ABSTRACT

One of the more striking features of the rapid changes taking place in Manchester’s city centre in the late 1980s and early 1990s was the transformation of an old warehouse area by the city-centre canal into a series of wine bars and restaurants dedicated to the use of the gay and lesbian populations-the so-called ‘Gay Village’. In early 1995, in what was still a rapidly developing and changing area, there were 15 gay or mixed pubs and clubs, three cafés, a hair-dresser, a taxi service and a shop in the core of the Village, and a number of other venues on its fringe. The development of the Village and, more recently, the production of a ‘gay supplement’ in Manchester’s City Life magazine have identified Manchester as a mecca for gay people from elsewhere in the North of England, and has also distinguished Manchester from other cities in the North, like Sheffield. Few of these have witnessed any successful claiming of urban facilities specifically for the use of gay people.1