MLB or Gay Bars?

[Ignoto]

For D.C. visitors and residents, which do you prefer -- baseball club or night club?

 

Sex Industry Funded Campaign Against New Stadium

 

Mark Segraves, WTOP Radio*

 

WASHINGTON - The sex industry funded part of a campaign that opposes the construction of a new baseball stadium on the Anacostia waterfront.

 

Opponents of a publicly financed baseball stadium spent roughly $50,000, trying to sway public opinion.

 

In one method used to get their message out, opponents used an automated phone line.

 

The person on the automated phone call says he's from a group called Friends of the Earth, and he's opposed to a stadium built with public money

 

Friends of the Earth is part of a coalition called "No D.C. Taxes For Baseball."

 

And, WTOP Radio has learned up to 20 percent of the $50,000 came from Robert Siegel, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner whose business would have to move to make way for the stadium.

 

Siegel is a major landowner on the South Capitol stadium site, an area that Siegel calls "D.C.'s unofficial Red Light district."

 

He owns 11 properties, several of which house gay nightclubs. He also owns a gay porn shop and adult theaters.

 

He says he's spent $20,000 of his own money to keep from being displaced by a new stadium. The funding includes other efforts he undertook to keep out baseball, including neighborhood signs and lawyer fees.

 

Some of the money went toward posters and radio ads, including one that ran on WTOP Radio.

 

Siegel says he's staying in the background because he doesn't want to cloud the issue of baseball with sex.

 

"No D.C. Taxes For Baseball" tells WTOP it wasn't trying to deceive anyone with its message. The group accepted money from Siegel's legal businesses to make its point.

 

Other members of "No D.C. Taxes For Baseball" include the League of Women Voters of the District of Columbia, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and the Statehood Green Party.

 

*(Which, of course, raises the question of whether there is a WBTM Radio.)

[Fit In LA]

Whatever side those Green Party psychos are for on a issue, I would vote the other way.

[OneFinger]

The bars and clubs in that neighborhood are well-established and relationships have been worked out. I personally think it would be much easier to leave them there than try to move them to another neighborhood. Plus, I really like their closeness to the Metro and ease of access.

 

I've seen several bars "displaced" in other cities when the government tried to clean up the neighborhood or introduce more mainstreamed businesses. In most cases the bars didn't survive in their new location and it resulted in more gay-related violence/safety issues when neighbors revolted in the new location.

 

In short, the gay community is usually the losers despite the disproportionate tax that we pay. (Most of us don't get the tax breaks afforded to breeders.)

 

In Washington, DC there are other alternatives. I'd really like to see the bars stay but seriously doubt that will happen.

[+ deej]

I agree, OneFinger. My gripe with this proposed location is the traffic it'll dump on already-crowded highways. Drunk traffic at that.

 

But displacing gay bars isn't always a failure. Many years ago, the gay bars in Chicago were all downtown around the notorious Rush street. When they were chased out, they staked a claim in an area that was extremely dangerous and risky. That area is now known as Boystown. The fags moved in and cleaned the area up and made it stylish and trendy, so now the breeders are moving in and forcing the gay businesses farther north.

 

Consider it the cycle of life. It takes gays to clean up what the breeders can't. :+

[jackhammer91406]

After what the Dodgers did to our team in the last couple of days, I'll take the gay bars. Baseball breaks my heart. ;(

[Muscle Lover]

I vote baseball

[+ deej]

>Baseball breaks my heart. ;(

 

Tell it to a Cubs fan, brother. :9

[Luv2play]

I totally agree with Deej on this one. In Montreal the same thing happened in 1976 when the then mayor wanted the gay bars out of downtown for the '76 summer Olympics. They were literally forced out and relocated to the east end of downtown, an economically depressed area. Thus the Gay Village was born and now it is a thriving area and hot tourist destination. The property values have skyrocketed. The gays have stayed put, however, and don't seem to be under the kind of pressure they are in Chicago.

 

I was there a couple of years ago and saw the kind of gentrification going on in Boystown which seemed ominous as it seemed to be aimed at straights. In Montreal, on the other hand, the new condos in the Village have been largely populated by more affluent gays, along with maintaining the mix of social housing that keeps gays of more modest means in the neighbourhood as well. Montreal also has very strict rent controls and controls on condo conversions to maintain neighbourhood stability. Most of the new development has been infill, of which there was plenty of potential as the old neighbourhood was full of empty lots and abandoned buildings.

[+ Hoover42]

I'm not interested in a new stadium or in the existing clubs in the proposed stadium area. However, I would love to see those nude dancing licenses for Secrets, Wet, and La Cage sold to someone who could open a nice club in a better part of downtown.

 

Of course, I'm sure the probability of that happening is very close to zero.

 

...Hoover

[Guest ReturnOfS]

Gay bars! Gay bars! }(

[Luv2play]

This is a very telling response. I don't know that area of Washington as all my previous visits have been to the business/government areas and Georgetown, that is the Washington that foreigners are most likely to be familiar with. I understand that the gay bars that are referred to here are in a depressed area that obviously has some potential if a major league baseball club wants to locate there. Why is it that the gays of Washington have not created a more thriving environment such as a village that one finds in cities like New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, to say nothing of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. Just a question.

[+ deej]

DC is a weird town.

 

In the SE quadrant, you'll see one block that's utterly decadent with refurbished row houses and landscaping that's manicured to the teeth. The next block over will be a ghetto with bullet holes in windows and at least one fire burning, where you DO NOT stop at stop signs.

