All that changed with Splash’s opening, an event many regard as Chelsea’s coming out as a gay neighborhood. The 1980s migration of gays and lesbians into New York’s Chelsea neighborhood seeking cheaper rent than in rapidly gentrifying Greenwich Village, the center of New York gay life from at least the 1920s, wasn’t yet on the international radar. “It’s the end of an era,” he said.įor Splash Bar, August 11 was the last dance, the last call Harper was on 17th Street again on Sunday, August 11, for Splash’s final night along with hundreds of others, capping off a week of closing events.