Blackstones Bar is a bar located on Pine St off

Longfellow Square Longfellow Square is a public square in Portland, Maine, United States. Named for the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, it is one of the three main squares on the city's Congress Street — the others being Congress Square Congress Square ( ...

in the

West End (Portland, Maine) The West End is a downtown neighborhood in Portland, Maine. It is located on the western side of Portland's peninsula primarily on Bramhall Hill and is noted for its architecture and history. The neighborhood is home to many late 19th- and ear ...

neighborhood of

Portland, Maine Portland is the largest city in the U.S. state of Maine and the seat of Cumberland County. Portland's population was 68,408 in April 2020. The Greater Portland metropolitan area is home to over half a million people, the 104th-largest metropol ...

. From its establishment in 1987, the bar served as a popular gathering place for members of the

LGBTQ ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

community. When established in 1987, Blackstones' facade featured seven floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows. These windows suffered consistent vandalism through 1991, when staff boarded them over. In 2019, the plywood sheaths were removed and new windows installed. The event was heralded as a significant milestone for the city of Portland and the local LGBTQ movement, with the story reported in several national newspapers, and featured in several national LGBTQ publications.

References

{{reflist LGBT drinking establishments in the United States West End (Portland, Maine) 1987 establishments in Maine LGBT in Maine Restaurants in Portland, Maine