Goodbye Raven

The Raven closed on October 14.

The Raven in New Hope is a legendary gay bar in the northeast U.S. It has a large, elegant dining room, two bars, a swimming pool, cabana bar, and a small number of hotel rooms. The bars and dining room are done in beautiful carved dark wood and stained glass. One of the bars is a piano bar where show tunes are gleefully sung by long time regulars seated around a grand piano.

I first heard of the Raven in 2009. People I met at Renaissance and Angela’s Laptop Lounge raved about the place. That’s about when Jennifer Bryant, a popular Philly trans woman, started holding parties for transgender people every few months. They were extremely popular, but I couldn’t go. Back then, I had one night out a month as Sophie, and that was for Ren and Angela’s.

Eventually, I talked Wife into giving me an extra night on a given month–sort of a “Christmas gift. So it was that I finally went to one of the Jen Bryant Raven nights on January 15, 2012. For me, it was a night of seeing celebrities, because that’s what Jen Bryant was to me, as were Sandy Martin, her elegant girlfriend Victoria, and several other of the well-known Philly t-girls. That night changed my life, as it was then that I met my dearest friend and sister, Lisa Empanada.

Years passed, and Jen Bryant handed the party off to others to run, like my dear friend Jane. After Lisa died, I spread just a little of her ashes under a tree near the door of her favorite room at the Raven. My attendance at Raven events became infrequent, as it was an hour away. Oh, and the whole being broke thing.

Ownership changed a couple of times. Now, the new owners think that the land there would be better suited to a parking lot than anything else. The beautiful building, last of the great New Hope Gay bars, with its elegant woodwork and its memories, will now be a place to park your car over a mile outside of New Hope proper. I’ll bet they’ll charge for shuttle buses as well.

The Memories. I can’t imagine the loss felt by the regulars there. I feel the loss, and I was only an occasional visitor. How many people met dear friends, lovers, soul mates at the Raven? Shared desperately needed songs and laughter? Learned something new about themselves?

I remember going to dinner there several times; Taking my roomie/bestie there for her first New Year’s, Eve in Pennsylvania; having the whole dining room enthusiastically sing Happy Birthday to Sandy Empanada; watching Lisa hold court in the dining room for all of those pictures; and my trying to slowly move through the crush of people at the bar to get to the restrooms.

I guess that’s the heartbreaking truth of getting older– watching the people and places you love die.

Goodbye Raven. You’ll live in the memories of so many.

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Tags: featured, Identity, The Raven, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul