Ballpark Blues

[MountainLaurel]

Having been those the Navy Yard clubs many times, I present this with a tear in my eye.

No amount of Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton and Mariah Carey songs could mask the pain. One by one, until the wee hours Monday morning, the reigning drag queens of Half Street SE descended the stairs at Ziegfeld's cabaret to strut their last, blowing kisses to admirers and making a few more sweepingly glamorous gestures -- all of it a farewell to the shabby but perfect place they called home for three decades.

Ziegfeld's, and four other establishments on the same forsaken industrial block at Half and O streets, closed yesterday in a cruelly predictable high school metaphor: The jocks win.

The city's oldest stretch of gay-oriented clubs, which date back to the 1970s, just happen to sit smack in the footprint of the planned Nationals baseball stadium. There were two years of rumors about closing or moving. Certainties were followed by brief reprieves, while the city argued with Major League Baseball on the stadium deal. Word came last week from a judge that the buildings have to go, so construction can begin.

Ella Fitzgerald (nee Donnell Robinson), the drag performer who ruled the roost here since 1980, dabbed at her eyes all night and complained of hip problems, wondering if the world would see her next on crutches, or in a wheelchair. She lip-synched to Donna Summer's "Last Dance." Then, in keeping with particularly moving drag performances, she gave the DJ the signal and did the song again. (People wept twice.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301976.html

[northzax]

1. ahh, gentrification hits gay people

well, it's a shame to see Nation vanish into the night, but hey, we have a baseball stadium!

whoopee.

[Laughing Mirror]

2. Don't cry Ella. There'll always be a stage for you to stomp around on ...

The look of devasation on that drag queen's face!