_{Weathering Heights sign on Shankpainter Road in Provincetown on May 29, 2020.}

This is from an entry I made to my Walking Cape Cod project on Instagram, May 29 2020.

A LITTLE LGBTQ HISTORY: Yesterday wasn’t a great walking day. Just five miles — mostly taking breaks from my job and walking around town. But as I said a couple of days ago, history is often written in the landscape. And this is a perfect example! Hidden in the juniper in front of the Provincetown Laundromat is the old sign for Weathering Heights, a landmark gay venue in the 1940s and 1950s.

Weathering Heights was owned by Phil Baoine — who was, as well as a businessman, also a popular drag performer. It became an early pioneer of tea dance — at 5 PM as LGBTQ vacationers walked back from Herring Cove (then called New Beach). It was famous for drag performances, which is what got it in trouble in McCarthy-era Provincetown.

_{Phil Baoine and friends at New Beach (Herring Cove) c. 1952.}

Because Baoine was openly gay, Weathering Heights was made a scapegoat for a range of business in town catering to LGBT people, it was closed in 1960 by a coalition of Provincetown Selectmen, local clergy, conservative businessmen, and the police. It didn’t go without a fight, with many in the town fighting to the reinstatement of Baoine’s license.

The history of Provincetown as LGBTQ safe space is often told through a lens of tolerance, but acceptance often came at great cost. My source for this story is Karen Krahulik’s landmark history, Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort. If you’re interested in more detail about Weathering Heights and the harassment of LGBT business in this era, I highly recommend her book!

Also, in reposting this here, I see that David Dunlap has a much more detailed entry on Weathering Heights and Phil Baoine on Building Provincetown.