Advocates Fight To Save Popular Gay Club Threatened By MARTA Plan

MARTA has said it will include Historic Atlanta in the formal process of identifying historic properties that would be affected by the proposed Clifton corridor light rail project.

Alison Guillory / WABE

Perched in Atlanta’s Cheshire Bridge corridor amid restaurants and adult video stores, the Heretic prides itself on being one of the city’s oldest gay bars.

Charlie Paine, chair of the LGBTQ historic preservation advisory for Historic Atlanta, said it all started in the 1970s when Atlanta became a hotbed for gay advocacy.

“There are very few gay spaces that have maintained themselves in the gay community and survived,” he said.