Tag Archives: human-rights

Check your basements – we want your stuff!

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

We needed a quiet month after the excitement of the Club Carousel Cabaret. The amount of press we had was amazing and the sold out performance was more amazing still. Check out the Calgary Herald review by Stephen Hunt.

The Calgary Gay History Project owes a big thanks to the artistic vision of Third Street Theatre: Paul Welch and Jonathan Brower for the creation of the cabaret. Their next production opens this month: Late, A Cowboy Song runs from March 11 – 22nd, 2014: you should check it out. Congratulations also to Paul for getting the Enbridge Emerging Artist Award at the recent Mayor’s Lunch for Arts Champions.

Look for new weekly gay history posts this month on Thursdays. Now, however, we are calling you to search for old files, photos, meeting minutes, T-shirts, badges, pins, flags, queer publications, or other memorabilia that you could donate to a newly forming gay archives. We (Kevin Allen and Carolyn Anderson) met with the Glenbow Archives last month, and walking through their vaults, saw that our community’s history is missing.

Here is where it could go:

Future Gay History Archive at the Glenbow here? Photo: Carolyn Anderson

The Calgary Gay History Project is currently gathering archival materials. If donated to the future archives they will be cared for in perpetuity and made accessible to future researchers. You might even be eligible for a tax receipt! Contact Kevin for more information.

[KA]

Cabaret Update and CBC Radio Interview

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Kevin Allen | Leave a comment

The Club Carousel Cabaret is sold out! I went to the dress rehearsal a couple of days ago, and for the lucky people who have tickets, it will be a treat – in fact – I found it very moving.

The Calgary Gay History Project and Third Street Theatre have been getting a lot of media attention in regard to the cabaret. Perhaps the most heartfelt interview to date was on CBC Calgary’s Homestretch with host Doug Dirks. It was a 10 minute interview was with Lois Szabo, Club Carousel Founder and Kevin Allen from the Calgary Gay History project, on what life was like for gay people in the 60s. Here is an audio link: Calgary’s First Gay Nightclub, Jan 27, 2014.

Lois will be my special guest on a history panel discussion at the Cabaret, along with Calgary filmmaker, Michelle Wong, and Fairy Tales Executive Director, James Demers.

Issue of Club Carousel Capers from exactly 40 years ago.

Club Carousel was the foundation of an organized gay community in Calgary and we owe those brave volunteers who founded and operated the club a great amount of respect and gratitude. The Cabaret tonight is a gesture in this regard – thank you elders!

[KA]

Club Carousel – Our Community’s Foundation

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Kevin Allen | 16 comments

The Club Carousel Cabaret is happening in one week, a collaboration of Third Street Theatre and the Calgary Gay History Project. If you want to attend this event at the HPR on January 30th, look for tickets: here. Thank you Lisa at Metro and Brad at Beatroute for the recent media coverage. We are getting pretty excited!

Club Carousel, is Calgary’s first gay bar, and an important milestone in our community’s history – it is where we collectively declared independence for the first time in Calgary from our culture of homophobia, repression and intimidation.

The story begins in 1969 where an unethical entrepreneur operated a basement gay club but would also sell tickets to straights to come down to “look at the queers.” The gay community eventually boycotted it and decided to start their own club in the same location: the basement of 1207 1st St. SW. Volunteers worked hard to clean it and get it ready. There were some private donors who also helped to get it up and running. They opened in Spring 1970 as Club Carousel – over time they developed their own theme song and newsletter.

Club Carousel Capers Cover (April 1974) from the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (Toronto).

One of the founders, in an interview, said,

“The original name of First Street SW was Scarth Street, but since the name had fallen into relative obscurity and we were attempting to be somewhat discreet, we thought it was a great name to use for our society. The place needed to be totally cleaned up and redone. There was dirt on the floor several inches thick. When we started cleaning it off, we discovered tiles underneath it that we couldn’t even see.

We had a week from the time we acquired the property to our opening night. Everyone involved would come over right after work and spend all night cleaning, painting and building the bar. We hadn’t come up with a name yet. As we were working, we discovered an old can of Carousel brand paint, with a drawing of a carousel horse on the label. And that was it! The Club Carousel was born. Someone painted three similar carousel horses on the wall by the dance floor.”

One painted wall from the original Club Carousel survives to this day. Photo credit: Del Rath.

The police came that opening weekend and charged the group for operating without a license. But one officer told them upon departing to get a good lawyer and dropped the name of Harvey Ghitter. He arranged for the group to apply for a charter to become a Non-Profit Charitable Society, and eventually the Scarth Street Society was formed and would become a donor to a number of local charities in the 1970s.