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The owner of Darcelle XV Showcase shared on social media last week that the legendary Old Town club was vandalized with “vile hate speech.”
A 2020 plaque commemorating the club’s listing on the National Register of Historic Places was covered in marker with anti-gay slurs. A drawing of Darcelle XV was crossed out.
“It depresses and saddens me that in 2026, someone can still write about harming another person simply because of who they are and who they love,” Jeremey Corvus-Peck wrote on Facebook on May 15.
The club worked quickly to clean the graffiti off the sign. Since Corvus-Peck shared the news on social and local media, he has gotten an outpouring of support, he says. A security video captured footage of a person wearing a hoodie vandalizing the sign, but Corvus-Peck has yet to file a formal police report, he says.
“The community has been amazing with their support of the club and Darcelle,” Corvus-Peck tells WW. “Hate speech like this has no place in 2026.”
Darcelle XV Showcase opened as a drag performance venue in 1969 by Walter Cole, who performed as the drag queen Darcelle. Cole, the Guinness Book of World Records holder for the world’s oldest working drag performer, died in 2023 at age 92.
Darcelle XV Plaza, formerly O’Bryant Square, located downtown at Southwest Park Avenue and Washington Street, is slated to reopen with an updated design in June, according to Portland Parks & Recreation.
