LGBTQ+ Places of Connecticut

In 1985, a group of volunteers and grassroots activists formed AIDS Project Hartford. Their services included a buddy support system, case management, a 24-hour hotline, a needle exchange program, and ASL interpretation. The group was initially supported by donations and fundraisers, including those held at Nick’s Cafe and Frank’s Place. In 2013, APH merged with the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition (CARC) to form AIDS Connecticut.

In June of 1983, volunteers organized AIDS Project New Haven to help address community needs for education about AIDS. By the end of the summer, the organization had around 40-50 volunteers. The organization provided counseling, education, and support to people with AIDS and to their friends and families. Additionally, it published a monthly newsletter, distributed pamphlets with information on risk reduction, and hosted a public meeting every month with speakers and panel discussions. APNH provided all its services for free, with financial support from the community and “invisible subsidies” from its team.  

Jewish LGBT group

Self-described as “A bit of Greenwich Village in Hartford,” the Arts and Leisure Cafe was a coffeehouse that catered to the late night social scene. On the weekends it hosted live piano/singing performances.

In 1984, Gary Berchard bought the Lost and Found bar and transformed it into the Backstreet Cafe. Backstreet was popular with the younger college crowd, drawn in by the dance contests, musical performances, and gay dating games hosted by the club. Benefits for the community were also common, such as the Hawaiin luau fundraiser for the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights and their Valentine’s Day AIDS benefit.

Bar, opened in 1984.

In 1977, feminists Noel Furie, Selma Miriam, Pat Shea, and Betsey Beaven opened Bloodroot in a former machine shop. As of 2024, Furie and Miriam are still running the business, which they refer to as “a feminist restaurant.” They’re dedicated to “ethnic and ethical” food preparation and a seasonal vegetarian menu. The layout includes an open window between the dining room and kitchen, allowing customers to serve themselves and eliminating staff having to rely on tips.  

Bookstore.

Mixed gender bar. Owned by Rick Bachard. Had a garden patio and live shows each week.

Building demolished.

Screenshot

Mixed gender bar.

Building listed as Contributing Structure in Downtown Waterbury Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history).

The Copa is often remembered as being part art installation, part bar. When Patrick Reilly purchased the former Casa Mia restaurant and transformed it into the Copa Cabana, he filled the space with a tropical patio, glass artwork, crystal goblets, and an ornate jazz club bar specially imported from a San Francisco speakeasy. At its height there were up to 500 patrons a week, who could expect to find movie and bingo nights, dancing, and specialty drinks.

Building listed on Historic Resource Inventory.

1939-2010

After Millie and Edward Bowe opened what was originally the Cedar Brook Inn in 1939, it soon became known as a gay friendly establishment. By the 1970s, the bar was a center for gay social life in Fairfield County. At the time of its closing in 2010, The Cedar Brook Café was one of the country’s oldest gay bars.

The Commercial Street West Cafe was a location that tended to be more popular amongst women. They provided dancing on weekends, a game room, and live entertainment. It also  served as an organizational meeting space for the community. The cafe hosted representatives from locally owned businesses in 1984 who formed the Capitol Region Business Guild, a Connecticut lesbian/gay business association.

The Corral was one of New London’s most prominent gay bars in its heyday. Following its opening in the mid 1960s, it soon became extremely popular and often extremely packed. New London’s role as a port city made it an accessible location for both locals and travelers. However, its notoriety also led to the presence of Navy investigators in the 1970s who would periodically invade the bar looking to catch gay sailors.

Owner Paul Ianni developed The Eatery out of the location’s original luncheonette, whose frame still sat underneath the multi-gabled roof of the restaurant. Ianni divided the interior into smaller dining rooms, which made it easier for patrons to have a degree of privacy.

Bar, also known as Sandpiper Cafe.

Frank’s Place was right on the edge of downtown New London, prominently set minutes from the city’s waterfront. It was known for its themed nights and interactive events, ranging from a theatrical makeup seminar to their annual Mr. and Mrs. Gay New London contest. In 1989, owner John Duval and manager Bobby Brown spearheaded “Bars Working Together,” when bars across Connecticut, including Chez Est and Rosie’s Pub, exchanged bartenders for a night. The event raised $1,000s in tips, all of which were donated to the Southeastern CT AIDS Project (SECAP) and other gay charities.  

