Dancing Queens

In a sense, Crews and Tangos was born of a gay marriage. It was originally two separate establishments located in a pair of 1850s rowhouses: Crews, a gay bar at 510 Church Street that opened in 1994, and Tango, a lesbian bar at 508 Church that opened four years later. In 2004, they merged, embracing the guiding philosophy that would come to define Crews and Tangos: everyone is welcome.

The three-storey brick building became the heart of the Church and Wellesley Village, a homing beacon in particular to young queer people looking for a place to belong. The drag shows are now the stuff of legend, and patrons dance until closing, leaving fake eyelashes, rhinestones and boa ­feathers scattered in their wake. A testament to its lasting success: Crews and Tangos has managed to thrive while many of Toronto’s queer venues have fallen victim to one economic crisis or another.

In 2022, Graywood Developments, which owns the building, got city approval to turn the site into a 14-­storey condo tower. Late last year, Graywood raised the stakes, ratcheting the planned height up to 48 ­storeys—a build that would tower over the mid-rise Village. City council rejected the latest proposal in February, calling it inconsistent with the character of Church Street, but Graywood is appealing the decision with the Ontario Land Tribunal, which has a history of siding with developers.

The bar has retained the right to return to the site post-construction, but if it does, the Crews and Tangos of old would be drastically altered—the iconic blue exterior would be dismantled, and the bar would likely be squeezed onto a single floor. With the end of an era looming, we tapped staff, performers and patrons—past and present—for their raunchiest, funniest, most poignant memories of the Queen of Church Street.

“The dance floor would get sweaty and slippery on hot summer nights. It was fabulous”

—Mykel Hall a.k.a. DJ Black Catt

In 1992, I was 21 years old. I wanted to be an actor, and I thought deejaying could help finance that. My practice tapes were remixes of Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. One of my first gigs was at a spot called Ghetto Fag on Church Street. They gave me a Sunday, arguably the worst night of the week. But I was happy just to have a gig.

At that time, the Village was predominantly white, and there was a lot of anti-Black sentiment among queer folks. The club music reflected that. Most venues were playing chart-topping pop and not much else. I was the only Black gay DJ in the city who was playing soca tracks from artists like Square One, hip hop and R&B like Mary J. Blige, and dancehall mixes from Lady Saw. Obviously there was an appetite for it. When word got out about my set, hundreds of people showed up. That first Sunday, the line went down Church Street and all the way around the corner onto Maitland.

Ghetto Fag didn’t last long. In 1994, it became Crews, but the new owners kept my Sunday-night spot. We called it Black Catt Sunday. I started making my own flyers. I would go to a local print shop and literally cut and paste text, plus photos of sexy Black guys, onto letter-size printer paper. I’d tape them to poles and hand them out along Church. Sunday quickly became the bar’s most popular night.

I got into a routine. Every Thursday, I would hurry to Starsound, a record shop at Yonge and Gerrard, and grab the best new releases on vinyl. Then, on Sundays, I’d get my friends to lug three or four crates of records up to the second floor, enough to play music until 3 a.m. Sometimes, if we arrived after 9 p.m., the crowd would be so big that there wasn’t enough room for us to squeeze by. We’d have to carry the vinyl up the fire escape.

Back then, the upstairs dance floor was basically a metal box: there were sheets of zinc covering the floor, walls and ceiling. It would get sweaty and slippery, especially on hot summer nights, but aesthetically, it was fabulous. The walls reflected the crowd, and the club lights would bounce off the metal plating. After I wrapped up, my friends and I would head to the Golden Griddle at Church and Carlton for pancakes.

The rest of Church Street didn’t like what I was doing: I was a Black man deejaying for people who looked like me. People would rip down my flyers in front of me, but I would put them right back up. Almost every week, someone called the police on us or filed a noise complaint. We let management deal with it while we kept on dancing. The owners of Crews stood by me: Black Catt Sunday was good for business and the community. It was also a form of protest. We were claiming our space as queer people of colour.

