Two Headlines on Salon's Wires

Castro Said to Be Getting Stronger

Gay Neighborhoods Worry Over Identity

By the way, Miami no longer has a gay neighborhood at all. The gays used to live in the Grove, but that became gentrified. The same thing has happened in South Beach (I lived there briefly in the '80s). That's progress, I guess. You have to move up to Wilton Manors in Broward County to live in a gay neighborhood.

As for gay bars, there used to lots of them all over Miami, including several right downtown. The first gay bar I ever went to was El Carol, on LeJeune Rd. just outside Coral Gables. A block north of there was the Second Landing (upstairs). A few blocks east, on 8th St., was the cavernous Warehouse 8. Downtown were the Double R, Roxie's 5 & Dime (also a gay hotel--later Fusions and then Mother's), the Mineshaft, and Uncle Charlie's (which later moved to Bird & Douglas Rds.). There was also 13 Buttons on the River at around 27th Ave. This was before all the clubs opened up on the Beach in the '80s, though there had been a few gay bars there (e.g., El Pub (?) off Lincoln Rd. just east of Alton).