[URBAN NOTE] "Then & Now: Club David’s"

[rfmcdonald]

Toronto DJ Denise Benson has a great essay at The Grid, illustrated with abundant photos, about Club David's, a disco at 11A St. Joseph Street that was not only a major gay hub but eventually a centre for Toronto punk, too.

Although David’s was not the biggest or even busiest gay disco of its time, the club was one of the first to actually be gay-owned and be so elaborately decorated.

The club boasted a sizable, two-level layout. Once opened, David’s heavy wooden door revealed a path that went up a few stairs, past a ticket booth, along a catwalk, and to your choice of billiards room or the main bar. In the upper part of the main room there was plenty of seating—sofas, tables and chairs, and booths alike. The floors featured red carpet. Some of the walls were, in part, also covered in red carpet while others were heavily mirrored. It was, after all, the ’70s.

Two winding staircases led down to the dancefloor. Most famously, the stairs also curved around the club’s star attraction: a fountain containing a larger-than-life and, by many accounts, excessively well-endowed replica of Michelangelo’s David. There was also a stage, a raised go-go platform, and a DJ booth that overlooked the dancefloor. Of course, a large mirror ball reflected the pink, purple, and multi-hued lights, and the sound system is said to have been quality. David’s also boasted a snack bar, pinball machines, and a high-tech coat-check system, complete with revolving hangers.

Months after it opened, David’s adopted a somewhat radical door policy. While most gay and lesbian bars of the time were segregated by gender, and most social spaces were assumed to be either straight or gay, Club David’s advertised itself as open to all genders and sexualities. Some ads, in fact, promoted it as a bisexual club. A membership policy was adopted and bouncers were on hand to keep an eye out, but in general, people mixed freely and easily.

“When David’s became bi-gender, it attracted those people ‘on the fringe’ or ‘closet-y,’” says gay activist Ken “Father” Andrews, once a phototypesetter and board member of the Canadian Homophile Association of Toronto (C.H.A.T.). “A lot of women and men came out in that club.”

“One of the things I liked most about David’s was that I could see my female friends, too,” says Weber, who got his start DJing at C.H.A.T.’s dances and was recruited to spin by David’s original soundman, Michael Roberts.

Go, read.