Unnoticed by passersby and often unmarked by plaques, numerous Toronto addresses with big parts to play in cultural history sit mostly uncelebrated. In the Star’s new series, Local Legends, we tell you about them and put them on your mental map.

One rainy evening in May, author Michael V. Smith takes the stage at the front of Toronto’s Glad Day Bookshop, surveying a packed crowd. Folded into chairs and lined up three deep against the bar, sipping craft brew or coffee, over 100 people have come out to listen to Smith and three other writers launch their latest works.

“Hi everyone. Thank you for coming out on such a rainy evening,” Smith says, before diving into a selection of the deeply personal poems that mark his latest collection, Bad Ideas.

For Smith, an award-winning writer and creative writing professor at UBC Okanagan, reading at Glad Day is a moment of coming full circle.

“When I was a 19-year-old kid just moved from Cornwall, Glad Day was concrete proof that being gay was legitimate. I was a big sissy homo who wanted to be a writer and here was a bookstore dedicated to writing by queer people. And queer people were in the store!”

For nearly 50 years, Glad Day has been a beacon for the city’s flourishing LGBTQ community. Founded in 1970, in the early days of gay liberation, Glad Day is now the longest surviving LGBTQ bookstore in the world and the oldest independent bookstore still operating in Toronto. It recently left Yonge St. and relocated in a fully accessible storefront on Church St., in the heart of the historic Gay Village.

Michael Erickson, a co-owner of the shop, says the move was a long time coming. Despite a 30 per cent increase in book sales over the past few years, overall revenues had flatlined. The owners realized they needed to generate new income streams to survive. The new space offers a comfortable café and bar, extensive food and beverage options, a private meeting room and a back patio.

Response to the move has been overwhelmingly positive. “We’ve been blessed with those close to us and complete strangers telling us how much the community missed this space,” says Erickson. “Others have said we’re bringing heart and soul back to the neighbourhood.”

While Glad Day has always strived to provide an inclusive atmosphere, the steep stairs leading up to the old location were a barrier for many. Andrew Gurza is a writer and advocate who uses a wheelchair to move around the city. This is the first time he’s been able to access readings and events at the store.

“When I first moved to the city I heard people talk about Glad Day all the time as this cultural queer hub. There were so many cool events that as a queer disabled man I couldn’t access. The move to the new space has meant that I can actually bring myself in my wheelchair to the store. It means that I can build community.”

Erickson stresses that the core mandate of the store is to share and circulate stories, especially for people whose stories have been marginalized or misrepresented in the mainstream.

“Come in on Thursday,” says Erickson, “And on the patio there’s a queer ASL social group, a queer activist collective meeting in the semi-private room, a literary event happening in the bookstore space, friends playing board games out front.”

The bookstore has been pivotal to the wider success of scores of Canadian artists such as Smith and writer Catherine Hernandez (Scarborough).

Giller finalist Zoe Whittall (The Best Kind of People) says having an LGBTQ-focused bookstore remains vital, even in 2017. “Work by LGBT writers is still often difficult to find and is not supported with the same kind of marketing attention afforded to other books.”

Vivek Shraya, a multi-award winning artist and author of even this page is white, is grateful for Glad Day’s early support.

“Many Toronto bookstores refused to stock my first book, God Loves Hair, because it was self-published. But Glad Day happily carried it, often making little to no profit. This support for emerging queer voices and nonmainstream published books is partly what makes Glad Day essential.”

In the current cultural zeitgeist, where Indigenous authors are speaking out about issues of cultural appropriation, and Black Lives Matter is speaking back to anti-Black racism within the LGBTQ community, Glad Day continues to be a bold place of resistance, celebration and education.

Lisa Amin is a regular patron of Glad Day and a human rights lawyer.

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“The very existence of this bookshop helps us to actively promote and discuss important topics and ideas that affect us in 2017, such as the targeted policing of certain members of our queer community. The world is still a dangerous place for us and, within our large community, it is more dangerous for some than for others. We need a place where we can come together and have deep, honest conversations.”

Erickson says many younger members of the LGBTQ community are finding Glad Day for the first time. Smith says the bookstore remains as important as ever as a space of learning and self-discovery.

“I can remember those first few times I was in Glad Day as an undergrad, and being not a little terrified and thrilled. So reading there 27 years later, I’m carrying that memory with me when I enter the store. That terrified kid is still there. The hopeful kid is still there. It’s like some super amazing pink magic, where Glad Day shows my younger self what’s possible.”

Read More:Five top reads from Glad Day Bookshop