I went on to play at nearly every queer establishment in the city, including the Red Spot, Aztec and Boots. I deejayed at Zipperz for its entire 16-year run. Those have all closed, but I’ve been back to Crews many times. In 2023, I did a gig there for my 52nd birthday. The DJ booth was in the same spot it’s always been. There aren’t many places on this planet that you get to inhabit for 33 years.

“We would get a lot of professional singers who blew everyone out of the water”

—Donna Kroft, karaoke host

I started hosting karaoke at Crews and Tangos in 1996. It was always a wild party. When I looked out from the DJ booth, the dance floor was a sea of people. We had a huge cult following. There were regulars who picked the same songs over and over again. A guy named Kevin came every week to do theatrical versions of Black Eyed Peas and Britney Spears songs.

We would get a lot of theatre people and professional singers who blew everyone out of the water. I don’t know what brought them out to a karaoke night in the Village, but they were just amazing. In general, there was a lot of Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and Madonna. It feels clichéd, but as a community, we really did gravitate toward Madonna.

We had a lot of celebrity sightings over the years. Jann Arden came by once, and so did Carson Kressley, one of the original Queer Eye guys. But one of the most memorable appearances was Adam Lambert. He showed up one night just before he got super famous. I think he’d only recently finished filming American Idol. He sang “I Can’t Make You Love Me.” I’ll never forget it.

“There was a lot of gay-bashing back then. You had to be careful entering and exiting the bars”

—Amanda Roberts, bartender and drag performer

I first went to Crews and Tangos around the time it opened. Back then, there was still a lesbian side and a gay side. Years later, I was working as a shooter girl in the Village at a bar called 5ive on St. Joseph Street. It wasn’t very busy. Some nights we’d close early, and I would walk over to Church Street to hang out at Crews. When I told the manager how dead my other job was, she hired me to bartend on Saturday nights. It was like joining a family. Even when staff had a night off, they’d still come to the bar just to hang. Sometimes we would close for a day so we could all go to the beach together.

I’d been performing in drag at other bars around the city, and eventually I started an all-request night at Crews. I’d bring in a case of CDs and let audience members go through it, find something they liked and give it to the DJ. Then I’d perform it, no matter what it was.

Back then, the Village was more underground than it is now. We would end our shows by telling people to get home safely and to make sure they told a friend who they were going home with. There was a lot of gay-bashing in those days. Guys would drive down Church and throw eggs at people sitting on the steps in front of the Second Cup. You had to be careful entering and exiting the bars. Still, we had a lot of fun. Every Tuesday night, I’d be onstage for two and a half hours, performing everything from Shirley Bassey to Marilyn Manson. “What’s Up?” by 4 Non Blondes was my favourite song to perform. There was a gentleman who would tip me $50 every time I did it.

For my 41st birthday, in 2008, my friend decided to host a funeral for my youth. She put a huge tombstone on the stage. When I walked into the bar, everyone kept stopping me and saying, “Oh my god, you’re okay!” They thought I had died. Over the years, I’ve had many people tell me that my drag performances inspired them. It means a lot. People have also referred to me as a legend and an icon. To me, I was just living my life. If I helped other people become their true selves, that’s an added bonus.

“I made better tips when I sang, so I picked up a karaoke shift”

—Katherine Smith, coat check and bartender

I got a job doing coat check at Crews and Tangos in 1997, then worked my way up to bartending. I was 19, and most of the other staff and patrons were older. I didn’t know much about queer history, so working at Crews was like a crash course. I learned about the Stonewall riots in New York and the AIDS crisis. I would work slow Monday-afternoon shifts just for the opportunity to take it all in.

In the late ’90s, you were still allowed to smoke inside. Crews had old wooden floors with lots of holes and divots. Sometimes a cigarette ember would fall into one, and we’d pour water on it to prevent a fire from starting. One night, we smelled something burning but couldn’t find the source. It was midnight, and the bar was full. I had to call the fire department and evacuate the building. I don’t know if you’ve ever been at a gay bar when a bunch of firefighters show up, but it’s very exciting. I’m pretty sure some customers thought we’d called the fire department just for them. In the end, they cut a two-by-two-foot hole in the dance floor to make sure the fire was out.

