Other cities in the UK also have districts or streets with a concentration of gay bars, like for example Stanley Street Quarter in Liverpool, Canal Street in Manchester and the Birmingham Gay Village.
In Amsterdam, there were already a few gay bars in the first quarter of the 20th century. The best known was The Empire, in Nes, which was first mentioned in 1911 and existed until the late 1930s. The oldest that still exists is Café 't Mandje, which was opened in 1927 by lesbian Bet van Beeren. It closed in 1982, but was reopened in 2008.Īfter World War II, the Amsterdam city government acted rather pragmatic and tolerated the existence of gay bars.
