From the Lebanon before the war of 1975, foreigners readily remember the name of Hamra Street. The lights of this former “Champs-Elysées” of Lebanon, “Switzerland of the Levant” according to Lamartine, attracted a diverse crowd with its tumultuous and nocturnal life: European businessmen and Arab political leaders simply came to indulge themselves on the weekends. Having transitioned from Christians to Muslims during the course of the war, this cosmopolitan district completely changed its appearance. The cafes and numerous cabarets gave way to clothing and shoe stores. The famous Modca café, a meeting place for the French in Lebanon, even became a clothing shop. With more empty stools than women, a few isolated bars near large hotels betrayed the indelible habits of this historic district, silent as death from nightfall.
For about two years, Hamra has been rising from its ashes. Unrelated to the political upheavals which saw the Sunnis seal an alliance with the Christians after the assassination of Rafic Hariri, nor even with the decline of activities in the downtown area occupied by Hezbollah. Cafes, bars, and even a Tango club located next to the Marble Tower hotel signal a rebirth of this district. Note that all these new spaces are not located on Hamra but in adjacent alleys or at the back of a courtyard, almost discreetly, as if sheltered from the curious.
The “De Prague” lounge bar, referring to one of the owner’s favorite European capitals, is certainly one of its most significant symbols. For two and a half years, this hotspot of Lebanese cultural and artistic life has seen financiers from nearby banking institutions, journalists assured of the necessary tranquility for political interviews, and in the evening, intellectuals or students from the American University of Beirut (AUB), located a short distance away, from ten in the morning to two in the morning. For one of the managers, Khaled, a young Christian of 27 living there for ten years, the concept meets a need expressed by the population for a “return to the glorious days of the old Hamra”. Opening at dawn also benefits the fans of the “sobhiyé”, this ancient Lebanese custom of exchanging all the previous day’s gossip—and especially those of the night—over the first coffee.
A genuine place for life, encounters, and discussions, “De Prague” does not hesitate to become involved in artistic projects external to its main activity: it provides financial support to the AUB drama club, or it offers its walls for temporary exhibits. An objective not solely intellectual when, like in the case of “SPLACES”, it is a meeting of experimental architects tasked with collectively thinking of the best ways to develop the remaining free spaces or to rebuild in this geographical area severely damaged by conflicts. One might wonder, while dozens of glasses on the tables fill and empty merrily, to count on both hands the number of bottles arranged behind the bar. “Products incompatible with the books and artworks that adorn the walls,” Khaled specifies, which does not prevent “De Prague” from relying on beverage sales for more than 80% of its revenue. But alcohol cannot explain everything. At the height of the July 2006 war with Israel, “De Prague” was never empty to the point of having to set up chairs and tables on the sidewalk to satisfy a clientele eager to forget tensions.
Just a few more steps down the street lead you to another equally unusual meeting place at the end of an unremarkable dead end. Yet, one must guess its existence behind large windows with drawn interior curtains suggesting a completely abandoned place. Entering puts you in the strange situation resembling that of disturbing a family dinner you weren’t necessarily invited to. Conversations stop, looks are directed at you, and you feel like the target of all inquiries. For here, at the “Barometer” café, everyone knows everyone. Since 1997, only regulars gather there: local employees or foreign collaborators of NGOs in charge of providing relief to refugees, social workers involved in the field, or activists of humanitarian, just, or even desperate causes. All testify to a “rather left-wing” past, according to Ali Haidar, the owner’s cousin whose broad smile and welcoming gesture balance the more inquisitive eyes of the bartender. “This place has always been pro-Palestinian,” says the Political Science graduate from the Lebanese University, and for some time, a collaborator of the “Arab Times” in Kuwait. If there were any doubt, the portraits of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat and posters inviting to “visit Palestine” easily confirm his words.
More alter-globalist—because more recent—than its ancestor the “Rawda”, a café mainly frequented by Lebanon’s left in the 70s and located in Raouché, just next to the Ferris wheel, the “Barometer”, says Ali, represents precisely, hence its name, the means to evaluate the political situation, always between “highs and lows”. In fact, the founder, a singer tired of the uncertainties of tomorrow, wanted to build a place of his own, independent of the war’s uncertainties. Somewhat alternative, one may encounter an “experimental artist” with eyes made up in the pure Arab tradition of “Kehlé”, a mix of black coloring products offering by contrast a gaze of dazzling whiteness. At the next table, a discussion seems to pit a Hezbollah sympathizer, addicted to whiskey and cola, trying to explain, apparently in vain, to a young man with effeminate looks, the “unnaturalness” of his sexual orientation. The more destabilized of the two was not who one might think. In short, a very convivial place, offering neighborhood bistro atmospheres, and a tad of those who might be smoking an herb not solely from Provence casually tossed on the barbecue.
Less than twenty meters down this surprisingly full Makhoul street stands, according to its owner, the “first gay bar in the Middle East”. The “Wolf”, a solitary wolf naturally, whose paw even left its print on the club’s logo, finds its pack under lighting recalling full-moon nights. Nothing appears left to chance in the crafting of the concept and its implementation. A symbolic differentiation down to creating a new flag, a gradient of green, proposed as a new banner instead of the Rainbow flag of the gay community.
Right off the bat, Tony, one of the partners, claims he wants to “dissociate from the queens of the Marais” and promote a “masculine and urban gay concept.” Noted. The selection at the entrance will be more accommodating if you’re “muscular or hairy”. The “Misses good luck” might have to wait outside a bit. This former banker knows, if one dares say, his business. Two reasons presided over his choice to set up a gay bar in this part of the city: historically, there were already in this street, up to the early hours of the war, two establishments for homosexuals. Once again, a return to roots. Tony also intends to distance himself from the “gay friendly” bars of Monnot Street like the “717”, whose management did not allow the managers to surpass six months of existence. Created in March 2006, this meeting place where music does not preclude the possibility of exchanges—verbally speaking—has thrived with the opening of a branch in Paris and is soon expected to expand to Madrid, London, and Cologne. From the isolated “Wolf” of Hamra, it is thus a pack preparing to surge into Europe.
“De Prague”: Hamra, Makdessi Street, Tel: 00 961 3 57 52 82
“Barometer”: Hamra, Makhoul Street, Tel: 00 961 3 678 998
“Wolf”: Hamra, Makhoul Street, Tel: 00 961 1 750 856 or 00 961 3 520 859
