978, page 14.

As a rule, I try to avoid posting an ad from the same city on two consecutive days, but this one was worth mentioning after yesterday’s post which touched on a terrible rash of anti-gay violence taking place in Phoenix in 1978, amid national anti-gay acrimony being stirred up by various anti-gay political campaigns inspired by Anita Bryant and the contentious debate over the Briggs Amendment that was just then taking place across Arizona’s western border in California. At least three serious anti-gay assaults had taken place in Phoenix in late July, and a gay bar hosted a fundraiser to cover some of the medical costs facing a 22-year-old gay man who was assaulted while leaving the 307 bar. Any hopes at that fundraiser that the spate of violence had come to an end were quickly dashed, as the Tucson-based Arizona Gay News reported on August 25:

Double Killing on Phoenix

Two men were found shot to death in the parking lot of a Phoenix gay bar. At presstime, it was not known whether either man’s death was gay oriented. Phoenix detective Mike Grant said the unidentified men were found dead early Monday morning at the edge of the parking area outside the 307 Lounge.

An officer checking a report of shots in the area found the bodies. The officer had seen a man running, followed, and discovered the bodies. Investigators said the running man had no apparent connection with the slayings. Police were using fingerprints in an attempt to identify the bodies.

I’ve not been able to find any further follow-up information on those murders.

It was not immediately obvious how the bar, located at 222 E. Roosevelt Street in downtown Phoenix got to be named the 3-0-7. It turns out that its original location was apparently located down the block at 307 E. Roosevelt before that section of the street was widened and the original bar closed down. Mark Suever tracked down some of the bar’s origins:

When S.W. Hubbard purchased it, the name was “Roy’s 307 Buffet”. Phone directories from the late 40’s and 50’s listed it as just “Three-O-Seven Buffet”, later it was changed to “Hubbard’s Three-O-Seven”. The name was changed once more to Palmer’s 307 when it was purchased by Palmer E. Ganske. In 1981 Ganske sold the bar for $40,000 to Jerry L. Graham, dba Little Jim’s 307. Little Jim’s was a gay bar chain that included Little Jim’s Chicago and another one in Florida.

The 3-0-7 was Phoenix’s oldest gay bar when it finally closed in 2000, leaving behind a history as a gay bar that appears to to have gone back as far back as the 1940s. In the sixties and seventies, the entire neighborhood was known for its hustlers and rough trade. When the bar finally closed in 2000, the owners told the Phoenix New Times that they would be opening back up in a new, larger location on North Central near two other popular gay bars. Plans were for the new location included operating as an after-hours club with a restaurant located next door. But for whatever reason those plans never came to fruition, and the 3-0-7 wound up being closed for good. The building on Roosevelt was later done-up nicely where it is now home to an artsy boutique and gallery.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
► Leonard Bernstein: 1918-1990. When he died only five days after announcing his retirement in 1990, the New York Times lionized him as “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.” He became instantly famous in 1943 when he stepped in at the last minute — unrehearsed — to conduct the New York Philharmonic when conductor Bruno Walter fell ill. That concert at Carnegie Hall was nationally broadcast, and it led to guest conductor engagements around the country. In 1947 he conducted a complete Boston Symphony concert in Carnegie Hall, the first time that orchestra had allowed a guest to do so in 22 years. In 1953 he became the first American-born conductor to conduct an opera at Milan’s famed La Scala. When he was named the New York Philharmonic’s musical director in 1958, he became the youngest person to fill that role in the orchestra’s history.

Bernstein was also the first conductor to give numerous television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954, continuing until his death. Meanwhile, he also achieved popular success with his many compositions, including three symphonies, ballets and operas; his Mass; and music for such Broadway hits as Candide, On the Town, and most famously, West Side Story.

Bernstein conducting the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, 1970.

Bernstein was known for both his punishing schedule and his highly animated conducting style. One legendary story has it that at his first rehearsal as guest conductor for the St. Louis Symphony, his initial downbeat was so dramatic that the startled musicians simply stared in amazement and made no sound. In 1982 Bernstein fell off the podium while conducting the Houston Symphony, and he did it again in 1984 while leading the Vienna Philharmonic in Chicago.

Bernstein married Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn in 1951. and although they had three children, the marriage didn’t seem to fool anyone. It did somehow last some 25 years before embarking on a kind of a “trial separation” where they continued to appear together at his performances. She died in 1978. Bernstein’s homosexuality, often rumored throughout his life, became public knowledge with the 1987 publication of Joan Peyser’s Bernstein: A Biography. Arthur Laurents, Bernstein’s collaborator in West Side Story, said simply that Bernstein was “a gay man who got married. He wasn’t conflicted about it at all. He was just gay.”

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?