1980-present

Recorded at the University of Hartford and hosted by Keith Brown, Gay Spirit Radio is considered the longest running LGBTQ+ radio show in the U.S. since its first broadcast on November 27, 1980. Every Thursday the show airs music from queer artists, as well as interviews with local and national LGBTQ+ authors, musicians and activists.

In 1983, an all-volunteer staff of queer health professionals opened the center with donations from individuals and groups across the state. The Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective was a necessity in the 1980s when LGBT people and people with AIDS faced life-threatening medical bias. They started off providing screening and treatment for STDS, counseling services, and education/ risk assessment for AIDS. In November of 1983, the collective also sponsored the first gay health fair at Trinity College. Now known as just “The Health Collective,” it remains an important resource today, advocating “systemic solutions to the healthcare access barriers and health disparities experienced by sexual and gender minority groups.”

(Now at 1841 Broad Street Hartford)

   S

Since its opening in 1951, Nick’s Cafe was as a staple for Hartford’s queer population. Owner Sandy Bokron inherited the business from her father Nick in 1988.  Nick’s hosted countless events over the years, including an annual Christmas party, and fundraisers for the Southern New England Friendship League, a queer softball organization, AIDS Project Hartford and Latinos Contra SIDA.

On June 26th, 1982, roughly 350 people attended Hartford’s first annual Lesbian and Gay Pride rally, held on the grounds of the Old State House. The event was planned by The Greater Hartford Lesbian and Gay Task Force.

Held at Trinity College’s Cinestudio, OUT Film CT was started by The Gay & Lesbian Cultural Organization in 1988. OUT Film presents LGBTQ cinema throughout the year, culminating in a nine-day festival in June. Today, it’s the state’s longest-running film festival. 

Partners was started by partners Alex, Jack, and Ralph. While some gay bars at the time were more hidden away, Partner’s was significant for its prominent location right up against the curb in a well-populated section of the city. It’s still situated amongst apartment complexes and restaurants and is easily accessible to the local student population. Partners is known for its three-floor layout, each floor with a different function. In the 1980s, the basement was primarily reserved for women and it still serves as more of a lounge area. The ground level has the main bar and cocktail lounge, and upstairs is a dance area, formerly for disco.  

The Pub, a combination restaurant, cocktail lounge, and cabaret, was first known as George & Harry’s on 1140 Chapel Street. In the mid-1970s, Jim Bombard joined its owner Vinnie Howe, and together they moved it to York Street. The restaurant’s location in the heart of downtown New Haven, and their newly remodeled cabaret room with live entertainment, ensured The Pub was often packed.

In 1963, the canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Clinton Jones, formed the “Homosexual Committee,” later “Project H” with Dr. George Higgins, a Trinity College psychology professor and attorney Donald Cantor. The group provided counseling and educational services for gay members of the church notably diverging from the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnosis of homosexuality as a mental disorder. Rather, they addressed the issues caused by living in a homophobic society.  Project H evolved as Jones opened a chapter of the George H. Henry Foundation, a New York organization which helped LGBTQ+ people with counseling, legal aid, and housing.

In 1971, Jones and Higgins developed the Twenty Club, a support group for the transgender community which met at the church for over 30 years.

1983-2007

This independent, progressive bookstore  and café was run by Carolyn Gabel-Brett and Tollie Miller for its first 12 years and served as a community resource and gathering place throughout its existence. The bookstore had a curated selection of feminist, gay and lesbian, Spanish titles, and progressive political literature. At the Reader’s Feast, you could find events like poetry readings, theatre and musical performances, as well as free financial literacy courses and workshops.

Three significant protests have been staged by LGBT activists at Connecticut’s State Capitol.

In 1972, local groups, including the Kalos Society, held a rally outside of the building to protest housing and employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The Human Rights and Opportunities Committee proposed a bill to the State Senate that same year to address these issues, but only 6 out of 36 senators voted for it. 

