EvolutionPublishing.com.au
From a gay men?s leather bar to a diverse venue for queers of all sorts, The Newtown Hotel has undergone several metamorphoses over the years. Yet throughout them all, it has remained a community hotel, according to current licensee for the past three years, Roger Robertson.
?Personally I think it?s the last bastion of a gay hotel,? he says. ?It?s an old-school hotel that?s always been gay and lesbian; it?s very community-based. Out of all the hotels I?ve worked in it?s always remained the same ? an old gay haunt.?
In 1981, Brian Lowe became the licensee of the hotel. Across the road Ross Fraser had the Nelson, with Barry Ceccini at the Beresford on Bourke Street in Darlinghurst. Each of these three partners had shares in each of the three venues, according to Chris Thomas, who until last Sunday, when he retired, worked behind the bar at the Newtown for 25 years. By 1985, gay venue stalwart Dawn O?Donnell sold up her shares in various Oxford Street premises and turned her attention to Newtown, buying both The Newtown Hotel and, shortly after, the Imperial.