Working there during Pride was chaos. One year, after closing down the bar at 2:30 a.m., we went to McDonald’s and ordered $140 worth of takeout, brought it all back to Crews and sat around eating cheeseburgers and fries until 5 a.m. Occasionally my co-workers and I would do a Pride pub crawl and go visit other Church Street bars. They always let us skip the line.

While I worked there, we rebuilt the stage. As I remember it, the bar got shut down because of a capacity infraction, and the owner decided to take advantage of the opportunity. They dismantled the tiny corner stage that barely fit two people and erected one that easily fit four or five drag queens.

I even got up on it every now and then. I picked up the Tuesday-night karaoke shift and realized that when I sang, I made better tips. I had two songs: “Build Me Up Buttercup” by the Foundations and “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel. To this day, good luck getting me off a karaoke stage.

“It wasn’t until I got a job at Crews that I saw a future for myself”

—Bee Bertrand, DJ

As soon as I was 19 and could legally drink, I started going to Crews and Tangos. I was hiding the fact that I was queer from my mom. I’d borrow her car to drive to Church Street, but I’d lie about where I was. Then I got a parking ticket, which included the location. Even she knew that Church Street was the Gay Village.

In 2003, after my girlfriend and I broke up, I was devastated and didn’t know what to do with myself. One day, I walked up to the manager to see if she was hiring. She asked, “Can you deejay?” I said no. Then she said, “Can you start on Tuesday?” And that’s how I became a DJ. I ended up having that job for over a decade.

At the time, all the music was on CDs. I kept a huge, meticulously labelled binder of discs. Sometimes I’d burn a CD with a regular’s frequently requested songs and keep it under their name. No matter what the vibe or demographic was, everybody always wanted to end the night with Spice Girls. The whole room would sing along and do the choreography for “Stop.” Eventually we entered the age of RuPaul, and I saw a lot of queens who are now part of the Drag Race franchise get their start. I deejayed for Brooke Lynn Hytes for a while. I had such a crush on her.

The bar was like the Island of Misfit Toys. Some people were so warm, and some people were kind of mean, but everybody was a safe person to talk to. When I moved out of my parents’ house, I had nothing. I was really stressed about money. One night, the drag queens brought me onstage and got me to do a terrible dance to a Whitney Houston song. They screamed at the crowd to tip me because I needed the cash. Those same queens were the first people I talked to when I figured out I was trans. When I was young, I could never picture being an old gay. It wasn’t until I started working at Crews and Tangos that I saw a future for myself.

“It’s where I saw my first drag show and had my first kiss”

—Brooke Lynn Hytes, host of Canada’s Drag Race

When I was 18, back when Yonge Street was still seedy, I picked up a fake ID in a basement near the Eaton Centre. It was terrible—it just said “Canada” on it, no province or anything. But I took it to Church Street because I really wanted to get into Crews and Tangos. At the time, there were these two lesbian bouncers, Bonnie and Debbie. They were a couple. They took one look at my ID, read me the riot act and turned me away. It was absolutely terrifying. Related: Brooke Lynn Hytes—the supremely stylish queen of drag

Once I was of age, Crews and Tangos was the first queer bar I went to. It’s where I saw my first drag show and had my first kiss. It was magical. Then, around 2003, there was a regular Sunday-night show called Freaks that was hosted by three drag queens, all of whom have now passed away. I used to go and watch it, but one weekend, I decided to get in drag myself. The queens invited me up to do a number, and that was the first time I ever performed. After that, I started doing regular shows there. I even befriended Bonnie and Debbie.

