Half Way to Heaven
The gateway pub between Soho and Heaven
The name says it: midpoint between Soho and Heaven, this bar at Duncannon Street has served as a gateway pub for those moving between the two main nodes of West End gay nightlife. Duncannon Street is Trafalgar Square’s quiet backside – the National Gallery above, the steps to the Thames ahead.
In 1994, during the Soho Pink Weekend – a pre-Pride celebration that drew thousands to the streets around Soho – bars like this one served as overflow, as meeting points, as rest stops for a community that for those few days was simply existing openly in the city. From inside it looks like this: people arriving, people departing, the city carrying on around them.