 

The Navy Yard area under discussion here is a scant few blocks from some of the most expensive real estate in DC. There was actually a bit of a political hot potato when the Metro station opened there, opening the entire Metro system to "that" element. I can remember sitting around on the porch Friday evenings just listening for the inevitable gunshots around the neighborhood.

 

It's a neighborhood the city wishes it didn't have, and the gay clubs just happen to have a stronghold there. Unfortunately, nobody realizes the stabilizing factor the gay clubs bring.

 

Wiping out the whole mess to plop down a baseball stadium would be mighty convenient, but "that" element is going to relocate elsewhere.

[RM]

Washington does have a thriving gay village in the Dupont Circle area. In the southeast area are mainly three of four bars which feature lots of naked dancers, plus a bathhouse. The amateur strip contests are very popular.

[VaHawk]

He spent $20,000 to campaign against the stadium? Too damn bad he couldn't spend some of that to hire a security force, to keep the customers of his establishments in that area, safe from being assaulted, robbed, murdered, or even less having their car windows smashed in. That was a crime filled area 30 years ago, and it is only 3 times as worse now. Isn't it bad enough that he gouges his gay customers on the prices of admission and cocktails?

 

How much money did he give Linda Cropp, or did most of that donation come from Peter Angelos? Lord, the DC government, once again, shows just how pathetic and corrupt they are. For sale to the highest bidder! Just proves they are too idiotic to ever have home rule.

 

Does any of it matter?, as the issue of the stadium, barring a miracle, is now dead, right along with a MLB team that so many people have wanted for over 30 years.

 

Wow, this guy is a definite pillar of the gay community! One who has never held a fund raising event to benefit the community in any way. Why?, because there was nothing of personal gain in it for him.

 

Get a clue people! He is not worthy of any respect or sympathy from the gay community. He sees us all as people to gouge financially while cramming us into filthy, overcrowded fire trap buildings, and doesn't give one iota if you are mugged and murdered after leaving his business establishments.

 

Yeah, a baseball team with a new stadium located in one of the most blighted, crime areas in DC is definitely a bad idea. Especially since it would be part of and help jump start the planned redevelopment of that area and would help to pay for that redevelopment.

 

He KNOWS this, and he KNOWS that DC United has been approved to build a new owner financed soccer stadium right next to where the proposed baseball stadium was to be located. He is not a "gay hero", he is a sleaze ball, money grubbing asshole, who knows that building the baseball stadium now, would garner him less money than waiting for the new soccer stadium to come around as part of the Anacostia river development project. Meantime, he'll be glad to gouge you for all your "queer dollars", and won't invest a penny to make sure you are safe after gouging you.

 

Look at the downtown area around MCI Center/Chinatown. Before MCI center, drugs, crime, sleazy porno bookstores. Now, totally revitalized, with old buildings being refurbished into hotels, museums, and upscale business, not to mention new buildings, and a source of big bucks on taxes coming from VA and MD residents, who would not be there spending their money, otherwise.

 

Sorry, I'm rambling. But JFC! I'm PISSED at the corruptness and stupidity of the DC government, in fucking this up!!! And I'm tired of listenting to people who have no idea of the economics involved, or how vital this stadium was to the life of DC and the spirit of the DC metro area, because they let idiots like this guy feed them shit in little "chocolate sound bites"!

 

Nothing personal, but I don't believe deej has dealt with DC traffic in a long time, so I really don't want to hear about the traffic problems, as imo, there will be none. Why? Because part of the plan is to revitalize the Navy Yard metro stop, and maybe build yet another stop a few blocks away, which would be paid for only partially by DC as part of the DC/MD/VA metro board. And as far as deej's point on drunk drivers, ergo, most of those drunks will be on Metro, not in cars!

[+ deej]

>most of those drunks will be on Metro, not in cars!

 

Dreamer!

 

Visit Chicago after any game at Wrigley Field. The "L" stop that's almost in right field has been around (as has the entire L) since LONG before DC's Metro came about. The lion's share of visitors are still in cars. Traffic IS a nightmare. Residents make sure they know the Cubs' schedule so they know when to stay away.

 

The metro might get busy, but it ain't gonna carry the majority.

 

As far as DC politics go, well, do the words Marion Barry ring a bell? :+

[AaronScottDC]

>As far as DC politics go, well, do the words Marion Barry ring

>a bell? :+

 

Sure does, he just got elected to the city council and takes office in January in Ward 8.... exactly the same area as the lovely Baseball staduim.... which he is against. But, I am sure he is against the gay bars/clubs, too. Yea, DC!

 

Aaron Scott DC

http://www.erados.com/AaronScottDC

http://www.male4malescorts.com/reviews/aaronscottdc.html

[baltimore observer]

Once again, DC City Council has taken action, 7-6, to move forward with construction of a baseball stadium on South Capitol Street at Anacostia River. See latest news at http://www.washingtonpost.com

 

This would displace Secrets, Ziegfelds, Glory Hole, Follies, Club Washington, Heat (in the former LaCage space), and possibly impact Wet/Edge and Nation.

 

Secrets and Wet are the two remaining strip clubs with nude male dancers in the DC area. LaCage and Atlantis (Baltimore) are already gone.

 

No information on if these clubs would be allowed to move, with their nude liquor licenses intact.

[uptownmike]

From what I read the taxpayers will be taking on a HUGE debt

that may bankrupt the city eventually.