The rainbow crossing on Hockley's Broad Street turns five this year. Our History Editor CJ DeBarra tells of how it came to be.
Broad Street has always been queer. If you ask anyone where our ‘Canal Street’ is, then chances are someone would send you there. The street has historically played a huge role in shaping the queer community, both socially through its pubs and clubs, to politically as the first Pride was held there in 1997.
Five years ago this July, the street's history and importance was marked with the addition of rainbow crossings - a first in the UK.
The idea for the crossings came from Arran Heys, a photographer and community protection officer. After working at a few pride events, he began introducing rainbow epaulettes and hat bands for officer uniforms.
“We managed to get some funding and had a council vehicle wrapped in a full rainbow flag. We had permission for that to open the Pride march. Someone said, ‘You've set the bar now, what are you going to do next year?’” Arran told us.
On a trip to San Francisco, Arran became inspired by the famous queer district, the Castro.
“It started in a café in San Francisco when I saw they had a number of rainbow crossings. They had rainbows everywhere, flags, and shops with quirky names. It was so normal and accepted there it was like their protective bubble,” Arran explained.
It was always an unwritten rule that the Hockley area was like the Pride area. Stores there hung out the bunting and put on deals or discounts during Pride while joining in and embracing it
“I started questioning on the plane back home, why don’t we have anything like that? What do we have that signifies the space? It was always an unwritten rule that the Hockley area was like the Pride area. Stores there hung out the bunting and put on deals or discounts during Pride while joining in and embracing it.”
It’s unclear when Hockley became a queer area although it can be traced back at least to the eighties. The Lord Roberts pub then owned by a straight older couple, Harold and Mary, did have a queer clientele that was accepted. When the couple left the street in the 1990s, Hockley was undergoing serious changes.
Broadway Media Centre, a queer-friendly space, opened in 1990 providing a welcome break from the pub scene and the Gai Project, a vital resource, was opened in 1994. George’s wine bar opened in the early ‘00s as a queer-friendly, yet chaotic space, and in more recent times, the Transgender Centre, Rough Trade, Club 96 and Bar 27 have all existed on the same street. Not to mention again that Pride, then called Pink Lace was first held there.
“It was always unofficial but it needed to be more of a let’s put a stamp on it to say this is our area and make it an official space,” Arran explained.
“There were all these barriers and I thought, I’m not going to settle for that. I approached a couple of councillors who backed it. We found the company that did the one in America called L&R Road Lines. They sent some samples of the material and a quote.”
The crossings ended up with more sponsorship than expected - a great position to be in so it ended up as a much larger project than anticipated.
“We changed the plan from just a simple zebra cross into why don’t we put four or five flags all the way down the road?”
“There were four outside sponsors in the end and one was the Nottingham Together programme. It was funding from the central government to pay for initiatives to bring communities together, especially segregated ones. Boots also supported it.”
Although, some of the companies did want their logos to be printed on the flags. Luckily, it was too late by then to change the designs as the flags were ready to go.
“It was done just in time for Pride that year so it was a really nice thing for the ending point of the Pride procession. For people to march through town, down the normal route to end on that long stretch of road where it felt like a homecoming,” Arran added.
“One thing I do every year is that I send an email to the Nottingham City Council cleaning team to go down before Pride and wash the roads. I still do this to this day. What wasn’t factored into the roads was what we are going to do the day it can’t be cleaned anymore.”
The flags inspired many other cities to get rainbow crossings of their own. Controversially, two have been put on roads in Lambeth in London which the media claimed were the first in the UK. Although, as this was placed in August, Nottingham beat the city by just a few weeks as then councillor David Mellen, cut the rainbow ribbon on Tuesday 16 July to mark its completion.
He told Notts Live: "It has brought people together and also local businesses. It says Nottingham is a place where everyone can live equally. I think the rainbow presents an important symbol in a world where homophobic attacks and hate rhetoric are on the rise. It's about acknowledging the LGBT community."
Since then, Nottingham University followed with three rainbow crossings of their own in 2020. The NHS Trust in Sherwood also added crossings in Sherwood in 2021.
Sam Hawkins, Students' Union LGBT+ Officer said: “Across the world, rainbow crossings have been installed in cities such as London, Sydney and Paris. Therefore, I am incredibly proud to say that we now have our very own at the University of Nottingham.”
In exciting news, it has also been announced this week that the crossings will be given a refresh of colour ahead of the Pride celebrations coming up on Saturday 27 July.
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