In March of 1989, after numerous attempts to get the anti-discrimination bill passed, the Connecticut Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights (CCLGCR) planned a more involved protest. One group held a rally outside, while the other went into the House of Representatives wing. Fourteen protestors unfurled two large banners on either side of the gallery with the names of the 79 legislators who voted against the bill, which were torn down by capitol police.

On February 7th, 1990, the Lesbian and Gay Direct Action Committee (members of CCLGCR) interrupted the legislative session again. This time, they displayed a reinforced banner behind Governor William O’Neill which read “We demand lesbian and Gay rights, Bill.”

The bill finally passed on April 11th, 1991, and granted protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation in housing, employment, and credit.

1940s-1970s (Period of Significance)

As early as the 1940s and 1950s, Hartford’s Union Station functioned as a meeting place for gay men, which began to draw the attention of officials, leading to police raids in 1952. The court charged these men, who authorities accused of being “sex deviants,” with lewdness, which carried a maximum sentence of 6 months, and often outed them by publishing the men’s full names, charges, and sometimes addresses, in the paper. Decades later, on April 9. 1971, local LGBTQ+ activists protested at the station during a Good Friday “Stations of the Cross” march, calling the station a “symbol of Gay oppression in this city.” 

Bob Marche opened Somewhere Coffee House at Hartford’s Metropolitan Community Church as an alternative to the bar scene, especially for those newly out. Somewhere featured poetry readings, coffee and herbal teas, board games, and folk singers.  

Triangles Cafe was the central bar for the LGBTQ population of northwestern Connecticut. The bar featured themed dress nights like beach night and partnered with local organizations, including AIDS Project Danbury, to host fundraisers. In the 1990s, the bar held the largest monthly transgender night in New England. Upon its 2015 closing, former patrons remembered Triangles as being one of the most welcoming of Connecticut’s bars.

Building demolished.

Warehouse II is often regarded as Connecticut’s first real gay dance club, and one of the best. The large single level venue brought crowds into the club with its expansive lighted dance floor, which was ideal at the height of disco’s popularity.

In January of 1975, the Connecticut State Liquor Commission shut down a drag performance by Ivan Valentin and the Leading Ladies of New York at Finnochio’s “First New Year’s Gayla Party.” The commission cited a state law prohibiting entertainment at a liquor establishment where men or women were “cross-dressing.” Valentin brought the case to the University of Connecticut School of Law, who managed to eliminate the ban on “male and female impersonators” just a year later.

Hartford’s Unitarian Meeting House provided a safe religious and social space for LGBT people. In 1973, Beverly Eacewicz and Kay Hathorn, a lesbian couple from Manchester, held their marriage ceremony at the church. The meetinghouse also hosted gay pride dances in the 1980s as a drug and alcohol-free alternative to bars and clubs.

The New Haven Women’s center was started by five lesbian feminist volunteers in 1983, and made itself an important social, support, and educational resource for women in and around the city. The center hosted the Lesbian Rap Group every Monday, and hosted a divorced and separated women’s group, lesbian mother’s group, and women’s art caucus. They would later open a women’s center coffeehouse at the YWCA on Howe St. and invited local singers to perform.

1975-Present

Met at the Quaker Meeting House

Met in Unitarian-Universalist Church

Gay Moonlight Ball, held popular a gay skating night on Thursdays starting July 1982. Halloween costume contest. Closed for the season until spring. Originally WI Clark Co Warehouse, listed on Historic Resource Inventory.

Gay Spirit Radio.

Hosted by Keith Brown since 1980, America’s longest continuously running LGBTQ radio show

Moved to 978 State Street 1983. Hosted Jewish Lesbian Group. State street location is 1879 John Dornheimer Building.

Site of September 21, 1971 Kalos Society and Gay Liberation front picnic

Meeting place of Greater Hartford Lesbian and Gay Task Force as well, 1st tuesday of the month. Also Womenspace Coffeehouse, 3rd Thursday.

