One of NYC’s last black-owned LGBTQ bars, Club Langston, at the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, closed last year, after a nearly 20-year run.
The bar opened in June 2016 and became one of just a tiny group of black-owned LGBTQ spaces in the city. Though he’s been approved for a federal small business loan, he’s concerned that he won’t be able to get forgiveness and will have an additional financial burden.
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Now, he has a series of required payments, including a liquor license renewal, state taxes, and rent for the month of July. Minko only reopened for takeout in mid-May, for two days a week, he says. “Hope you can weather this storm!”Ī post shared by Alibi Lounge on at 5:52pm PDTĪlibi temporarily shutdown on March 16 following the state’s COVID-related restrictions. “You guys are a unique, historic, and irreplaceable neighborhood bar,” writes Michael Galletta, on the fundraiser’s page. As of Monday, the fundraiser had generated nearly $11,000 of its goal, and Minko says he’s been “humbled and overwhelmed” by the support so far, which has come from both locals and people all over the city. Over the weekend, several of his customers and others in the neighborhood helped him start a GoFundMe campaign for $50,000, to meet most of the bar’s financial needs for the next six months, Minko says. “If Alibi goes away, it will be a tragedy for the LGBTQ community uptown,” says Minko, adding that his bar is one of the only - if not only - LGBTQ spaces in northern Manhattan. Harlem’s Alibi Lounge, on Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard, near West 139th Street, has struggled to make payments for rent and utilities since the start of the pandemic, and owner Alexi Minko says he’s afraid the bar will shutdown without financial help. One of NYC’s last black-owned LGBTQ bar is in danger of closing permanently.