Metropolis: Gayly Bedecked on Burnside By Walt Curtis The Metropolis is a gay disco, coffeehouse, and tavern at the corner of SW Third and Burnside, where once was located Ron McCarty’s American Museum. It allows teenagers on part of the premises. The logo is a stylized metropolitan building. The name has got to come from Metropolis in the Superman comic books. What better theme for kids dancing up a storm, expending their inexhaustible energy, on a plaid- patterned electronic dance floor? Lanny Swerdlow, an owner, told me it is the largest “lighted” dance floor on the West Coast. The checkered patterns. orange, yellow, green, oscillate to the beat of the music. Other electronic and light-show gear is in the works. Do you remember the term “light show” from the psychedelic sixties? The Metropolis has the socio-historical resonance of the Crystal Ballroom, the Folk Singer, the Way Out. Portland past Downtown history is being reborn. For years I’ve felt that young people have not been treated fairly by adults —particularly in the era of New American affluence. The “adults” tore down the roller coaster at Jantzen Beach to create a boring shopping center. The downtown YMCA with its swimming pool and basketball courts was demolished. Oaks Park still perseveres. but it’s not Downtown! Poolhalls have vanished. Community centers—arcades—lots of places where kids used to play and associate no longer exist. It’s as if the children were told to come into the suburban living room and watch color TV with Mom and Dad. A few of them elected to stay out in the streets and get mixed up with drugs and pimps. Just for a little excitement! What Was Mildred’s Palace? Mildred’s Palace was a rather successful teenage dance space and after- hours hangout for street kids and others. It had a large gay clientele, though some straight couples went there to dance. Mildred’s was located on Taylor, in the Pythian Building, near Hamburger Mary’s and The Embers, in what is a gay cruising area. Actually, downtown Portland at night is, and has been for years, a sort of gay ghetto. The list of gay bars is lengthy: Dahl and Penne’s, The Other Inn, The Embers, The Family Zoo, and so on. (Check out the newspaper The Northwest Fountain for the extensive list of gay bars and businesses in the core area.) This is not a moralistic judgment, simply a description. Street kids, teenage hustlers, and others would come from “camp” on the corner of Fourth and Yamhill, or Taylor next to the Fun Center, past the Greyhound Bus Depot, past Hamburger Mary's, up to Mildred’s Palace. They’d hang out on the street corners on Taylor hustling, waiting for the gay bars to close, or they’d sociably congregate, or cross over to the parking lot and smoke dope. This is not to imply that the management of Mildred’s Palace condoned this behavior. To their credit, they gave these kids someplace to go. No one else seemed to care. Inside the Pythian, you paid a small cover charge, were checked out to see if you were drunk, rowdy, or homo- phobic. then went up the stairs into a dark, gym-like area, with white strobe lights flashing and loud disco and rock and roll blaring. There were mirrors on the wall and whirling lights overhead. The place had soul, youthful energy, a sense of sleaze, and best of all, it gave young people a place to gather together Downtown, no matter what the reasons. 1only visited there a couple of times. When I heard it shut down, I got upset. That’s the reason I’m writing this article. I felt if the city fathers had closed it because they objected to the scene, they were wrong. Well, all that’s happened is Mildred’s has moved to The Metropolis. (Lanny told me later on that the city was pleased with the move. It had helped to alleviate some of the problems which had developed with the congregation of large numbers of young people in the “camping” area.) I First Impressions My first impressions were mixed feelings. (Later, I found out, misconceptions^.) After working in a wino grocery, I came over to have a beer. The Metropolis, the non-alcoholic part of the building, is on one side; a small bar is on the other, with a plateglass window looking in on the dance floor and the young people dancing. It seemed somewhat voyeuristic to me, if not exploitative. Like looking into a neon fishbowl. Which fish did you want to get to bite? A door with cover charge led into the dance floor. Adults could pass back and forth; teenagers couldn’t. After a few visits, I realized nothing that crass or commercial was going on. Sure, there were a few hustlers I recognized from Downtown. But young men and women were dancing, blacks and whites, making some pretty glorious moves, as only young people can. Knowing Skid Road as I do, I wondered if there’d been problems with gay-baiting drunken rednecks wandering around. I talked to Jim, behind the circular bar. Really personable, blond, young, braces on his teeth, Jim could hardly hold his dancing hips and feet still. He loved to dance, loved working here. His enthusiasm was infectious. I asked him if there had been any problems. He replied, hardly any at all. I asked him if the disco sound didn’t get a little monotonous? He said the deejay would play different music. -We got him to put on “Heroes” by David Bowie. He told us Friday and Saturday nights were the most crowded. One Sunday night I talked with Michael Stoops of the Burnside Community Council. We spoke with Lanny Swerdlow. Michael told Lanny the council welcomed The Metropolis in the Burnside community. I began to feel that the set-up of the coffeehouse on one side and the tavern on the other was an appropriate social arrangement. One of the most oppressive aspects of American life is the separation of the generations. Here, teenagers and adults could mix freely, if they wanted. Young gays with older ones, straights with gays, whatever. One thing that had impressed me at Mildred’s was girls and boys dancing and socially mixing with the young gays. There was none of that alienating Compared toWhat JNNO S Largest selection in the Northwest for Men and Women 217 N.W. Couch St. Oldtown 248-9069 Denise & Jan (formerly of Frame Factory) M e ta l Fram ing $.09 an inch U-Frame We-Frame Custom (48 hou r service) Prints O r ig ina l Works L im ited Editions UIP M *7 10% WITH THIS LCOUPON. j Mon. - Sat. 1]-7 Compare Our Prices P lease! 9 Sun. 12-6 ■ 219 N.W. Couch “And who is that beautiful lady?”askedMarie. In the gro^e, standing on a binding path made of baked sugar almonds and raisins, Was an exquisite lady dressed in gossamerpink and white, and shimmering like a dewdrop. 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