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McNamara concedes that ‘a circus’ was a pretty fair description. “It was a circus!” exclaimed Wallace, remembering that night. McNamara was the sole owner, Barnes was the lead DJ, and the doors were ready to open. He then advertised for investors nationally.īy the time the investors were found and the paint dried, it was 1978. “Then I got fired.” McNamara called the owners when he heard the news about the bust, and it turned out they wanted to know if he was interested in buying the bar. McNamara didn’t have the money, but the owners made a deal with him to buy him time. “I’d already been toying with the idea of hosting a disco night at Chances R that welcomed gays and had been talking to the owners about it,” confessed McNamara. Chances R happened to be located at 63 E. He got his chance when two things coincided: he got fired from his manager job at Giovanni’s and the same week cops busted an infamous campus bar called Chances R for having their second wet t-shirt contest. “When you said you were going to ‘the bar’ in certain circles they knew it meant you were going to the gay bar.” After managing Giovanni’s for a couple years, which was owned by Piraino, McNamara wanted to open up something of his own for the LGBTQ community, something larger. “The name was a play on an old code,” says Jack Wallace, a longtime resident of C-U, who was a regular at the club. was a LGBTQ mecca even before Piraino opened it under the name “The Chester Street Bar” in 1983. My makeup was a mess, my wig was sideways, and my lip sync was awful, but everyone welcomed me with open arms.” "I got my start as a drag queen on my 19th birthday for one of their open talent nights. “Chester Street Bar has always been hailed as ‘the gay space’ of the CU since I can remember. “My heart was broken after hearing (C-Street) was closing,” lamented CJ Brown, who was a regular performer at the C-Street drag shows under the stage name Karma B. “I remember crying behind the bar (when I heard) and customers asking me if I was okay,” recounts Amy Myers, a long time bartender and emcee of the frequent drag shows at C-Street. Stories poured out about the magical times past patrons and staff alike experienced at the space in the 80s, 90s, and 00s. One long-time fan posted to many ‘likes’ on Facebook, “C-Street was THE gay bar of C-U!”Īfter 34 years of C-Street being a LGBTQ mainstay space in the community, owned by a member of the LGBTQ community, there were a lot of strong feelings about the sale. When the word got out in late June of this year that C-Street, as it’s more commonly known, had been sold by longtime owner Ed Piraino and was, at least temporarily, closed for remodeling with no promise it would return as “C-Street” or host drag nights, social media lit up with reactions. has arguably been the most famous and unarguably the longest-run. “And I am sure there was a spot before that,” continues McNamara.Īnd yet, despite the history of many other LGBTQ spaces and clubs in C-U, the Chester Street Bar at 63 E.
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McNamara, now a resident of Palm Springs, Florida, remembers the Crystal Room, but says it wasn’t the first ‘gay bar.’ The Wig Wam on 6th Street in the campus district was a hot spot for the LGBTQ community in the 60s long before the Crystal Room, and before that was the Capitol Restaurant (now Murphy’s) on Green Street in the 50s and early 60s. McNamara laughs warmly about the lounge at the Inman, called the Crystal Room, being the first ‘gay bar’. Barnes took a shot at the job, having never been a DJ before, and found a new vocation and community. Having a live DJ instead of just a jukebox was all the new rage at bars and clubs as the disco era began to take hold and McNamara was looking for a DJ. McNamara was the manager of a little bar called Giovanni’s Place that opened in Champaign in 1975 and catered to the gay community. Barnes went on to attend Illinois State University in Normal, IL and visited bars like the Male Box in Peoria, where he met Joe McNamara.