今日吃瓜

I don’t have many memories of my first visit to the Stonewall Hotel on Oxford Street – I remember getting ready to go out, arriving with my friends, and then ordering a bucket of Long Island ice tea. My memory ends there.

I do remember waking up with a huge ugly red mark down the front of my face, only to see a photo, uploaded with hundreds of others to Facebook as was the tradition of the 2000s, that showed me jamming my face against one of the bars in the iconic bird cages, pretending to be stuck inside, screaming to get loose. Sexy.

“I know I鈥檝e got a shit-tonne of incredible memories from the Stonewall Hotel 鈥� it just so happens I don鈥檛 remember majority of them,” echoes Star Observer Managing Editor, Chloe Sargeant. “I think that鈥檚 because Stonewall was the first gay bar I went to after moving from the outer suburbs of South Australia to Sydney, and so therefore, was the first place I felt free to truly let loose and party with reckless gay abandon. (That first visit I also pashed a woman that who was so incredibly hot that I felt like my eyes did that AWOOOOGA thing that happens in Looney Tunes cartoons.)”

With the abrupt and sad announcement that the Stonewall Hotel has gone into administration, Star Observer reached out to the LGBTQIA+ community for your anecdotes about the storied venue. From email, to DMs, to our social media comments, we received so many stories that we simply couldn’t include them all. Some were also just kinda weird. But all of them were fabulous.

Stonewall first opened its doors in 1997, quickly establishing itself as a vital safe space for Sydney鈥檚 LGBTQIA+ community during a period when visibility was still hard-won. Over more than three decades, it has become synonymous with late-night dance floors and landmark moments in queer nightlife.

It was also a “massive home of Sydney drag”, says Lex van Netten from the DIVA Awards, who says that many of Australia’s most iconic queens got their starts on the Stonewall stage.

What happens at Stonewall, stays at Stonewall

Good lord some of you are filthy sinners, and I’m so proud of you for sharing so many stories that we legally cannot print.聽After hearing all of the things you people have admitted to doing, we might need to burn the the old venue down and and fumigate it just to be safe.

“I entered a dance-off competition upstairs a few years back. I did a strip tease and proceeded to retrieve a vape from my, erm, 鈥榩rison wallet’. I took a hit, got kicked out by security, obviously. Still came in second place,” said one anonymous submission.

“What I wouldn鈥檛 do to get kicked out of Stonewall for pulling a vape out of my butt in front of 100 people again鈥�. thank you for the memories Stonewall Oxford St.”

“One Mardi gras I was dancing just in my undies and someone stole all of my belongings,” said another contributor. “I had to catch the train back to Wollongong half naked and managed to get a fine for not having a ticket.”

One submission explained how they were roped into organising an underwear model competition at the very last moment, sourcing models from nearby brothels.

“The whole staff thought and I set off the fire alarm and had to evacuate the whole club,” told us. “We didn鈥檛, but it鈥檚 funny to look back on.”

Those Long Island ice teas

Every second story seemed to involve the semi-legal buckets of rocket fuel that Stonewall passed off as “long island iced tea”. While the recipe is kept strictly secret, there are rumours that it’s a patented mixture of Draino and all the booze spilled onto the floor sucked up into a mop, and served with a slice of lemon.

“I remember ordering buckets of Long Island ice teas and then not much after!!! Apparently I had a good time!!!” says a Facebook commenter.

“2007 NYE, I don鈥檛 remember much (drunk AF) but I was on the floor of the female bathrooms with the girls rubbing paw paw cream on my skin from Boxing Day sun burn,” said one Instagram commenter.

“So many memories! So many Long Island ice teas鈥�. So many fun and wonderful friendships and being able to work and learn at Stonewall is what I鈥檒l remember most. First arrived at 23, now 37!” reminisces

“The Long Island should have been called 鈥榣ost memory鈥� due to how strong it was.”

Toilets and collapsing roofs

Apparently everyone in Sydney was at the Oxford Hotel when the ceiling collapsed. I wasn’t.

“Dancing the night away until the ceiling fell down in the upstairs bar,” one email told me. “I’ll never forget when the upper levels in Stone Wall collapsed!” said another.

There’s also a far shittier stories about times where the toilets backed up and the venue flooded.

“They partied so hard the ceiling collapsed down on them” Star Observer was told. “Actually saw the ex being stretchered out on the news… every cloud has a silver lining.”

Celebrities and drama

“The drama when someone stole Marcia Hines鈥� handbag,” reminisced one contributor. Over its many decades of messy nights, celebrities and stars were also sucked into the glittery chaos of Stonewall.

“The night I had pizza with Dannii Minogue at 3am on the second floor bar”.

“When Cyndi Lauper sneaked away from her team and came to Stonewall. It was during the time when they were stopping smoking in venues and you could have a level for smoking. Ours became the top floor .聽 Took her up to VIP and she lit up a big fat joint.”

“Kissing Anna Nicole Smith was a highlight!”

Weddings and love

While I’d love for every story to be about debauchery and booze and stealing things from Australian Idol judges, turns out Stonewall was also a home for romance.

“Met my man of 24 years there,” wrote one commenter. “I met my husband there in 2003,” adds another.

“So, I began going to the Stonewall in the late nineties enjoying the early careers of now prominent and successful drag queens (past and present 馃槩 ) as well as many a Malebox night,” wrote balza2 on Instagram. “In February 2003, I met a lonely backpacker from Stoke-on-Trent England on his first night in Sydney at this iconic venue. Before mobile phones were permanently attached to our bodies, we agreed to meet the next day at Hyde Park fountain where I would give him a tour of the city. Never thinking that he would turn up, he actually did. The rest as they say is history. Today, that man is my husband and we have been together 23 years. Thank you Stonewall for launching our fantastic life together.”

“We had our wedding after party at Stonewall and with news of its closure, it鈥檚 made it an even more special occasion,” said journalist Karina Natt to Star Observer, about her marriage to Whadjuk Noongar journalist Narelda Jacobs.

“We had kept our wedding on the down low but some of our fav queens pulled us on stage and announced our marriage to a packed out venue – embargo lifted! We were so honoured to stand on the stage we have watched absolute legends of drag perform on during some of our best nights out on Oxford Street. And we were so proud to be there with many of our loved ones – some of whom had never seen a drag show or been inside any gay bar at all let alone Stonewall. Stonewall is the first place I ever saw a drag show and it was with Narelda, long before we were a couple.”

A place to belong

But above all, Stonewall was special because it was a place to be unabashedly and enthusiastically ourselves – exploding toilets and sexy cage dances included.

“Stonewall was the bar I had my first kiss: Top level, dancefloor, On A Night Like This blasting – perfect memory,” musician and actor told Star Observer.

“I had a lot of “firsts,” there which goes to show how much I needed a space like Stonewall to experience my gayness at that age… an age that was perhaps not the legal age to enter said establishment. I’m sure the Newtown venue will be lovely but my Stonewall will always be the one on Oxford Street with those long island ice teas on those sticky floors… we’ll never have that recipe again!”