I kept visiting and performing after I’d moved to New York. Farra N Hyte was one of the biggest showgirls in Toronto, and she’d always let me perform at her Crews and Tangos shows. We’d joke that she was my “drag mother,” a mentor who would give me advice. Then, one night in 2011, I was in the tiny dressing room backstage. I can’t even remember what my drag name was at the time, but suddenly Farra was talking to the crowd and saying, “Welcome to the stage my newest drag daughter, Brooke Lynn Hytes!” I turned to the queen beside me and was like, “Who’s she talking about?” She said, “That’s you!” And in that moment, I became Brooke Lynn Hytes.

“I’ve been tipped a Tiffany necklace, fancy champagne and a credit card”

—Farra N Hyte, drag performer

Before I started doing drag, my friends and I had a weekend tradition of bar-hopping on Church Street. We’d hit all kinds of places: The Red Spot, Zipperz, 501 Bar and Woody’s. But we’d always end the night at Crews. It was the place to be. On weekends, people would arrive as early as 6 p.m just to avoid the line. If you weren’t there by 10 p.m., you weren’t getting in.

Once I started performing, around 2000, Chris Edwards, an iconic Toronto queen, took me under her wing. The first song I performed at Crews was “...Baby One More Time.” I did the splits and more than one cartwheel. The whole time, I wore a tiny kilt, platform sneakers and a baby-pink push-up bra. The crowd loved it. I was also a shooter girl. I’d walk around the establishment in stilettos, balancing dozens of shots on my serving tray and selling them for less than $5.

The bar hosted a Miss Crews drag competition, and in 2003 I won. When I walked onstage in my blue chiffon gown to receive my crown, I felt like a star, like Cher or Lady Gaga. I still have my crown in a cabinet in my dining room.

I started performing multiple nights a week, and drag became my livelihood. At shows, I could barely make it to the bar during my 15-minute intermission breaks because so many people would stop me to ask for my autograph. The tips were unbelievable. Somebody gave me a Tiffany necklace, and I got a few expensive bottles of champagne. One week, I announced that I couldn’t afford to compete in an upcoming pageant. An audience member gave me a credit card with a $10,000 limit.

My regulars became my friends, and the staff became my family. When two of the bouncers got married, they asked me to be a bridesmaid. I planned the whole wedding and attended the ceremony, at a bed and breakfast in Cobourg. Another couple who were loyal regulars invited me to their daughter’s christening. I bought her sparkly baby shoes.

The staff parties were some of my favourite nights. We would close the windows and lock the doors. Management would hire staff from 501 Bar to serve us. Everyone would get onstage—queens, bartenders, DJs, bouncers. With no customers, we could really let our hair down.

“I remember some messy nights, but many wholesome visits too”

—Joshua Clarke, patron

When I was 21 years old, in 2003, I was living in Peterborough. There were no gay bars, so my friends and I started making the two-hour trip to Toronto. Crews and Tangos was the only place I knew that hosted drag shows. I was immediately enthralled. There was one queen who was a Cher impersonator. She did “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” and had Cher’s moves down to a T, including her iconic lip-licking.

We started coming in once a month, any time we could get a ride or had enough money to take the bus. If we drove, we’d crash on someone’s couch, or one of us would stay sober and take everyone back to Peterborough at three or four in the morning. I remember some messy nights—lots of beer—but there were many wholesome visits too. One of my friends would sometimes bring their mom with them. The drag queens loved that, and they would always invite her to come up on stage with them. They were thrilled that a middle-aged parent was there just to have fun.

“Crews and Tangos is the gayest place on earth”

—Priyanka, winner of Canada’s Drag Race

I started going to Crews and Tangos in 2016. Even though I was still coming to terms with my sexuality, I’d been to Crews so often that at Pride, security let me skip the line. I made a beeline for the top floor, where they were playing dancehall and Caribbean music. Growing up Guyanese, I’d experienced a lot of homophobia from the Caribbean community. I was like, Wow, I can dance to soca, reggae and dancehall and be my full authentic self? This is really happening! Then the DJ announced that Alison Hinds, a world-famous soca singer, was there that night. She performed her hit song “Roll It Gal,” right in small-ass Crews and Tangos, behind the DJ booth. I remember thinking, If Alison Hinds is accepting of this community, what am I worried about?

