(Photo by Jeremy Williams)
This year, the Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists, or NLGJA, held its national convention in Philadelphia. The four-day gathering of queer journalists from across the country was something I had never attended before and hadn’t anticipated attending this year until Watermark was contacted by Visit Philadelphia, The City of Brotherly Love’s tourism bureau, and presented with an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Looking to showcase the best in Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ culture, cuisine and entertainment, Visit Philadelphia offered to host members from a handful of U.S.-based LGBTQ+ publications during the NLGJA convention and show us what Philly has to offer to queer travelers who are looking to explore one of the nation’s oldest cities.
Much like many of the nation’s largest and oldest cities, Philadelphia has many nicknames, including “The City of Brotherly Love,” “The Cradle of Liberty” and “The Birthplace of America.” It was the country’s first capital as well as where both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written and signed. But did you know that Philadelphia was the setting for many firsts in LGBTQ+ liberation?
Philadelphia was the location of the first major LGBTQ+ rights demonstration, which was held at Independence Hall, on July 4, 1965. Those demonstrations continued every July 4 through 1969. The city is also known for being the location of one of the first LGBTQ+ sit-ins in the nation when three teenagers refused to get up from the counter at Dewey’s, a local late-night coffee house that refused to serve groups of “homosexuals and persons wearing nonconformist clothing.”
(Photos by Jeremy Williams)
The Gayborhood
Philadelphia is home to one of the oldest gayborhoods in the country. Located in the heart of Philly, the Center City neighborhood is filled with LGBTQ+-owned businesses, bars, clubs and restaurants. The gayborhood is easily identified by the rainbow-colored street signs on nearly every corner of the area as well as a rainbow-colored crosswalk at 13th St. and Locust St. When visiting Philly’s gayborhood, be sure to pop into Giovanni’s Room, an LGBTQ+ bookstore named after the James Baldwin novel, that is operated by Philly AIDS Thrift. The bookstore, which was founded in 1973, carries thousands of LGBTQ+ titles and has served as a refuge and resource center for queer folks for five decades.
Along with LGBTQ+ businesses, the gayborhood — as well as most of Philly — is home to a mass collection of street art and murals. To make sure we did not miss any of the art or history of the gayborhood, Visit Philadelphia arranged a walking tour for us with Beyond the Bell Tours. The one-mile walking tour through the gayborhood took about 90 minutes and our tour guide, Joey, was a wealth of knowledge about the area and history of queer Philly.
“Get under the skin of queer Philly,” Beyond the Bell Tours’ website states. “Discover the controversies, paradoxes, and hidden histories of the only formalized Gayborhood in the country. Let’s talk and spill all that historical tea hunny!” And they are not wrong. Joey not only shared the uplifting stories of the LGBTQ+ community in Philly but he also did not shy away from the controversies of queer Philadelphia including its history with racism, sexism and more. You will also get an education on LGBTQ+ activists from the area including Barbara Gittings, Kiyoshi Kuromiya, Gloria Casarez and Dr. John E. Fryer (aka Dr. Anonymous). No exploration of queer Philly is complete without this tour, plus the company is queer-owned so you’re also supporting LGBTQ+ businesses.
(Photos by Jeremy Williams)
Queer Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, or should I say the steps outside the museum, was made famous in pop culture thanks to Sylvester Stallone and a little film called “Rocky.” Every day tourists head to the museum to run up the stairs like Stallone did in the film and take photos with the Rocky Balboa statue, which was originally from the film “Rocky III.” If you make it to the top of the steps, do yourself a favor and go into the museum to check out one of the most beautiful collections of art anywhere in the world.
The four-story museum is nearly 150 years old and is home to more than 200,000 historical objects, paintings and statues, many of which are created by queer artists and/or depict queer subjects. The LGBTQ+ pieces are scattered throughout the museum, but PMoA has you covered. When you approach the ticket counter, ask for one of their Queer(ing) Art flyers, which not only has a list of some of the queer art but it also has a QR code for you to scan to bring up an audio tour on your phone.
Developed in conjunction with the PMoA’s Queer Representation in Art Learning Community, the Queer(ing) Art audio tour features the perspectives of staff members from across the museum. Each stop highlights the speaker’s personal reflections upon and connections to works of art in the museum’s collection that were made by queer artists, feature queer subject matter or which hold particular relevance for queer individuals and communities today. If you have an entire day to spend here, do it and enjoy all the works of art, but at the very least make sure to take a few hours and check out the Queer(ing) Art audio tour.
(Photos by Jeremy Williams)
Eating Out
Art, history and education are great but when you’re on vacation the top of everyone’s list is where to eat, and Philly does not disappoint. I mean, how could it? The city has a sandwich named after it. As you get your day started, be sure to head over to Winkel, an LGBTQ-owned, Dutch-style restaurant by chef/owner Joncarl Lachman. This eatery is located right in the gayborhood and is a great place to meet up with friends and people watch. Be sure to get yourself some oliebollens while there. This Dutch precursor to the doughnut was a lovely treat before we started our walking tour. Ours were filled with cranberries and apples and covered with honey and powdered sugar, and they were wonderful.
Some great lunch spots to give a try include Mission Taqueria and Tattooed Mom, both LGBTQ+-owned and both loaded with delicious food and quirky charm. Mission Taqueria, a Mexican cantina in Center City, offers up a variety of tacos and margaritas and you will want to try all of them. If you don’t want to pack away a dozen tacos in one meal, then I recommend getting the Wild Shrimp tacos and some Plantain Empanadas and wash it down with the Green Juice Margarita.
Tattooed Mom, or TMom’s as the locals call it, has a fun and eclectic vibe with local art on the walls, bumper cars as seating areas and some of the most adventurous (and delicious) cocktails anywhere. Favorites at this Philly staple include the Pickletini and a cosmo poured over cotton candy called a Cloud. The drinks are great but don’t sleep on the food. TMom’s has some of the best sandwiches I have had anywhere, and they offer vegan versions of each of them for those who don’t eat meat.
(Photos by Jeremy Williams)
Philadelphia is a city of more than “Brotherly Love,” it is a city filled with love for all no matter who you are or who you love and I saw that on display firsthand. There were so many more LGBTQ+ monuments, stories and history that I experienced while visiting Philly that left me wanting to stay longer and I have already begun planning my next trip there.
As they say in Philly, you go there to “Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay.”
For more information and to start planning your trip, go to VisitPhilly.com.
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