COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The singing, gleaming bars shaking up Downtown Colorado Springs are on journey.
After the enterprise caught on fire in December 2023, the state’s next gay bar, known as ICONS, shuttered the doors to its previous location. The bartenders were as pleasant as their cocktails and the restrooms were decorated with attractive murals. Images was unable to function due to the fire’s excessive smoking damage.
However, Graphics owners Josh Franklin and John Wolfe are interested in moving closer than the original to a new location. The two are currently working on a new tower, about halfway through. In order to pay employees while they wait online, they have launched additional fundraising campaigns.
You wo n’t find that at any bars that just happen to have a rainbow flag, said Franklin, who was born and raised in Colorado Springs.
In 2020, Wolfe and Franklin signed a contract at the initial ICONS area on Bijou Street. Since then, the two have been purchasing their second place because they prefer to have complete control over their pub.
” For any gay company, it’s a chance to have someone else calling the pictures on the function, so we just want to reduce that risk and never have to deal with this again”, Franklin said.
The owners hope to incorporate the cheerful energy and defiant “gay-ness” that defined their primary home into the next haunt. They kept it clear that emblems of the classic queer culture will still be present in RuPaul and Dolly Parton’s bathrooms.
John Wolfe and Josh Franklin, both of whom are Colorado Springs natives, first met while preparing for Broadway shows in New York City. In 2020, the two relocated to Colorado Springs and made the decision to start a gay club that would be similar to a piano bar in the New York style.
Photo: Alison Berg, Rocky Mountain PBS
” We want it to think comfortable, but we’re not going to recreate it exactly”, Franklin said. It’s like a piece of us has died, and I hope we can have that item once more because those area and the individuals in it just exuded true happiness.
Franklin, who was born in Colorado Springs, left his town to pursue a music career in New York City. He and Wolfe met while performing in Godspeed Musical’s manufacturing of” A Great Lifestyle” in 2015.
In Colorado Springs in 2020, the two immediately realized the area needed an LGBTQ+ meeting space. was the state’s only alternative. A year later, they wed.
In Downtown Colorado Springs, several bars and restaurants display Pride flags and carry LGBTQ+ events. Although those gestures, according to Franklin and Wolfe, are important, gay people have a certain speciality to certain bars.
” It means something”, Franklin said. Gay people do know that, but many people do not. Mainly”.
Symbols became known as a New York-style piano bar with Broadway-caliber skills over the four decades it remained open. The bar’s lighting, sanitation, and outspokenness about who it was serving set it apart from other gay bars.
Franklin said,” I think we deserve something better than sticky floors and plastic cups, or at least an option to have a place that is n’t that,” or” I remember thinking that.” ” It’s not a dark, dingy pace to hide. It is a position to be seen and to observe that visibility”.
Matthew Haynes, who owns Club Q, since the table closed following a 2022 filming in which five people were killed. Haynes retains its original form, though he’s unsure of its place. In the meantime, The Q is an 18+ room with table games, snooker and a table.
Queer administrators in the Pikes Peak area claim that ICONS’ shutdown has left them without proper meeting spaces, but that they are working to create unofficial ones in the time.
” It’s difficult not having a masonry- and- cement room”, said Nico Wilkinson, an actor and LGBTQ+ organizer in Colorado Springs.
Wilkinson, who relocated to Colorado Springs in 2014 to enroll at Colorado College, said the college’s literature and art scene was their first exposure to the city’s gay community. After returning from Minneapolis, Williamson was inspired to return the more “formal” gay social found in different locations to the Pikes Peak area.
Would n’t it be wonderful if we could be as queer as we wanted and felt secure doing that? Wilkinson said. ” I definitely wanted to capture some of what I found in Minneapolis”.
Wilkinson collaborated with Poetry 719, a local writer’s party, to commence holding open mic night at different bookstores. Wilkinson saw ICONS as a prime location for creative queers to showcase their work when it first opened.
” I was very anxious about bringing people together in a place that was purposefully marketed as a queer space,” said Wilkinson. ” As organizers, we have such a huge responsibility to keep people safe”.
When the group resumed its activities following a COVID- 19 pause, Wilkinson strongly suggested mask-wearing at events. Wilkinson said the danger to the queer community increased even more after the Club Q shooting.
” I take this very seriously as an organizer”, Wilkinson said. How can I protect people from COVID and those who want to harm our community at the same time?
Wilkinson hopes to get creative by holding events outside as warmer weather arrives. They maintain contact with other LGBTQ+ artists and are organizing events and a retreat in the near future. Ultimately, though, Wilkinson feels” community”, means much more than just events in buildings.
Sometimes, Wilkinson said,” Building queer communities is as simple as talking in a Facebook group.” ” Sometimes that’s the best we can offer”.
Alison Berg is a reporter for Rocky Mountain PBS.
