![]() When nobody thought Chelsea could be out-gayed, gay men and women started heading north where they essentially founded Hell’s Kitchen at the turn of the 21st century. No other neighborhood was more gay-approved, though Chelsea’s strength became its weakness: the neighborhood was getting crowded, commercialized, and too expensive for longtime residents. Through the decades, gay bars continued to open, like Splash, Barracuda, and G Lounge, and modern, gay-owned boutiques like Malin + Goetz started replacing ubiquitous sex shops. You could eat, party, cruise and live here there was no reason to leave this cozy utopia. Chelsea became a wonderful bubble for the gay community, and no one could pop it. Rent was considerably cheaper than the popular, next-door neighborhood of the West Village, and gay-owned shops eventually opened along Eighth Avenue. It was home to a handful of gay bars like The Eagle and The Spike, as well as one of the first known gay dance clubs, Seventeenth Saloon, where an eclectic range of gay men mingled. ![]() In the mid-1970s, the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan was considered one of the safest places in America for the LGBT community.
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