By Alison Berg and William Peterson, Rocky Mountain PBS
COLORADO SPRINGS — Tucked right into a nook on Bijou Road in downtown Colorado Springs, ICONS is unassuming from the skin.
The town’s second “official” homosexual bar is a small area with a rainbow flag and yellow brand painted on the glass door exterior. Opaque, sparkly home windows cowl the outside and the one window into the within reveals one thing of a “typical” bar: glass bottles line cabinets and stools sit subsequent to a counter.
However stroll inside and the bar is something however typical.
The bar is embellished with purple ambient lighting, murals of LGBTQ+ icons and work from native artists. Loos are plastered with the faces of RuPaul and Dolly Parton, enjoying their music in every rest room. However the decor and recorded music is hardly the homeowners’ favourite half.
“Each bartender is a stay singer — an expert, top-notch singer — which is basically enjoyable,” stated Josh Franklin, who co-owns and co-founded the bar along with his husband. “At any second, you would be having a drink or they could possibly be making a drink and choose up a microphone and sing you a music, which is basically particular.”
When potential workers apply to ICONS, the homeowners first have them audition. Bartending could be taught, the 2 founders felt, however replicating the expertise of a New York Metropolis piano bar in Colorado Springs would require proficient performers at first.
The bar began with 5 singers, 4 of whom the founders knew beforehand. Then phrase unfold and El Paso County’s finest vocalists got here knocking at ICONS’ doorways.
“They’ll make you a drink, and if they’ve a minute, they’re going to go up and provides a full live performance efficiency of a music,” stated John Wolfe, Franklin’s husband and the bar’s co-owner and founder. “They’re going to sing Whitney Houston at you, and I assure your jaw will drop and you’ll cry tears. They’re so spectacular. I don’t have the phrases for it.”
Wolfe stated the 2 have had Broadway stars attend the bar and go away feeling envious of the proficient bartenders.
“They are going to be higher than singers you see on American Idol or The Voice [or] on a Broadway stage,” Wolfe stated. “And we’re so, so fortunate to have them and that they wish to be right here and proceed.”
Franklin and Wolfe met whereas auditioning for Broadway performances in New York Metropolis. When the 2 moved to Colorado Springs (Franklin’s hometown) in 2020, they shortly related with the LGBTQ+ group and felt the group wanted a relaxed area downtown.
Six months after COVID-19 hit and far of the world shut down, Franklin and Wolfe felt it was nearly as good a time as any for the town’s queer group to have a gathering area. After six months in isolation, the 2 needed to deliver lonely group members collectively in an area that felt variety, inviting and fashionable.
“After we moved again right here, there wasn’t a homosexual bar downtown in any respect, and that didn’t sit proper with me,” Franklin stated. “I needed to make an area that simply didn’t apologize in any respect for being homosexual and welcomed all people in right here to see what it’s wish to have fun who we’re.”
Colorado Springs has lengthy held a conservative, anti-LGBTQ+ status. Rising up within the metropolis within the Nineties, Franklin stated homophobia was all too acquainted to him.
However Colorado Springs now couldn’t look extra totally different from the place Franklin grew up, he stated. Many downtown companies cling rainbow flags of their home windows; surrounding eating places and retailers have gladly supported ICONS and the bar has been met with nothing however open arms, Franklin stated.
“I feel a part of our mission is to type of redefine what it means to be homosexual in in 2023 in Colorado Springs,” Franklin stated. “I feel individuals nonetheless have that picture and that type of model of Colorado Springs of their mind nonetheless, which is complicated to me as a result of when you spend time downtown with these individuals, you’ll see on this space it’s so welcoming and it’s a stupendous, queer-friendly neighborhood.”
Above all, Franklin and Wolfe need ICONS to be unapologetically variety and unapologetically queer, two issues the founders say the world wants extra of.
“It’s an eclectic group of a queer group right here, so some persons are of their sixties, and have by no means been to a queer bar earlier than,” Wolfe stated. “The aim of the area, so far as household goes, is to offer that security and the consolation and the unconditional love that perhaps they’re not getting at residence or from their quick household.”
Em Grotton, a nonbinary bartender at ICONS, stated the area supplied “chosen household” for them after they moved to Colorado from Texas in the hunt for a safer area to be overtly LGBTQ+.
“Any queer area is vital and sacred at first, and we simply don’t actually have a whole lot of that right here in Colorado Springs,” Grotton stated. “It simply actually seems like a protected haven. And whenever you’re queer and perhaps don’t know lots of people locally, that that is a minimum of one place that you would be able to go. And persons are ready with open arms.”
Although Franklin felt Colorado Springs had opened its arms to the LGBTQ+ group, the town was rattled with tragedy in November, when a gunman shot 25 individuals at Membership Q, the town’s different specific queer membership. Seven died after the capturing.
“What occurred at Membership Q has modified a whole lot of issues. I feel we’ve been adamant to not let this outline our future and we all know that there’s a vivid future for us in Colorado Springs,” Franklin stated. “We’re mourning the lack of that horrible tragedy and the individuals whose lives had been taken from us. They had been a part of our family and friends.”
ICONS closed its doorways the day after the capturing to mourn with workers, a lot of whom knew victims of the capturing. However within the coming days and months, the bar stepped as much as fill huge footwear as the one official homosexual area on the town.
“We’re all processing in our varied methods, however we’re thrilled to have the ability to present an area the place individuals can come and really feel that energy of group as a result of it’s sturdy,” Franklin stated. “It’s not like this one occasion goes to remove our energy. If something, it’s empowered us to be extra loving and type and robust collectively and discover the energy that’s the queer group of Colorado Springs.”
Alison Berg is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You possibly can attain her at alisonberg@rmpbs.org.
William Peterson is a senior photojournalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You possibly can attain him at williampeterson@rmpbs.org.
