“They want to build another high-rise.” Opposition from Tower Hamlets council and community activists has granted the club a brief reprieve, according to the staff, who all work under the assumption that any day could be the venue’s last.Ī string of closures has caused concern for those interested in a variety of fetishes, but the leather scene seems to have been hardest hit, particularly in London. “The developers have been sniffing around us for years,” says Aaron the barman. But after a 33-year run serving London’s kinksters, its days might be numbered.
This is the Backstreet, London’s only remaining gay leather bar. A gregarious barman greets regulars while hairy-chested musclemen appear on a small screen next to an ice bucket. Men kitted out in chaps and overcoats prowl the corridors, while others sip Foster’s, waiting for a nod and a wink. Knee-high leather boots hang from iron chains looped through ceiling hooks like fetish bunting. Inside, past three sets of doors and a changing room cordoned off with an old tarpaulin, is a shadowy warren of alcoves, cages and dark corners.
A CCTV camera perched above the door signals it probably isn’t a squat, but there is no signage. I n a dimly lit sidestreet in London’s East End there is a black box of a building scrawled with graffiti.
