Photograph by Richard L. Eldredge
With Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum, and Atlanta Hearth Chief Roderick Smith standing a couple of ft away, Atlanta Eagles proprietor Richard Ramey watched 35 years of his life go up in flames Thursday night time. Shortly earlier than 8 p.m., Atlanta Hearth responded to a multi-alarm hearth on the previous Atlanta Eagle location at 306 Ponce de Leon Avenue, town’s first designated LGBTQ+ historic landmark. Atlantans live-streamed video of the hearth utilizing the favored hyperlocal group app Citizen because it started tearing off the construction’s roof and threatening to unfold to the previous deserted Kodak constructing subsequent door. The fireplace unfold from the lately reopened Krispy Kreme, itself the sufferer of two fires in 2021. Two blocks down from the Ponce, one other Atlanta landmark, Mary Mac’s Tea Room reopened in March after a storm precipitated a partial roof collapse.
“I am very emotional proper now,” Ramey stated atlanta Thursday late night time in a personal dialog. “Nobody needs to see their historical past erased. Over the previous 35 years, many individuals have had their hearts damaged tonight. For a lot of LGBTQ+ Atlantans, the lack of the historic construction throughout Delight month was significantly painful. A former buyer posted on Fb, “That is the place I first got here out. Unhappy day for our group.”
Early Friday morning, the odor of smoke lingered on the website, the place the landmark, although closely broken, nonetheless stood. On the top of the hearth Thursday night time, communications between AFD firefighters broadcast on the Citizen included chatter that the construction’s century-old chimney may collapse. With hook and ladder hearth vehicles stationed at Ponce, firefighters spent a number of hours efficiently extinguishing the hearth. The reason for the hearth just isn’t but recognized. “It does not look like vandalism or arson or something or malicious intent,” Mayor Dickens informed WSB.
Screenshot Richard L. Taken by Eldredge
Screenshot Richard L. Taken by Eldredge
The Atlanta Eagle, a homosexual bar for town’s queer group, opened on August 28, 1988, borrowing its identify from a sequence of homosexual bars of the identical identify throughout the nation (the primary Eagle debuted in New York Metropolis in 1970, following the 1969 Stonewall riots). .
After closing the unique Atlanta Eagle location in Ponce in the course of the Covid pandemic, Ramey reopened the bar in 2022 inside the previous area of the two-story Midtown Moon Homosexual Bar contained in the Ansley Sq. purchasing heart on Piedmont Avenue the place enterprise has improved. Between answering questions from the press Thursday night time, Ramey was fielding telephone calls from regulars to reassure them that the brand new location was open and good for enterprise as traditional.
“Sure, the Ponce constructing is a historic landmark, however the Atlanta Eagles household is its folks, and we’re all protected tonight,” he stated. “Proper now I’m most grateful. I had excessive hopes for the previous constructing that it might develop into the Atlanta Homosexual Historical past Middle or another landmark for the group.”
Photograph by Richard L. Eldredge
Photograph by Richard L. Eldredge
In accordance with Historic Atlanta, the preservation nonprofit that helped earn the construction landmark standing, the constructing was initially one of many metropolis’s largest residences. It was first occupied in 1898 by Lula Belle Hemphill Quinby, whose daughter Atlanta Structure Co-founder and former Atlanta mayor William A. Hemphill. By 1985, as the world turned extra industrial, the constructing turned well-known because the Movie star Membership, the place a younger performer named RuPaul performed there together with his band, We Wee Pole.
Ramey first began going to the Atlanta Eagles in 1987 when he was in his 20s as one of many founding members of Southern Bear, a social membership devoted to celebrating queer males of a sure measurement. Remeke recalled: “For a man who wasn’t very safe in his personal physique to go to the Atlanta Eagles and be on the dance ground and be with individuals who inspired you to take your shirt off was extremely particular. To me, that is what the Atlanta Eagles stood for—you’ll be able to come via these doorways and be the particular person you’re. Eagle had no purpose so that you can be ashamed. Whether or not you had been a bear or a kink, leather-based or drag, you had been embraced there with open arms.”
Photograph by Richard L. Eldredge
“Blondy will likely be becoming a member of us for a couple of beers after his shift on the Clermont Lounge,” he continued. “I am nonetheless working daily of my life to verify we’ve got the identical feeling in our new location. Once you stroll in our entrance door, you’ll really feel welcome and never judged. Eagle is all the time a spot the place you’ll be able to really feel snug, protected and celebrated for who you’re. There was a lot love and power in that previous constructing. That is why I’ve fought for thus a few years to maintain it open.”
Ramey stated it meant rather a lot that Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum was on the scene Thursday night time. Schierbaum was a group liaison employed after a 2009 raid on town’s Eagle wherein vice squad members seemed for unlawful drug use and acts of public intercourse, chanting anti-gay slogans and encountering handcuffed patrons and staff on the bar ground within the years that adopted, Ramey recalled. , after a federal lawsuit alleging civil rights violations and a settlement of greater than $1 million, disbanding the Atlanta Police Division’s Pink Canine unit and firing a number of officers, APD sought to restore relations with town’s LGBTQ+ group.
“The raid ought to have stopped me,” Ramey stated. “It hit me exhausting. However once I noticed that the group needed to combat, I made a decision that I might lead that combat. I used to be very honored that the shoppers needed to combat town. That meant a variety of Chiefs, who had been simply coming into the division then, had been there tonight. He was the one who referred to as me to inform me concerning the hearth. Over time, he did a lot to assist restore bridges and get us again on monitor with town and police division. It touched my coronary heart to point out the scene of a fireplace in an previous deserted constructing in Ponce to know that these metropolis officers care sufficient concerning the Eagles and the Atlanta Eagles household.
Ramey is hopeful that after the final sizzling spot at 306 Ponce de Leon Avenue is extinguished, a number of the constructing’s historical past will be salvaged. “It was a magical place,” he mirrored. “The unique constructing had a lot character and attraction with that stunning previous picket staircase. Once we moved out, I deliberately left the Atlanta Eagle join. I needed folks to know we had been there. Tonight, to see that smoke and flames round and that Seeing the signal gave me hope that the constructing has a variety of historical past that can not be forgotten.”
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