If the East Village has an all-around, much-loved, go-to gay bar, it’s the Phoenix, which opened a few years back and takes its name from the long-ago Phoenix gay bar that used to be a few blocks away and was never anywhere near as popular. Part of the bar’s lure is that it’s relatively large as EV gay bars go, with a main bar area (pictured here), a pool table in back, decent-size bathrooms down a flight of stairs, and a small conversation nook around the corner from the main bar.



