Gay bars grand rapids mi2/2/2024 ![]() You had to be a straight person, or at least appear to be that way and then if you’re fortunate enough to find something like Saugatuck,” Jennings says, “It just felt warming and accepting.” ![]() “Back then you had to live and lead two lives. Jennings would escape to Saugatuck on the weekends to bartend at the de facto gay bar in town, called The Blue Tempo, under the guise that he was making more money for the family. “If you were known to be gay or something like that the police would harass you and want you to give them the names of anyone you knew that happened to be gay,” Jennings says. ![]() At that time Grand Rapids wasn’t a safe place for gay people. Back then, he was living near Grand Rapids with his wife and kids. Once Ox-Bow was established, the artsy community and Chicago urbanities were traveling to Saugatuck-Douglas and more gay people started hanging out at the dunes.Ĭarl Jennings started coming to the area in the 1960s. “A lot of people who attended Ox-Bow, a lot of the creative types maybe were gay men and women,” Schreur says. We don’t know if those naked men were necessarily gay, but Schreur says the gay population did start to take off around 1910 when the Art Institute of Chicago opened up a summer program in Saugatuck, called Ox-Bow.
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