Gay clubs in indianapolis indiana
Indy Pride weekend is here - where's the afterparty?
Across the city, the gay community has historically utilized bars and event spaces as life-saving sanctuaries for self-expression. There’s a small something for everyone!
Photo: Metro Nightclub
Metro Nightclub & Restaurant
Mass Ave | Massachusetts Ave
Located right on Mass Ave, Metro offers great sustenance, dancing, and outdoor seating. Pregame your night out with a bite to eat or dance all night until the lights come on, either way the musics great so you'll never have a bad time.
Photo: Tini
Tini
Mass Ave | Massachusetts Ave
Metro's next-door neighbor is also an LGBTQ+ nightclub called Tini! With a slightly smaller downstairs bar and sway floor upstairs, the chances of running into your ex here triples.
Downtown Olly's
Downtown | N Illinois St.
Downtown Olly's used to be open 24/7, but now you can enjoy it from 7AM - 3AM daily. Their patio is the spot to be in June with events going on all the time!
Photo: Visit Indy
Gregs
Herron Morton | When I began Queer Circle City, my mission was to connect the group to people, places and events in our history. What I am constantly amazed by are the places that offered a safe space, education or simply a dance floor in the midst of 20th century homophobia or during the onset of the AIDS epidemic. These five places existed in those times. From a Victorian house in the Vintage Northside to a bathhouse blocks away from the Indiana Statehouse, the bygone locations not only stood as a testament to the LGBTQIA+ community, they were instrumental to our basic survival and a blueprint to understand our rich, indelible history. From The Body Works was started by Stan Berg in late , blocks away from the Statehouse. The simple bathhouse quickly grew into a vinyl store, bookstore, discotheque and hub for THE WORKS magazine (). Berg was a force of nature in the LGBTQIA+ community, splitting his endeavors between The Body Works and advocacy outside of its walls, such as Gay Knights on The Circle, which promoted an end to police harassment of gay Indianapolis businesses that cater directly to the LGBTQ+ community provide performance opportunities for artists, such as drag performers and DJs, good diet and drinks, and safe spaces to gather. Gay bars and restaurants are important because, in establishments made without gender non-conforming people in consciousness, they may touch out of place or even be harassed, said James Alexander, assistant general manager at Almost Famous and a manager at Tini. Gay bars offer LGBTQ+ society members a place to go in which they can be comfortable and treated as humans, they said. It’s key that these spaces remain open, as a business and to the common, so people in and outside of the LGBTQ+ community can enjoy the bars and experience homosexual culture, said Alexander, stage name Duchess Morningstar. “There are people that haven’t arrive out yet or don’t know anything about that and they can just walk off of the street,” they said. These are establishments in Indianapolis which cater directly to the Diverse community: Located at E. 16th Street, Gregs is one of the most popular gay bars in Indianapolis and is a frequent stage for drag performances. Indianapolis has had roughly fifty gay bars in the last few decades, according to new information gathered by Indiana Landmarks. It is difficult to identify gay bars because many of them include kept very low profiles, sometimes with shuttered windows and limited publicity, because of anti-LGBT+ policies and public opinion. Some last concealed to this day, despite changing attitudes. While Gregs does not draw attention to itself as a public space, it has a very public profile and presence in the town today. The Beginning of Gregs Gregs first opened on July 1, , as the Wawasee Tavern. In , Phil Denton purchased the bar and changed the name to Our Place. Denton transformed the space, which hosted several Leather and Bear Clubs, subcultures within the LGBT+ group known for their hyper-masculine image. The bar also hosted the T.G.I.F. Bowling Classic, the Circle City/Indy Cup Volleyball Tournament, the Halloween Bag Ladies bus tour and coronation, a
1. The Body Works, N. Senate Ave.
Indianapolis gay bars: 7 spaces made for the LGBTQ+ community