Related: “I’m the hardest-working queen on the planet”—A Q&A with Priyanka, Canada’s first lady of drag

As a patron, I’d put $20 bills in my mouth and hope that the queens would invite me onstage. Being up there was such an honour. Then one of them asked me to try performing in drag. I don’t know what came over me, but I agreed. My makeup looked like shit that first time, but I gave a great show. I was instantly obsessed, though the gig came with a little drama here and there. Once, I was in the middle of a performance, and I looked out into the audience and saw my boyfriend making out with some other guy. Another time, I got a little carried away with one of the guys who tipped me, and we kissed. Then I realized that his boyfriend was standing right beside him. Suddenly I was the other woman, and I had to go back to performing an Ariana Grande song while they fought.

At Crews and Tangos, there’s always a drag performer on the stage. It doesn’t matter if it’s packed or if there’s a single patron, there will be a show. For me, that’s the definition of a safe space. I got to watch people come into their first gay bar, and they would be so shy and would stand all alone. Then they’d be back the next week, and they’d have met someone and be in love. Now I’ve toured across North America, Europe and the UK. I often ask my audiences, “Hey, does anyone know Crews and Tangos?” There are always people who cheer, because it really is world famous. It’s the gayest place on earth.

“I got so drunk that I lost my boot—only to find it at coat check five months later”

—Allysin Chaynes, drag performer

The first time I went to Crews was for a friend’s birthday party. I had started experimenting with drag. I wore bold makeup, but with a more masculine pompadour, shirt and tie. It was a way for me to make a not-so-subtle statement about ­gender—plus I was poor and couldn’t afford wigs or dresses. To me, Crews felt like the biggest house party in the world. It was glitzy but gritty. I loved it. I started doing drag in the west end, where the performers tend to be more punk or alternative. But, eventually, Crews hired me to perform regularly—even though I was much less mainstream and much more hairy than most of the performers in the Village.

There were so many crazy parties. One time, during Pride, I got so drunk that I lost one of my boots—only to find it at coat check five months later. Another time, the owner temporarily lost possession of the bar. The night before he had to hand it over, we tore all the decorations down, and I smoked cigarettes onstage. But the evening I’ll never forget was just a random Monday. Someone came to the stage and told us that a patron had put down his credit card and was offering to buy everyone in the club drinks for half an hour. We stopped what we were doing to let everyone know. People went outside to run down the street like town criers, yelling about the Amex Black card and free booze at Crews and Tangos. Eventually, security told us that the person was so thrilled by the reaction that he wanted to keep the tab open all night. We never found out why he did it.

Queer people in Toronto have already lost so many gathering places and cultural hubs. The city tends to erase its heritage, knocking down older buildings in favour of modernist glass condos. Crews has been so many people’s first gay bar. When you walk in, you’re stepping into history.

“We painted the exterior in less than a month”

—Nadijah Robinson, mural artist

In early 2013, I heard about the Church Street Mural Project. Toronto was going to host World Pride the following year, and the organizers were looking for people to paint murals all over the Village. I’d been researching Jackie Shane, a soul singer from the 1960s. I proposed a mural that would include her and other 20th-century queer and trans performers of colour, with dandelions as a motif. The flowers start as pops of colour, then turn into seeds that disperse all over. It felt like the perfect metaphor for how Black performers had influenced queer culture.

My proposal was accepted, and I expanded the project to include figures like the Great Imposters, a travelling troupe of drag queens who visited small towns in Ontario in the 1970s; DJ Zahra, who introduced bhangra music to the Village in the early ’90s; and House of Monroe, a prominent force in Toronto ballroom culture. I wanted to enter them all into the historical record.

Then I got my location: the front and south façades of Crews and Tangos, which was beige brick at the time. It was a huge feat—two and a half storeys of painting. I’d never worked on a mural before, and I immediately pictured myself trying to paint while standing on a wobbly 40-foot ladder. In the end, we got permits from the city and built scaffolding, but that meant I couldn’t start until the first week of October. The bar needed the work done by Halloween, one of their busiest nights. To speed things up, I brought on a collaborator: Elicser Elliott, a prolific painter and experienced muralist.

