As the City of San Antonio seeks to document the cultural landscape of North Main Avenue, known as the “gay strip,” local residents want the city to respect all of its history, including the parts that have been censored.
The city first announced its intention to designate the gay strip as a heritage site last year, and the city’s Historic Preservation Office is currently working through the process, recording oral histories and public feedback over three meetings.
About a dozen people attended a community meeting organized by the city Thursday evening, where they emphasized that the cultural heritage of this stretch of Main Street is built on historical context going back decades.
Historic Preservation Office staff took notes and pointed local residents to existing resources where they can make sure their history is documented, including the city’s Legacy Businesses program, the There’s A Story Here program and History Here Markers.
“What’s going on right now in the city of San Antonio is very unique in that we have had so much support from the City Council, the police department and so many people in other parts of the city,” said Philippe Barcena, president of Pride SA, which has organized the annual Pride parade on North Main Avenue for 22 years.
The petition calling for the city to designate the gay strip as a heritage district was filed by 1st District City Councilman Suk Kaur and 2nd District City Councilman Jalen Mackey Rodriguez. Mackey Rodriguez became the first openly gay man elected to the City Council in 2021. Mackey Rodriguez is also the first Black gay man elected to public office in the state of Texas.
Heritage Districts are neighborhood designations designed to highlight areas and recognize their cultural importance, discourage demolition, identify potential historic resources, and promote neighborhood pride and economic prosperity.
“The police and the city may be cooperative now, but that wasn’t the case in the past,” said Graciela Sanchez, executive director of the Esperanza Center for Peace and Justice, which filed a lawsuit in 2000 over public arts budget cuts to the city’s visual arts program.
In the 90s, Esperanza hosted visual art shows about AIDS and gay and lesbian art shows at a time when it was difficult for people to be open about their identities because they were not accepted unless they conformed to the norm.
Sanchez added that in 2020, an art exhibit by Suzy Gonzalez and Michael Menchanca called “XicanX: New Visions” at the Centro de Artes Gallery was censored because of a video by Zandra Ibarra, a feminist activist artist from Oakland, California.
Graciela Sanchez spoke about her vision for the Pride Heritage District during a meeting hosted by the City of San Antonio Historic Preservation Office at Eco Centro on Thursday. Photo by Bria Woods/The San Antonio Report
Emry Ramstack, vice president of the San Antonio Gender Association, attended the meeting and asked about the city’s plans to culturally honor organizations that don’t have a permanent physical space along the corridor or in San Antonio.
The organization was founded 23 years ago to provide a safe space and support for transgender and gender diverse people, and last year officially became a non-profit, making it a formal organization rather than just a club.
For now, meetings are held at a local community center, but the location has changed over the years as the organization continues to grow.
“In today’s climate, the transgender community is constantly afraid of censorship. There is an element of sexuality, but a lot of it is just gender,” Ramstack said. “I would prefer that nothing is censored to an extreme extent, but I know that the LGBT community has sexual preferences that can be censored.”
Ramstack adds that San Antonio’s leather and kinky spots are also part of history: “Everything else has always been built on weirdos and freaks… They’re the ones who really pushed for our acceptance and what allowed me to exist as a non-binary person.”
They said retailers along the Strip, such as Ouchi Apparel and Zebras, embody a history they want recognized.
Participants at the meeting said they also want the city to include certain locations on the map outside the Strip in the heritage designation, such as the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center and defunct nightclubs The Boss, Nu Zoo, El Jardin and The Crew.
“There are plenty of other establishments, bars and so forth outside of just along the main avenue – SA Country in Hildebrand, 2015 Place in San Pedro and Bonham Exchange,” Pride SA vice-president Michael Anderson said.
Cultural historian Gloria Colon Braña spoke about what the Pride Cultural Heritage District would look like during a meeting hosted by the City of San Antonio Historic Preservation Office at Eco Centro on Thursday. Photo by Bria Woods/The San Antonio Report
Pride SA executive director James Poindexter said it was important to include the bar in the corridor’s cultural history.
“Meetings often took place in bars because that was the only place LGBT people were allowed to meet,” he said. “LGBT gatherings were considered riotous and illegal.”
Once the Historic Preservation Office gathers information from the community feedback sessions, it will send all of the information to the Historic Design and Review Committee and the Planning and Community Development Committee before it is designated by City Council.
The next public meetings will be held on August 22nd and September 24th at 6pm at Eco Centro.
This story has been updated to include the correct pronouns for sources.
