“But the kid is not my son. No, no, no!”
It’s a Saturday night in East Atlanta Village, and a straight guy is singing Michael Jackson from a karaoke mic at the gay bar, Mary’s.
He worked up his nerve because he’s singing a “Thriller” -era Michael Jackson tune, but not, it would seem, because of stage fright. His mostly gay audience is amused, if a bit nonplussed. But hey, that’s showbiz, right?
It’s also East Atlanta Village, the neighborhood lynchpin of a now 10-year old effort to revitalize — though some would say gentrify — the once ailing neighborhoods south of Interstate 20 along Moreland Avenue.
Without knowing it, the straight guy — or hundreds just like him — who fit in so easily among the racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation diversity at Mary’s, helped a lesbian bar owner choose to move her business out of Decatur and into East Atlanta Village.
“I would just kind of drive to my favorite places and look around, and I found that space,” says Susan Musselwhite of 1271 Glenwood Ave., the new home of the former Decatur lesbian bar My Sister’s Room, which is scheduled to open between the end of April and June this year.
Musselwhite says that the lesbian nightspot will add a complementary flavor to the melting pot neighborhood.
“It’s so diverse, and it’s so welcoming to just about anyone," she says. "The neighborhood association has been very welcoming to us, and I love that.”
Revitalization in East Atlanta over the last decade was an uphill climb, with gay and lesbian pioneers leading the way as well as bringing up the rear.
Most say that their biggest challenge was not resistance from the established longtime residents, many of whom were, and remain, working class black families and retirees. Getting friends, family, and customers to acknowledge that the Atlanta city limits do not stop at Ponce de Leon was much more difficult, they say.
“It was like nobody was coming to East Atlanta then," says Glen Paul Freedman, a gay man who moved to East Atlanta Village in 1995. "People told us, ‘Oh why would you move to East Atlanta? It’s not gay like Midtown.’”
Freedman says he longed for diversity that just couldn’t be found in Midtown's gay ghetto back then. But his new neighborhood was in stark contrast with his old haunts when it came to overt gay acceptance.
“I didn’t know any gay people living down here, and there were very few rainbow flags flying up and down the streets when we looked," he says. "So one day, I put out a rainbow flag. I just thought, ‘What the hell?’”
As Freedman and other gay residents helped change the face of the neighborhood, gradually, East Atlanta began to develop a new reputation.
In 2006, Allen Thornell, who moved into the neighborhood with Freedman in 1995, narrowly lost his bid to represent the area in General Assembly District 56. Thornell, an openly gay and HIV positive man, went head to head in a run-off election with attorney Robin Shipp, who eventually won the seat.
Jeff Fastner, a gay man who just bought a house in East Atlanta last year, says a lot has changed in the neighborhood that made him OK with living there.
“Five years ago, I would have laughed at the thought of moving down here,” Fastner says.
Gay men and lesbians who ventured to East Atlanta in the 1990s would soon be joined by other gay pioneers — some of whom would put the neighborhood on the map.
“When we bought our first house down there, nothing on the east side of Moreland had ever sold over $100,000,” says Shawn Ergle, who, along with partner Michael Knight, moved to East Atlanta in 1996.
Both worked day jobs elsewhere at the time, but decided to try their hand at retail and opened Traders Neighborhood store, an interiors and gift boutique, in 1997. The store hosts its 10th anniversary "East Atlanta Reunion Party" on April 21, and features special prices if you bring in Traders receipts marked from 1997 to 2004.
By 1998, the Hungry Rush-In, a restaurant just a few doors down from Trader’s, was revamped by it’s owner’s into ...
