The community of renters at an apartment complex rising adjacent to the nightlife spot wouldn’t gel with the culture of Jungle, said the building’s new owner, according to Wussy Mag. On Cheshire Bridge Road, near Lindbergh, the once-bustling gay nightclub Jungle was forced to shutter in late 2017. Dumpsters and construction fencing outside the entrance to Model T. But I think somehow people are missing out on what Atlanta really is,” she adds, nodding to Hotel Clermont’s revamp as a good example of maintaining Atlanta’s culture. There’s a 12-story office building they’re rebuilding Kroger. “I’m for progress I really am,” Darmer says. And it’s not alone among LGBTQ-centric businesses in Atlanta with proprietors who are frustrated, having faced similar tribulations. Model T was not given such an option, Darmer says. (The Cameli’s Poncey-Highland location ultimately closed, although there’s another nearby in Little Five Points.) On the other hand, Cameli’s Pizza-a bar and eatery that used to do business in the Ford Factory’s ground-floor retail strip-was afforded the option of upping its rent and sticking around, according to Darmer.
Model T is now operating on a month-to-month basis, expected to stay open until the end of 2018. In June, the bar’s Facebook page announced the building’s landlord, who isn’t associated with New City, would not be renewing the business’s lease. Model T sits in the shadow of developer New City’s under-construction 725 Ponce project, a nearly $200 million mixed-use development-the largest new-construction investment on the Beltline thus far-that will bring abundant office space and an “urban prototype Kroger” where the infamous “ Murder Kroger” had operated for about three decades. Is it a case of pride and prejudice, or simply the natural trajectory of a growing city amidst a more open-minded society? Yet, with an estimated 4.2 percent gay population in the metro area, as the New York Times gauged it in 2015-a 2006 study suggested the city’s queer demographic made up much more ( nearly 13 percent) of the population-one might expect to see gay bars cherished, not dwindling.
And there’s certainly no shortage of Atlanta places where people of all sexual orientations can crack a beer together. Acceptance, generally speaking, is the norm now, especially in sophisticated urban settings. Given Atlanta’s famous (but totally questionable) “The city too busy to hate” moniker, some might wonder if adding new gay bars is imperative to maintaining the city’s cultural fabric. The advent of Pride’s 48th anniversary makes it an opportune time to examine how Model T and other businesses that have long catered to the local LGBTQ crowd have dealt with the city’s fast-paced development trends and, in many cases, the negative pressures of gentrification.
“I’m hoping we get to stay here, but I doubt it,” Darmer says.Īs of today, Atlanta Pride-one of the country’s oldest and largest festivals celebrating LGBTQ culture-is in full swing, with upwards of 300,000 people expected. The gentrifying forces of the Beltline and a surging intown real estate market have threatened the nearly 30-year-old establishment with displacement-if not demise. On top of the personal emotions running high at what for years has been a popular Atlanta gay bar, Model T’s fate is uncertain. That same regular, with the help of the barkeep, also consoled another local who’s having health problems of his own. On Wednesday afternoon, for instance, one longtime patron said he’d come in for a drink after spending two weeks taking care of his father, who’s in poor health.
Day by day, the regulars and bartenders discuss everything from neighborhood rumors to personal problems.
On Sundays, the owner, Jill Darmer, serves lunch to patrons free of charge. The clientele at Model T, a dive bar tucked beneath Poncey-Highland’s aging Ford Factory Lofts, is more a family than a collection of customers.