From Nightlife to New Life: How Wilton Manors Became a Haven for Artists

954-514-7095

From Nightlife to New Life: How Wilton Manors Became a Haven for Artists

Have you seen our newsletters? Sign up HERE

Steve Rothaus, BAJA

Category: Feature

Published: 28 October 2025

Wilton Manors, a once-sleepy island city that evolved into a worldwide mecca for LGBTQ nightlife, business and tourism, now also wants to be known for its arts and culture.

“Not only can you go to Wilton Manors as an LGBTQ+-identifying person to have fun and mingle with your friends over drinks and enjoy dancing at the club, but you can also come to Wilton Manors as an LGBTQ person and enjoy art and culture, as well,” says Jameer Baptiste, vice president of Wilton Manors Art District, comprised of 16 member galleries and three theaters all within the city limits.

Beginning November 6, the District will present its first Wilton Manors Art Week – which this year will run four days, through November 9.

“It’s something that we felt Wilton Manors needed in regard to really showcasing all of the galleries, studios, and artists that live and work and have businesses in Wilton Manors,” says Baptiste, who also is events division president for HOTSpots! Happening Out, a nonprofit LGBTQ+ events and media alliance in Wilton Manors.

Although most of the city’s galleries and theaters are located along busy Wilton Drive and North Dixie Highway, Baptiste says his group considers the entire 1.96-square-mile city an art district.

Wilton Manors was incorporated in 1947. A half-century later, parts of it had become rundown. Gay men and women began moving in and helped transform the city. In 1997, George Kessinger opened Georgie’s Alibi gay bar in a boarded-up old bank at a shopping center along Wilton Drive. In 1998, Carol Moran opened Kicks, a lesbian bar nearby on the Drive.

By 2010, the U.S. Census reported Wilton Manors was the No. 2 city nationally in percentage of same-sex couples, second to Provincetown, Mass. Since then, it has become one of the best-known LGBTQ destinations in the world.

Photographer Matteo Trisolini, owner of Space Untitled gallery at 2422 N. Dixie Hwy., is board president of Wilton Manors Art District.

Nearly two years ago, Italian-born Trisolini relocated from New York to Wilton Manors. At the time, he was on a personal mission to “focus on myself, my mental health and my happiness.”

Trisolini, a gay dad with a 14-year-old daughter, declared he would make 2024 “the year of yes.”

After meeting and befriending artist Sherman Yee of Fierce Art Gallery Studio at 2424 N. Dixie Hwy., Trisolini began attending monthly art walks in the city.

“One day I told Sherman, ‘I have to apologize because every time I walk into your gallery, I do look at your art, but I’m looking at the space, and I feel great energy and I would love to have something like this,’” Trisolini recalls.

“A month later, Sherman tells me during one of the art walks, ‘Well, the unit next door is available.’ And so he gave me the number of the landlord. I said, ‘This is something that might bring joy to me, so let’s apply.’ I applied and got offered the space. There were four other entities looking, but somehow the landlord said, ‘We want you.’”

Trisolini’s gallery, Space Untitled at 2422 N. Dixie Hwy., also represents five other artists from South Florida, New York and Chile.

In addition, Trisolini sponsors free literati salons throughout the year.

“The literati salon is basically on the idea of the Illuminati, like in France, in Paris, the salons where literati gather from any form of art, and exchange ideas or brainstorm,” he says. “They bring a piece of their art or bring a poem or something they were working on just to get feedback, or just to spend time together and create community.”

Several authors will be participating in Art Week events, including writer Greg Lindeblom, who’ll read from his recent novel, The Only Farang in Town,on Friday November 7 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at ArtsUnited gallery, 2401 N. Dixie Hwy.

The official Art Week opening party takes place November 6 at popular Hunter’s Nightclub, 2232–2238 Wilton Dr. The closing gala on November 9 will be at the new nonprofit Gray Box Theater, a 236-seat concert and special events venue at 1444 N.E. 26th St.

Wilton Manors’ two nonprofit black-box theaters also are participating throughout Art Week:

Playwright Ronnie Larsen’s Plays of Wilton (POW!) at the 54-seat The Foundry, 2306 N. Dixie Hwy., is presenting Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays; and 69-seat Island City Stage, next door at 2304 N. Dixie Hwy., is featuring 9-year-old actress Daisy Tanner in Ruthless! The Musical.

“It’s about a little girl who would do anything to get the lead in a play – even kill. “It’s very fun, very campy, and it’s a great musical,” says Martin Childers, Island City Stage’s managing director. It’s loosely based on the story of The Bad Seed.

Plays of Wilton primarily focuses on shows of LGBTQ+ interest. So does Island City Stage, although it often programs productions (such as Ruthless!) that also appeal to more mainstream audiences.

Childers, an Art District board member, describes a cultural synergy in close-knit Wilton Manors.

“This little street that we’re on is so artsy,” he says of North Dixie Highway. “To be working together, this is just a great thing. When one of us rises, we all rise.”

“Many of our patrons are art lovers. In fact, we always have a display of an artist in our lobby gallery. Each time we do a show, it’s always for sale. It’s one way that we support the local artists,” Childers says. “And we also get supported back from it because we get a portion of the proceeds.”

Gallerist and painter Jacki Rosen lives and works in Wilton Manors. She opened Rosen Fine Art, 2426 N. Dixie Hwy., about 3 ½ years ago.

Rosen, an Art District board member, brings to the organization a slightly different perspective: She’s a straight, married mother of grown children who in 2017 moved with her husband from sedate Boca Raton to swinging Wilton Manors.

“People think of Wilton Manors as just being the Drive and a big party, right? Wilton Manors is so much more,” says Rosen, who encourages others from throughout South Florida to spend time in the city of 11,426 residents.

“People from outside – Victoria Park and different parts of Fort Lauderdale to Coconut Creek – don’t realize there’s a lot of gems here. There’s a lot of untapped things,” Rosen says. “Theater is incredible here. Nobody realizes that. And not everything is gay focused. And people don’t know that.

“This is a chance to open ourselves up to a sense of community, a sense of awareness of who we are, what we do, what we’re all about – we’re not all the same. Each one of us could not be more individual than the next. The way we run our businesses, our galleries, we’re all different,” she says. “And it’s really kind of cool to have people from outside of Wilton Manors come and see what we’re all about.”