For weeks, I’d scale the scaffolding in goggles, steel toe boots and a paint-splattered corduroy jacket. Periodically, Elicser and I would climb down and walk across the street. Up close, it was easy for things to look disproportionate. It was only when we stood back that I could see how everything was coming together.

Before World Pride, the Village was kind of monotonous—it didn’t even have its famous rainbow crosswalks. After my mural and the other 10 from the project were complete, the strip felt vibrant and official, a properly designated LGBTQ space. Elicser and I turned Crews into a royal-blue landmark that commemorates diverse queer and trans performers. To this day, passing it on Church feels surreal. I always think, We really did that. Those are my ideas up on those walls.

“We were making out so hard that a bouncer broke us up”

—Rob Kempson, patron

When I moved from Kingston to Toronto, I really wanted to take in Halloween. It’s a big night at queer bars. I prepared five different costumes and found five venues to go to over the course of a week. But, as the nights wore on, everywhere felt too specific, like I’d stumbled into the leather daddy bar or the muscle man bar. Meanwhile, I was dressed as a pumpkin. As a queer person, I’d lived my whole life feeling like I was on the outside. Then, just when I thought I’d be included, I felt excluded all over again. It was disheartening, but I had gotten all the costumes together, so I committed to making it through all the events.

On the last night, I donned a Boy Scout outfit and went to Crews and Tangos. Immediately, I was like, Oh, this is what I’ve been looking for. The bar opened the door to everyone. It wasn’t specifically for any one type of queer person or any one look. My friends and I went upstairs, where they were playing Britney Spears’s greatest hits. It was so full that everyone was packed together, all dancing with one another. I eventually started making out with this random guy—I was probably eight drinks too far in at this point—and I guess we were really into each other, because a bouncer came up and was like, “Hey, guys, that’s enough.” I wasn’t even embarrassed. I knew I’d found my place.

“When my crush asked me to go dancing, I changed out of my pyjamas and rushed to Crews”

—Devery Jacobs, actor

The first time I went to Crews and Tangos, back in the 2010s, I was still trying my best to convince myself I was straight. I was planning on staying in that night—I was at a friend’s house in comfy clothes with Indian takeout on the way. Then, the person I was crushing on asked me to go out dancing in the Village. I rushed over to Crews, left my saag paneer at coat check and met up with them. I immediately felt at home there, tipping the queens and letting the chemistry build between me and my almost-date.

When we stepped out for some fresh air, we bummed a cigarette off a fellow patron. He coyly asked, “Are you two girlfriends?” I told him no, a little too quickly. Sensing my gay panic, he leaned in so only I could hear and whispered, “Well you will be soon!” Lo and behold, my gay oracle was right—we started dating shortly afterward.

“I won $1,000, a bucket of beer and a paid gig the next day”

—Imarra, drag performer

In 2014, Crews and Tangos was one of the few places where drag performers could land paid gigs. Getting booked wasn’t easy, though. If you wanted a shot, you had to prove yourself at a pageant or competition like Miss Gay Toronto, Miss Gay Universe or the Crews and Tangos Drag Race. If you did well, a manager would offer you a guest spot. If you killed it, you might become a regular.

I’d always been interested in drag but had never performed. A classmate was a backup dancer at Crews, so I convinced them to help me enter that year’s Drag Race competition. It lasted six weeks, and each instalment had a theme. After every one, the two lowest-­scoring performers would lip-sync for survival. I was nervous, but since I was new, I had nothing to lose. For the Broadway week, I did a medley of musical numbers from Evita, and for the duet challenge, I lip-synced “Beautiful Liar” by Shakira and Beyoncé with another contestant.

