Dudes (Toronto Gay Bar/1977-1984) vintage soft cell when openly gay and lesbian

when openly gay and lesbian spaces were still illegal and routinely targeted

coded safety

it used the quiet code of a color and a bird—a sly wink to those in the know

and as a rare place where women who loved women could show up and just be

the Speed Queen name and logo became one of the most recognizable marks in American industrial design

Dudes (Toronto Gay Bar/1977-1984) vintage soft cell when openly gay and lesbianDudes Toronto, ON (19771984) In the late 1970s, when Torontos gay nightlife was still largely underground, there was a tiny cruising bar tucked away behind the bustle of Yonge Street called Dudes. Opened around 1977 by activist Roger Wilkesa founder of the York University Homophile Associationand his partner David Payne, the bar sat in an alley behind the Parkside Tavern near Yonge and Wellesley, then the center of Torontos gay social life. At the