Opened with fundraising efforts, estimated that there were 35-40 groups in the Hartford area by 1986, need for a meeting/office space. Difficulty finding spaces because some facilities wouldn’t rent to AIDS related organizations. Meeting place of Am Segulah. Originally Fenn Manufacturing Co.

Provided screening and treatment for stds, counseling services, and education and risk assessment for AIDS with no appointment necessary. It was operated by all volunteer gay health professionals. They sponsored the first gay health fair in November 1983 at Trinity College attended by more than 100 people. Now it is located at 1841 Broad Street in Hartford.

Mixed gender bar

Long established gay meeting space/bar. Just outside Pratt Street Historic National Register District. Building demolished. 

Bar opened in 1985.

The James Merrill House is located on a late-Victorian commercial/residential block in Stonington Borough, a picturesque maritime village set on a narrow, 170-acre peninsula in the southeastern corner of Connecticut near the Rhode Island border.

Significant for its close, forty-one-year association with American poet James Ingram Merrill (1926–1995), the eclectically styled, shingle-clad building at 107 Water Street originally contained street-level retail space, second-floor clubrooms and third-floor living quarters.

In 1956, Merrill purchased the property with his partner David Noyes Jackson (1922– 2001). The two men were openly gay during a time when homosexuality was largely ostracized and ridiculed, and it is thought that Merrill and Jackson used their Stonington abode as a quiet safe haven away from the bustle of New York City. Merrill writes of the struggles he faced as the result of his mother’s inability to accept his homosexuality from a young age.

In Stonington, Merrill and Jackson used the third floor of 107 Water Street as their private living and guest space, where they were known to host dinner parties and literary salons. Merrill produced virtually all his major writing during his ownership of the building between 1956 and 1995, and the village came to play a vital role in the poet’s life. The apartment was a magnet for leading intellectuals and cultural figures of the day, while Merrill’s poetry increasingly resonated with references to the pleasures and peccadilloes of life in this close-knit community. Adding an attic studio and rooftop deck, the men transformed their quarters with a distinctively quirky décor that remains largely intact today.

Merrill’s impressive canon of work garnered nearly every major award in his field, including the Pulitzer Prize; two National Book Awards in Poetry; the National Book Critics Circle Award; the Library of Congress’s first Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry; Yale’s Bollingen Prize for Poetry; and the Medal of Honor for Literature from the National Arts Club. The multilingual author also translated dozens of works of other poets into French, Portuguese, Dutch and modern Greek, and contributed countless introductions, forewords, and afterwards to the publications of his colleagues.
​
Merrill was the son of the co-founder of investment brokerage Merrill Lynch, and therefore grew up in tremendous wealth. Despite this, Merrill lived quite modestly during his lifetime, and was known for his philanthropic nature. In 1956, he used a portion of his inheritance to found the Ingram Merrill Foundation, which awarded grants to hundreds of artists and writers. Upon his passing in 1995, Merrill bequeathed his home at 107 Water Street to the Stonington Village Improvement Association (SVIA) in his will. To honor his legacy, Merrill’s family, friends, and neighbors began a writer-in-residence program in the space, which remains much as Merrill left it nearly 30 years ago, and has hosted over 100 emerging and established writers to date.

Today, the apartment Merrill and Jackson inhabited is owned by the James Merrill House LLC, which oversees the writer-in-residence program and upkeep of the home, now a National Historic Landmark. The JMH LLC is a subsidiary of the James Merrill House Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. 2024 was a significant year for the James Merrill House, as the SVIA gifted the building and its contents, along with the well-established writer-in-residence program, to the JMH LLC. The JMH LLC leases out the ground-floor retail space and two one-bedroom apartments (north and south ends) that occupy the former club rooms. The entire third floor and attic studio are reserved for use by visiting scholars as part of the James Merrill House Writer-in-Residence Program. The apartment is open periodically throughout the year to the public for open houses, and the property has undergone relatively few alterations since its construction in 1906.

In 1971, men and women of the Kalos Society began picketing the La Rosa Park West, a gay bar, on August 27, 1971. Lesbians were being harassed by the management for not dressing properly. On Friday, September 3, 1971, eleven members of the Kalos Society were arrested and verbally and physically abused by the police while protesting. The eleven were charged with loitering and Breach of Peace. Owners of the bar had been ejecting those who ignored the gender norm of the day for women. Members of Kalos continued their nightly pickets until the bar owners capitulated. After this, a “wake-up” call went out that “the La Rosa Park West is presently the only Gay establishment that has been liberated,” compared to other Gay bars in Hartford. It was discovered that the bar’s owner, Pat Shea was a relative of Cornelius Shea, the chief prosecutor of the district court in Hartford, whom the members of Kalos claimed “he directly occasioned our arrests,” arresting them on false charges. According to an article in the Griffin, Ms. Pat Shea agreed to drop the dress code requirement for women on September 17, 1971. A warning was sent out to other gay bars in Hartford about the issue and to announce that the Kalos Society would picket any establishment that would not liberate itself from outdated social norms.
The Griffin Vol. 2 #3, October/November 1971. The Griffin Newsletter was published as a service of the Kalos Society/Gay Liberation Front.
Copies of the Griffin can be found at the Equity and Diversity Archives CCSU.

Non-Contributing Structure within Parkville Historic District (National Register)

Mixed gender bar.

Building contributing structure to Chapel Street Commercial Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history)

Building on Historic Resource Inventory

Restaurant.

Building demolished.

Roller skating rink.

Mixed gender bar. Originally the Terry Steam Turbine Co. Building. Listed on Historic Resource Inventory.

Building listed as contributing structure to the Parkville Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history).

Building demolished.

Social organization founded in 1971 by Canon Clinton Jones and Dr. George Higgins, a professor from Trinity college, as a support system for the transgender community. Met in the parish house of Christ Church Cathedral until the early 2000s.

Mixed gender bar.

Building demolished.

In 1975, Andrea Miller-Keller became curator of the Matrix Gallery and began exhibiting LGBTQ artists like Keith Haring and Sister Mary Corita Kent. Felix Gonzales-Torres, David Wojnarowicz, Paul Wynn, Donald Moffett, Harmony Hammond and Robert Rauschenberg’s works are still exhibited in the permanent collection.

Building listed on the National Register of Historic Places (no mention of LGBTQ history).

Florist.

Building listed on Historic Resource Inventory.

Gay owned specialty food store that sold nuts, coffee, herbs, spices, specialty candy, and pastries.

Building listed as contributing structure in Laurel and Marshall Streets Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history)

Primarily male bar.

Building listed as contributing structure in Parkville Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history).

In the winter of 1973, New Haven lesbians took over airtime at the radio station to protest the bombing of Cambodia.

Bar.

Building listed as contributing structure in Frog Hollow Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history).

Gay owned beach front hotel.

Mixed gender bar.

Bookstore.

Building listed as contributing structure to Sisson-South Whitney Historic District (NR, no mention of LGBTQ history).

Screenshot

Mostly female club active from 1985 to 1993.

The Palmer-Warner House was built by John and Mehitable (Chapman Richardson) Warner in 1738 on 1,000 acres inherited by Mehitable. In later generations, the Warners became blacksmiths of local acclaim, and many of their pieces were collected by Frederic Palmer and now adorn the house.

In 1936, Frederic Palmer purchased the house and the 50 acres on which it currently sits with his mother, Mary Brennan Palmer. A preservation architect influenced by the Colonial Revival movement, he set about to restore the house and create a landscape that evoked the 18th century. Palmer was also a founding member of the Antiquarian & Landmarks Society, Connecticut Landmarks’ predecessor organization.

Frederic Palmer turned the Palmer-Warner House, which he lovingly called Dunstaffnage as a nod to his Scottish heritage, into a safe place for his LGBTQ friends, neighbors, and family to gather and enjoy life unhindered by societal norms. Palmer lived in the house with his partner Howard Metzger from the mid-1940s until his death in 1971. Metzger remained in the house until his death in 2005.