To my surprise, I won the competition and walked away with $1,000 in cash, a bucket of beer and a paid gig at Crews the very next day. In 2017, I became part of Crews’ regular roster of performers, doing up to five shows a week. The more established queens—I’m not saying they were old, but they’d been around—helped me refine my performance style. My aesthetic pulls from 1930s Hollywood, 1980s New Romantic and The Muppets (Gonzo is one of my icons). I describe myself as “gender fraudulent.” I don’t use gender for good. I use it to be confusing and entertaining.

Crews was and is a dive bar through and through. It’s dark and dingy, with sticky floors and mysterious smells. The cramped dressing room is little more than a converted closet. There’s nothing glamorous or trendy about the place—you won’t find any exposed brick or Edison bulbs—so anyone can show up and be messy and irreverent.

One night, an audience member climbed onstage to join a performance of “Out Tonight” from Rent, only to start undressing as she danced, getting down to just her bra and underwear. Church Street has always been a destination, but Crews is more than just a tourist spot. It’s where people experience queer nightlife in its rawest, most unfiltered form.

“Maybe the end is inevitable, but what we’ve done for the community speaks for itself”

—Elysia Stewart, general manager

I started at Crews in 2016 as a bouncer and worked my way up to general manager—just in time for the pandemic. It was incredibly stressful. We’re a drag bar, and we couldn’t have drag. As soon as we could, we set up a stage and speakers on the small back patio, but we could only fit 26 people out there—usually our capacity is 575. Later, we installed Plexiglas around the bar, and we put in tables to help keep people at a safe distance from one another, even though we’re not really a sit-down kind of place. For months, it felt like we might close for good at any moment. But, somehow, we made it through.

Managing a bar can be a tough gig, but every year I look forward to Pride. Crews and Tangos always has a float in the parade. We usually have a theme—last year, it was “pink.” My favourite year was when we did a Wizard of Oz theme. One of the queens was dressed as Dorothy, and the staff took on the other characters with full makeup. I was one of the flying monkeys. Being part of the float is my favourite Crews and Tangos tradition.

There are so few long-standing queer bars on Church Street, and there are a lot of developers that want to build in the area. I worry that if Crews and Tangos closes, there will be a domino effect. I’ve seen how neighbourhoods can change. When I started working security, I was down on Richmond Street, which used to be the club district. Now it’s all condos. The same thing could happen to the Village if we’re not careful. Maybe the end is inevitable, but what we’ve done for the community, staff and performers who have been here over the years—I feel like it speaks for itself.

“I met my best friend at Crews. She became our official band photographer”

—Leandra Earl, keyboardist and guitarist for The Beaches

The first drag show I ever attended was during a friend’s birthday party at Crews and Tangos. I was nervous, but I put some cash between my teeth and went up to one of the drag queens. She graciously accepted it, grabbing the tip with her mouth. Since then, I’ve spent many a night there side-eyeing exes, kissing new crushes and slipping 20s into performers’ bras. It’s where I met my best friend Meg Moon, the Beaches’ official photographer. We recognized each other from social media and ended up chatting and dancing all night. Related: Inside the Beaches’ rise to rock stardom

“On my first visit, I was 18 and in love. I got in with a fake ID”

—Mattea Roach, Jeopardy! champion

I was just 16 when I started my first year at U of T. Obviously, it was tough for me to go to bars. Thankfully, by the summer after my second year, another student had taken pity on me and given me her old driver’s licence. I had to be careful where I used it, though, because I didn’t want it to get confiscated. The Village was one of the only places where I knew I could get admitted to bars. By that point, I had officially come out, but I was still getting used to the idea of being a lesbian. I went to Woody’s, a gay bar on Church Street, a couple of times. The crowd there was mostly older men, so I never felt like I fit in.

Then a girl I was seeing invited me to Crews and Tangos. The bouncers asked me to recite the full address on my ID. Luckily, I had memorized the postal code, so they let me in.

I was so relieved to see younger people of all genders there. That was such an important night for me. I was in love for the first time, and I was 18, so it was a very serious and intense thing. Being able to feel safe while having a dance-floor makeout was exactly what I needed. When I finally turned 19 and could get into bars with my real ID, Crews and Tangos was the first place I used it.