Local

Remingtons to close on Monday

Popular bar to end 34-year run next week

Published

11 years ago

April 9, 2014

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

The D.C. Cowboys performing for the ‘Brodeo’ at Remingtons in 2010. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

The D.C. gay bar Remingtons will close its doors for good on Monday, April 14, ending a run of 34 years in which Remingtons and its predecessor gay bar Equus operated in the same building on Capitol Hill at 639 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E.

Remingtons owner Douglas Bogaev said the bar’s customers are invited to join the staff on Monday night for a closing party.

Bogaev said a company that bought the building last year informed him of its plans to gut the inside structure to make way for a redesigned interior.

He said the new owner, which city property records identify as Mountain View Burleson, LLC, did not tell him what it plans to do with the building when the renovation is completed.

According to Bogaev, the previous owner offered to sell him the building but he declined, saying he wasn’t in a position financially to make the purchase. He said the company didn’t offer to rent him space in the building following the renovation. City records show Mountain View Burleson paid just over $3 million for the two-story structure that consists of two adjacent buildings.

“The rent was high and our country-western crowd died out,” Bogaev said. “I have a day job, and it was getting to be too much for me.”

He was referring to the reputation of Remingtons and its earlier incarnation of Equus as the city’s preeminent country-western gay bar. At its peak in the 1990s and early 2000s Remingtons often was packed to capacity on weekends and some weekday evenings with country-western dance enthusiasts filling the bar’s large dance floor.

Bartender Mike Swain said Remingtons turned to other forms of entertainment and music around 2007 when the country-western crowd stopped coming. Drag shows, hip-hop music nights, a popular Latino night on Saturdays, and Karaoke in the bar’s upstairs room were among the offerings in recent years, Swain said.

“Business has been good,” he said. “It’s really a shame this is happening. I’m very sad to see it go.”

Since it opened in 1980 as Equus, the bar catered to a mostly gay male clientele with a country-western theme. The late Steven Smith, Bogaev’s domestic partner, bought the bar with business partner Dick Brandrupt in 1985, Bogaev said. He said Smith and Brandrupt changed the name to Remingtons around 1986 or 1987.

Smith became the sole owner around 1997, according to records from the city’s liquor board. Bogaev assumed ownership following Smith’s death in 2011 of liver cancer.

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Photos

PHOTOS: WorldPride Street Festival and Closing Concert

Doechii, Khalid among performers

Published

2 hours ago

June 11, 2025

Michael Key

Doechii performs at the WorldPride Closing Concert on Sunday, June 8. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

WorldPride 2025 concluded with the WorldPride Street Festival and Closing Concert held along Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. on Sunday, June 8. Performers on the main stage included Doechii, Khalid, Courtney Act, Parker Matthews, 2AM Ricky, Suzie Toot, MkX and Brooke Eden.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

Baltimore

Baltimore Trans Pride to take place Saturday

Baltimore Safe Haven hosts annual event

Published

5 hours ago

June 11, 2025

Daniela White

Baltimore Trans Pride in 2022. Baltimore Safe Haven's annual event will take place on Saturday. (Washington Blade photo by Linus Berggren)

Celebrating the transgender community, Baltimore Safe Haven, an organization committed to empowering LGBTQ individuals in Baltimore City, plans to host their fourth annual Baltimore Trans Pride on Saturday.

Instead of the usual parade and march, this year’s Trans Pride will be a block party on Charles Street and between 21st and 22nd Streets. The event will start at 1 p.m. with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and last until 10 p.m.

Community members can go on guided tours, enjoy refreshments by local vendors, listen to presenters, and watch performances by special guests.

Sukihana, the event’s headliner, plans to take to the stage to entertain the crowd, along with a variety of local performers, according to Melissa Deveraux, Baltimore Safe Haven’s executive assistant to Executive Director Iya Dammons.

“Some (are) prominently known, some (are) just making a name for themselves,” Deveraux said. Iya is always making sure that community talent is showcased at all of our functions.”

In company with Pride on Saturday, Baltimore Safe Haven will be opening its new building on Friday from 1-4 p.m.

“That is sort of going to be the prelude to pride,” Lau said. “Thanks to Sen. Mary Washington and the Weinberg Foundation, we were able to purchase the building outright, and it’s going to be a community hub of administrative buildings and 12-bedroom apartments.”

Renee Lau, administrative assistant for special projects coordinator for Baltimore Safe Haven, said the planning process for Baltimore Trans Pride began in January, and putting it all together was a collaboration of multiple city agencies and organizations.

“Safe Haven is an LGBT community organization, but we service the entire community, and that’s the message we try to spread,” Lau said. “We’re not just here for the LGBT community. We’re here to spread goodwill and offer harm reduction and housing to the entire community.”

Lau said the organization’s biggest goal for the event is to gain exposure.

“(We want) to let and let people know who we are and what our community is about,” she said. “Right now, because of what’s happening in DC, there’s a lot of bad untruths going on, and the total thing is bringing out the truth.”

Deveraux said having a place of inclusivity, acceptance, and togetherness is important in today’s political climate and the current administration.

“This event will have people seeing the strength and resilience of the transgender community, showing that no matter what we are going through, we still show up,” Deveraux said. “We are here, we will not be erased.”