The story of Frederic Palmer and Howard Metzger is supported by a wealth of documentary evidence – diaries, letters, and photo albums that detail their daily lives. Through Palmer’s and Metzger’s lives, we are able to view the wider arc of 20th-century LGBTQ history.

Built in 1959, the now-abandoned Debonair was famous for its restaurant and for welcoming same-sex couples before it was shuttered in 2014.

Discussion began in 1983 with Dr. Evan Daniels the medical director and founder of Community Health Services located  on Albany Ave. in Hartford, concerning a Gay Clinic and outreach program. Dr. Daniels at this time offered complete support for the idea and in 1984 a Thursday evening clinic was established. Legend has it that the files of the collective were carried home in a cardboard box after each evening clinic out of fear that someone would go through confidential records of those tested for HIV. The Collective today no longer carries records around in a cardboard box but offers many services to the community from their base at 1841 Broad Street in Hartford. Further information on this clinic was available at the Gay Health Fair held at Trinity College News brief Metroline 1983, Vol.6 #20 and LGBT Tour 2 Stop 10 Furbirdsqueerly. Gay Health Fair Leaflet collection Richard Nelson.

It was here in Bushnell Towers Foster Gunnison Jr. lived and gathered together an extensive archive of Homophile Groups in the United States. In 1964 he joins the Mattachine Society and participates in the Annual Reminders in Philadelphia and joins demonstrations in Washington D.C. in 1967 the Institute of Social Ethics is founded in Hartford and works out of his apartment in Bushnell Towners. He begins to facilitate communications among homophile organizations and handles business of NACHO, ECHO and later becomes a member of the planning committee for the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. Gunnison’s archives are now housed at the Dodd Center UCONN. After the death of Gunnison many historians of the LGBT movement were afraid that his archives had been destroyed but it was discovered by the Ct. Stonewall Foundation through research that the archives were alive and well boxed at UCONN. Foundation members were the first people to go through the boxes for the 1999 exhibition Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for LGBT Civil Rights 1900-1999. When this information was found to be true word was passed to NYC Public Library archivist Mimmi Boland who then sent out the word that the archives were safe and a important part of our stories had been saved. Ct. Stonewall Foundation/ Challenging and Changing America Timeline, R. Nelson.

In 1998, members of the Ct. Stonewall Foundation began working on an exhibition, Challenging and Changing America: The Struggle for LGBT Civil Rights. Janice Matthews, the then-director of the Hartford History Center, was approached with the idea of an exhibition at the Center. The Library was fully behind this exhibition. Other contacts included the Foster Gunnison Jr. Collection at the Dodd Center, CCSU Burritt Library, and organizations in the LGBT community and individuals. The exhibition opened in October 1999 at the Hartford History Center and then traveled to the Dodd Center and the Burritt Library at CCSU. A timeline created by Richard Nelson was one of the exhibition’s highlights and was used later as a reference point by students at CCSU and banners created are housed at the Ct—Museum of History and Culture in Hartford. Information sources: Memory banks, and Richard Nelson Archives, CCSU Special Collections and news reports, articles within the archives. (There is a photo of the Library at the time of the exhibition in the Nelson archives.) There is a video floating around in the community featuring a walkthrough of the exhibition with principal weaver Richard Nelson speaking about the exhibition and OurStories as a people. The video was filmed by Rev. Lorraine Bouffard for her T.V program Voices in the Wilderness.

Jill Johnston, lesbian, feminist, lesbian separatist, author of Lesbian Nation and other books, and columnist for the Village Voice, appears at the Auerbach Hall at the University of Hartford. Her appearance was sponsored by the Women’s Liberation Center located on Amity Street in Hartford as a fundraiser for women without financial resources who are seeking an abortion.
Johnston stated, “A woman who is a mother must be an individual first, and if this means leaving her children, she must leave them.” She continued saying that the present family orientation in this society causes everyone to live in a state of “abject prolonged dependency. The dependent mother-child situation is translated into a dependent male-female relationship.” During her talk, she suggested that women try sexual experiences with other women but stressed that there was so much more beyond the physical. After the talk, the women in attendance went to the Women’s Liberation Center to continue a women-only conversation.
Hartford Courant, June 13, 1973, ‘libber’ for Individuality, Even Leaving Children. Pg.73

