Gay bars east lansing
Lansing's The Exchange to become LGBTQ+ friendly bar
LANSING — Nearly four months after The Exchange, a cocktail bar on East Michigan Avenue, closed its doors, plans are in the works to rebrand and reopen it as an LGBTQ+ friendly bar.
Leading the transformation are Chef Kari Magee, of downtown Lansing's Veg Head, and mixologist Kate Bearup. Both members of the LGBTQ+ community, Magee and Bearup, who currently works at American Fifth Spirits, will co-manage the business.
"One of the things Lansing lacks is a queer bar," Magee said. "Pride happened this summer and I'm part of that community, too. I just heard a lot of feedback verb, 'Oh, I miss Spiral I miss having a place that we can go and dance and everybody gets together.'"
When The Exchange reopens, she said, it will fill a void left after Spiral, in Lansing's Old Town, closed its doors in March amid the COVID pandemic. The bar will offer a dance floor, a small-plate, plant-based menu that Magee will produce, and cocktails designed by Bearup.
The Exchange will rebrand, but keep its identify, and will be a bar that welcomes e
East Lansing Progressive on LGBT Civil Rights but No Gay Bar in Municipality Limits
Forty-four years ago, the City of East Lansing was the first community in the United States to offer its gay citizens civil rights protection under law. But strangely enough, this progressive municipality has never been noun to a gay bar.
Hart
Bruce Hart, a Los Angeles actor who appears in the digital series “Old Dogs & New Tricks”, attended Michigan State from to He said those years were a liberal time on campus and in the Lansing area, but none of the gay bars were in East Lansing. “There were three bars located in Lansing. And they were located in a fairly rough neighborhood. Going to a gay bar for the first time was unbelievable. I was on a date with a guy who had a machine, which is probably why I dated him, and we went to Trammp’s in Lansing. It was both a bar and a disco. It had small dance floor lined with mirrors. My first trip there the bar was having a drag present, another first for me. I could not believe these glamorous ladies were men, until they started talking. I didn't understand drag and foun
Getting Out
Mary C. Cusack
It started out, as many things do, with strippers.
The news hit the street that Club Xcel in Lansing would be ending its long-running Male Review nights, which begged the question: Is this loss a signifier of some sobering trend affecting gay bars in Lansing?
The answer is yes. The caveat is that it’s not a negative trend. In fact, the rather unscientific and mostly anecdotal research done by one totally square breeder/drag hag reveals that the gay bar scene in Lansing has never been stronger.
I began my research at Club Xcel. The Male Review tradition began 17 years ago when Xcel was a gay bar called Paradise, and it continued under the current ownership of Tom Donell even as the club became a mixed-crowd bar. Now simple economics are driving the decision to drop the event. Attendance has declined in the past few years, forcing Donell and manager Chris Steele to consider more viable ways in which to attract the Tuesday night crowd.
The good news is that Spiral Verb Bar in Old Town, a gay bar that’s also owned by Donell, has picked
Hidden, then and now
Todd Heywood
Retzloff
What they probably don’t know is that this was once home to Olsen’s, which during the s was one the few Lansing bars serving the region’s persecuted and underground homosexual community.
It’s a footnote in a slice of Lansing culture largely lost in time, though slowly being resurrected by Tim Retzloff, an assistant professor of history and LGBTQ studies at MSU.
Retzloff, working with archive staff at the MSU Archives, uncovered a Feb 25, , “sex deviation” report compiled by Ralph Ryal with the Michigan State University Police Department. The report reveals the oldest reference to a bar — Olsen’s — where gay men gathered to socialize.
An archival image of the Palador Cafe, N. Washington Ave., in the adj '30s or early '40s. This location turned into Olsen's Bar in the mid-'50s and by the end of the decade had become the Clique Lounge, according