15 OCTOBER 19-25, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | for the Triangle, owed $36,360.30 in back taxes. The bar was seized and everything on the premises sold at auction. Later that year, Gallegos reported that Young faced charges of check fraud for pass- ing bad checks at King Soopers. Rumors had long circulated about Young’s drug use and poor health. “Don always looked sick,” Seaton remembers, “from the fi rst time I saw him to the last.” Young died in 2000 at 53, having enjoyed wide admiration and some successes, but also enduring far more than his share of hard knocks. He is buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery. His empire had disintegrated, but the temple that housed it remained. Despite nostalgic efforts to revive it, however, the Triangle would never be the same — or even close. A silent partner bought the busi- ness and the now-seventy-year-old building in 1993 and sold the bar op- eration to Clark Thompson in 1998. Thomp- son, a retired Navy commander originally from rural Wisconsin, had met his partner, Phil Schroeder, at the 1987 Second National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights. Soon after, he moved to Denver to be with Schroeder, who died of AIDS in 1994. Before that, the pair enjoyed patronizing the Triangle — though Thompson says he never met Young and knew little about the owners who followed in the mid-’90s. Thompson has fond memories of his years as the Triangle’s owner, with one exception: getting his liquor license. “I had to assure the city that the basement bar was closed and would never reopen,” says Thompson. While he was considering the purchase of the bar, the previous management had hosted a leather event that reportedly involved fon- dling. City authorities weren’t amused. “The Triangle had been cited many times over the years,” recalls Thompson, who agreed to keep the basement shuttered. Under his ownership, which continued through 2005, the bar received zero citations. During his years running the Triangle, Thompson added dancing and an improved outdoor seating area. He welcomed everyone at the bar, though he says that the few female patrons were usually friends of his gay male customers. The RMMC continued to hold events there, while younger regulars of the Fox Hole, which had recently closed in the Central Platte Valley, found a new home at the Triangle. “Older patrons liked it because all these younger good-looking guys were there,” Thompson recalls. But within a few years, a new gay bar catering to a young crowd opened a few blocks south, and the Triangle’s business quickly dried up. “All good things come to an end,” says Thompson. “The gay community in Denver is much different from when I moved here in 1987. They’re a fi ckle group and will go from place to place.” The writing was on the wall. Thompson sold the bar in 2005, and the new owner lasted only a year. Over the next decade, the building housed fi rst a rock club, Rockaway Tavern, and then Würstkuche, a German- style restaurant that was a link in a national chain. Neither business lasted long. Then a new crew of owners, which in- cluded Scott Coors — son of Bill Coors, an ultra-conservative who ran the family brew- ery for decades — took over, and brought back the Triangle in 2017. It was doing well in the beginning, but then the pandemic hit. The recent closing of the Triangle was attributed to the discomfort of people head- ing to the bar having to navigate homeless encampments, which had proliferated in the area. The Triangle customers of 2023 felt unsafe. In the 1970s, going to the T felt a little bit dangerous, too — a walk on the wild side. That was part of the attraction. Back then, the Triangle was on the outer edge of downtown; if you went farther north on Broadway, you were in the dark and dismal no-man’s-land of undeveloped Brighton Boulevard. There was no Ballpark neighborhood, no RiNo. And with cops zealously monitoring gay bars both inside and out, just being in the vicinity of a gay bar was unsafe. Today, rapid development is converging on all sides of the 2000 block of Broadway. Can a 100-year-old structure at that location withstand market forces that have boosted land values skyscraper high? Durity holds out hope that someone will fi nd an innovative way to animate the space “for a new generation of Den- verites. It would be sad to see the building meet the fate of the wreck- ing ball, like many other Denver landmarks.” Longtime RMMC member Gregg Looker, whose six motor- cycles were christened at the Tri- angle, doubts that the bar will come back. “After it was resurrected, I tried to attend the charity beer busts there, but it just wasn’t the same,” he says. “It had been taken over by gays forty years my junior.” Nostalgia is unlikely to over- come market forces. “Realistically, that block is ripe for renovation,” says former owner Thompson. “There are no more resurrections for the Triangle.” It may not matter. In the LG- BTQIA2S+ world of ubiquitous rainbows, Grindr, proliferating pro- nouns, non-binary gender fl uidity, and queer as both a noun and verb, is there any room for the hypermas- culine gay man? The Triangle where they could strut their sexuality in at least one semi- public space without shame or guilt bore little resemblance to the Triangle that just closed. A friend dutifully reminds me of the Tri- angle’s informal honor code: What happens at the T stays at the T. If so, the cracks and crevasses of the Triangle are stuffed with a half-century of unspoken memories, salty and sweet, tough and tender. For some years to come, they will drift through daydreams of the remaining men who made them. Phil Nash fi rst wrote for Westword in 1981. A Denver resident since 1976, he began his career in gay community organizing and journalism, followed by 35 years in communications for nonprofi t, civic and philanthropic organiza- tions, most recently in demonstrating the social value of older adults. He served as a speech- writer and communications aide for Mayor Federico Peña and Ambassador Swanee Hunt. Returning to his freelance-writing roots, Nash is the author of LGBTQ Denver, to be released by Arcadia Publishing in 2024. Email the author at [email protected]. DENVER’S STONEWALL The same year that the Triangle opened its doors, activists with the newly formed Gay Coalition of Denver began dismantling the legal framework used by the Denver Police Department to harass gays, lesbians and drag queens. Like the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, the group was fi ghting back against police oppression. Unlike New York’s Stonewall, however, the action was nonviolent and no one was arrested. On October 23, 1973, 350 gays and lesbians showed up at a Denver City Council meet- ing to protest the city’s anti-gay laws. At that time, same-sex couples simply holding hands, dancing, kissing and fl irting could be arrested. So could men wearing female attire in public. After waiting several hours to be heard, Denver City Council President Robert Koch told the activists that they had only thirty minutes to present their case — less than a minute each for the 35 people signed up to speak. When the crowd applauded the fi rst speaker, Koch threatened to have them hauled away on sheriff’s buses. Koch initially refused to let the group show a graph illustrating the extent of enforcement of “lewd be- havior” laws against gays, but he backed down. The slide showed that 100 percent of those arrested under the ordinance were gay. The presen- tation led to council repealing four laws that the Denver vice squad used to arrest and harass gays, sometimes ruining their lives and reputations. This wasn’t the end of police harass- ment, but it was a pivotal moment in Denver’s gay-rights movement. In recognition of the fi ftieth anni- versary of this milestone, the Center on Colfax and Denver Film will host a screening of Gay Revolt at Den- ver City Council and the Beginnings of an Organized Gay Community at 6:30 p.m. Monday, October 23, at the Sie FilmCenter. The documentary chronicles the events leading up to the revolt and how they helped change Denver’s treatment of its gay and lesbian citizens. The documentary was directed and narrated by Gay Co- alition of Denver co-founder Gerald Gerash, who was also instrumental in the 1976 founding of the Center. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Gerash; Phil Wade, the fi rst “out” teacher in DPS; and Robin Kniech, Denver’s fi rst openly gay city council member. Registration required at lgbtq- colorado.org/event/gay-revolt-an- niversary. — NASH One last bash at the Triangle on October 8, before it closed indefi nitely. Gay Coalition of Denver leaders (from left ) Terry Mangan, Cordell Boyce and Gerald Gerash wait to speak at a 1973 Denver City Council meeting. BENNITO L. KELT Y COURTESY OF GERALD GERASH