The church located on Park Street at the corner of Amity Street was once a hub for the Gay and Lesbian community in Hartford. The church was built in 1900 for a working-class congregation. In 1975, the church congregation merged with the First United Methodist Church. The building was sold in 1979 to the Templo Sion Pentecostal Church. In 1973, and for a short time, the church basement was used as the Sounding Board Coffee House, the largest and most important coffee house in the state. This coffee house became a showcase for the major folksingers and others.
11 Amity Street, Hartford Ct.
1972: The Women’s Liberation Center, 11 Amity Street, opens on December 2, 1972, with an open house and a celebratory event. Research on the possibility of opening a center began in the summer by a large group of area women, members of women’s consciousness raising groups, straight and lesbian activists who called the center a “central information center” stating if the event in Hartford was not happening at the center the center would know about the event and help to publicize it.” A class in self-defense, a monthly newsletter, a speaker’s bureau, pregnancy counselling and committees for day care, fundraising, a lesbian women’s committee, an anti-rape squad, and a library committee. A women’s only lounge called Cobra Lily and Her Renegade Nuns opened, which provided women with a safe space outside of the bar scene. Cobra Lily is open every Saturday night, and all women, lesbian or straight, are welcome. According to an article in the Connection Magazine, “Some of the women at the center saw a need for a place where women could go to dance, talk, and drink without being hassled by straight men and out of the atmosphere of the bars.
. Hartford Courant, Greater Hartford Women’s Liberation Center Opens, Eleanor Sapko, December 2, 1972. Cobra Lily, Connection Magazine 1973
In the early 1970 a group of men and women in Hartford wrote a letter to Reverend Larry Bernier, pastor of MCC Boston to inquire about starting a Metropolitan Community Church in Hartford and asking if someone from the Boston Church would come to Hartford to speak to the men and women of the Kalos Society, Hartford’s gay liberation group. Rev. Bernier came to Hartford and brought with him Jay Deacon, who had recently completed the Gordon-Cromwell Seminary in Massachusetts. In August Rev. Jay Deacon returned to Hartford to begin building MCC Hartford. In 1973, the first service was held with several people meeting for worship at the Unitarian Meeting House.
In 1974, Metropolitan Community Church moved into the former classrooms of St. Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church at 11 Amity Street, where for the first time it would have its own facility for the next three years on a full-time basis. The facility was used for worship services, rap groups, dances, and dinners as the community continued to grow. In the spring of that year MCC was accepted into the membership of the Greater Hartford Council of Churches and the Gay Switchboard began to operate as a source of information and referral. Hundreds of calls were handled by volunteers every week. The Switchboard proved the need for the establishment of a Gay Health Collective in Hartford.
Information on the history of MCC from The LGBTQ Tour 2 Stop 8 furbirdsqueerly. MCC News/ History of MCC Hartford.

In 1983 Lesbian feminists, Carolyn Gabel and Tollie Miller, with a diverse group of 30 other investors, established a feminist/progressive bookstore/café on Farmington Ave. in Hartford as a community gathering place. On November 26th, the Reader’s Feast Bookstore/Café opened.
The feminist/progressive bookstore offered expanded sections on political issues, women, lesbians and gays, racial and ethnic authors and a full selection of general and best seller titles. The Café offered homemade goods, special coffees and teas. The Feast also had a display of visual arts and held concerts, poetry readings and book signings. In 1999 The Readers Feast received the Connecticut Coalition for LGBT Civil Rights, Gianni Versace Award for Business for its years of dedication to the community.
The Feast was referred to as a “feast of the mind, soul and palate, a place where everyone can come to find something that they can relate to.” The Reader’s Feast has never shied away from identifying with LGBT causes featuring displays in honor of Gay Pride, Women’s History Month, Black History Month and displays of labor and other social justice causes in their windows facing Farmington Ave. The Feast has also been used for political meetings, fundraisers, educational events and author reading.