Gay night clubs in louisville

After serving up drinks, drag and dance since 1988, the gay nightclub the Connection will soon be reborn in Smoketown as part of the $15 million entertainment complex C2, or Connection 2.

But as the new venue takes shape, the nightclub’s predecessor has become a parking lot for Whiskey Row.

Opened in 1975 by Connection owner George Stinson, the Downtowner occupied a narrow five-story structure that could grip roughly 700. Though all that remains now is its brown brick facade, the club was a landmark of Louisville’s gay group during its 14 years at 105 W. Main St.

Stinson, now 70, pauses to recall the details, but chuckles as the memories flood back. Hundreds of gay men and women crowded the nightclub floor, Stinson said. And unlike the gay bars before it, the Downtowner served as a gathering place for activists throughout the 1980s.

“It wasn’t just a culture center,” Stinson said. “It was where thoughts came together.”

Eventually, its popularity outgrew its room, leading him to shut the club in 1989 and focus on the five-times larger club, the Connection, at 120 S. Floyd St. But Stinson paused to say, “Oh, what a genes