House of Pies via Facebook Show More Show Less 4 of19 In 1985, during Montrose's heyday as a gay neighborhood, Mayor Louie Show More Show Less 3 of19 House of Pies on Kirby: The old-school, open-all-night pie shop isn't in Montrose, but for decades it was popular enough in the gay community to earn the nickname "House of Guys." Roger Powers/HP staff Show More Show Less 2 of Anita Bryant protest galvanized the Houston gay and lesbian community. (For more photos of LGBT history in Houston, including the murals of Mary's, scroll through the slideshow.) These include the Alamo Drafthouse Vintage Park on the Vintage Park Boulevard, the Aurora Picture Show on Bartlett Street, the Houston Museum of African American Culture on Caroline Street, the Museum of Fine Arts on Bissonnet Street, and the Rice Cinema on University Boulevard.1 of19 The Gay Pride Week Parade on Westheimer in 1980. Nowadays, the Q-Fest attracts over 6,000 visitors and sees the screening of all kinds of themed films at venues around the city. This yearly ten-day film festival comes along at the end of July and has its roots in the middle of the 1990s.
In downtown Houston, popular LGBT-friendly bars are concentrated around both Leeland Street and Milam Street, while in the Fourth Ward District, consider a night out at Tony's Corner Pocket Bar on West Dallas Street, with its live entertainment being the main draw card here. Other popular bars and clubs around Montrose tend to line roads such as Crocker Street, Fairview Street, Genesee Street, Grant Street, the Hyde Park Boulevard, Ralph Street, Richmond Avenue, Tuam Street and Waugh Drive. If you are visiting Houston and looking for a lively gay nightspot in Montrose, then the South Beach nightclub on Pacific Street certainly comes recommended, with its busiest period tending to fall between midnight and 02:00. Many of its former residents now choose to live within the suburbs and the trendy Houston Heights district, on the northwestern side of the city. Today, general acceptance of same-sex couples in this part of Texas has seen the decentralizing of the Montrose gay village. The actual number of LGBT residents within Montrose shot up to roughly 20 percent and the whole neighborhood enjoyed something of a hedonistic party lifestyle.
The earliest gay bars and clubs tend to be based within the area now known as the Midtown district.ĭuring the 1970s and early 1980s, the rather bohemian atmosphere within the Montrose area of the Neartown district resulted in the opening of close to 40 gay bars.
Since the 1960s, the LGBT scene in Houston has experienced a series of dramatic changes.