In a vacant lot on Gottingen Street, a silent memorial bearing an image of Raymond Taavel testifies to a significant loss for the local LGBTQ community.

Rainbows fly high on Gottingen

Street plays a key role for city’s LGBTQ community, particularly since the death of Raymond Taavel

Jaclyn Irwin, 25, recalls the day she heard that Raymond Taavel, a local gay activist, was beaten to death. For her, it was a turning point.

“For the first time I thought: are we actually safe here?” says Irwin, a resident of Gottingen Street and C100 FM radio host who also volunteers as a master of ceremonies at LGBTQ events around Halifax.

Jaclyn Irwin, 25, stands in the inner courtyard of the Theatre Lofts, a Gottingen condo complex where she lives.

Taavel, 49, was killed outside a Gottingen gay bar in the spring of 2012.

Early in the morning of April 17 that year, Taavel tried to break up a fight between two men outside Menz & Mollyz. He was attacked and died of his injuries. Andre Denny, a man with schizophrenia who was a patient at the East Coast Forensic Hospital, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Within hours of Taavel’s death, hundreds of supporters came down to Gottingen to pay tribute to him.

“Instead of backing down and feeling scared, people fought back,” Irwin says. “And instead of using that fear to stay away, they used that fear to help fuel the fire against hate crimes. And making sure that they are not allowed here and should not be allowed anywhere.”

Taavel’s death magnified the fact that Gottingen is home to a close-knit LGBTQ community. It is a community that has called Gottingen home since the late 1980s – an organic process spurred by the Gay and Lesbian Association moving out of downtown and relocating where Global Television now stands. The association disbanded in 1995 when it filed for bankruptcy.

Still, Gottingen remains home to a number of gay-friendly bars and businesses, and the street continues to play a key role as a place where the LGBTQ community can rally against discrimination and violence.

“When Mr. Taavel passed away, I had never ever seen a community come together like that and flood the streets and make things happen,” Irwin says.

Home away from home

A year and a half later, Taavel’s death hasn’t been forgotten. In the vacant lot near the slaying, his memory is kept alive with a “healing garden,” where supporters have crafted their own memorials, including a heart-shaped brick sculpture and an image of Taavel’s face on a rainbow background.

“Everyone seems to have rainbow flags in their windows around Gottingen,” Irwin says. “It’s a queer, gay or lesbian-safe space, but I think it means more than that now, too. It’s an ongoing homage to Raymond and to the community.”

Mary Ann Daye, 51, is the owner of a popular gay-friendly bar and show space on Gottingen called The Company House, also known as the lesbian bar in town.

“Just because two lesbians happen to own a space, therefore it is a lesbian bar,” she says with a laugh.

She says The Company House is not just about the music shows they put on; it also aims to provide a space to the community.

“This is home,” Daye says. “This is just like our living room.”

For Daye, Gottingen Street has played an increasing role in providing a venue for the LGBTQ community to speak out against injustices.

“There is a spot for everybody at The Company House,” says Irwin, a patron herself. “It’s more ‘Come as you are’ than other bars. It’s a safe space.”

For Daye, it’s Gottingen itself that has a hospitable feeling to it.

“If you ask Doug next door (the owner of Menz), he definitely calls this (stretch of Gottingen) the gay village. It’s probably (one of) the more welcoming areas around town,” Daye says.

On the safe side

The street’s welcoming spirit is embodied by people like Robert Sparks, who has lived on Gottingen for 18 years and works as a doorman at the Bus Stop Theatre and The Company House, as well as the Khyber Centre for the Arts on Barrington Street.

When Daye opened her bar four years ago, she says Sparks dropped by often, got to know the staff and would keep an eye on the place, making sure the female staff were safe when they got off late at night.

She decided to hire Sparks to work the door on busy nights. She wanted to give the job to someone who knows the street and is familiar with the people.

Robert Sparks, 55, is a long-time resident of Gottingen. He says he wishes he had been in the right place at the right time to help Raymond Taavel the night he was killed.

“Even today when he’s not working, he keeps an eye on our place; even if it’s just from across the street. He will run across and let us know the liquor inspectors are there or if there’s something happening,” she says.

The Company House came to Gottingen a few years after the opening of the gay sauna SeaDog’s in 2003 and gay bar, Menz, both owned by Doug Melanson. Menz opened in 2005 and was renamed Menz & Mollyz in 2011.

“There has been a lot of improvement,” Sparks says. “You got two gay bars and a gay bathhouse on Gottingen. Even just that would have never taken place (when I came back to Halifax in 1995).”

“People get on with their life now. They do the things they want to do and me, I have no problem with them (the LGBTQ community). I mean, I work at a gay bar,” Sparks says.

For Irwin, it’s the people she sees every day, like Sparks, that makes Gottingen the community-minded street that it is.

“Robert is like a fixture,” says Irwin, who moved into the Theatre Lofts about a year ago. “He makes me feel safer at night when I see him on the streets – he’s a big teddy bear, he would just hug you – but even my girlfriend would agree that when you see Robert around, you have a smoke with him and he makes everything feel OK.”

At the sight of Sparks, people on the street skip through traffic on Gottingen to say hi and get the news. Some of them are Company House patrons that became friends during 2 a.m. chats on the deck of the bar.

Sparks has witnessed how Gottingen has changed over the years. He’s seen the new businesses coming in and the condos going up. And he’s hopeful about the future of the street.

“To me, people are people. I don’t care who you are, what sex you are, what religion you have, you know? You respect me and I will respect you,” Sparks says.

As for Daye and Irwin, they are happy to be part of the Gottingen Street community and intend to stay there. “There’s never a dull moment on Gottingen,” Irwin says, “whether it be good or bad.”

Credit: Story, photos and videos by Shawn Thompson.

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