Gay Bars of LA: Then and Now - Curbed LA

los angeles gay bars 1980s

Wele to Wt Hollywood Boystown! The year is 1981, and if you were a homosexual man (mostly whe) lookg for some fun the unrporated part of Los Angel County unofficially known as Wt Hollywood, then you had plenty to choose om a long list of nightlife gay bars, diss, rtrants, bathho and gay-owned

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GAY BARS OF LA: THEN AND NOW

Back the pre-ter days of the early seventi, LA was flh wh gay bars and nightclubs (assiatn ntu to fell LGBT gatherg plac). Queerty took a look at about a dozen vtage... * los angeles gay bars 1980s *

Gay bars and sex clubs, most of them now closed. -based queer artist who was a regular at a number of the spots worked briefly as a barback at Cuffs, a major gay hangout of the recent “was credibly dark and super cisey, ” Jony rells. “As Silver Lake — and the whole landspe of gay Hollywood and the east si — changed so much I always had this ia my head of turng the place back to Cuffs for one night, ” he says.

A HISTORY OF L.A.’S GAY BAR SCENE, TOLD MATCHBOOKS

A survey of 200 matchbooks om a bygone era of L.A.'s gay bar scene at the downtown Central Library. * los angeles gay bars 1980s *

The early ’90s, there were more than a dozen [gay bars] on the east si.

EARLY GAY CLUBS LA

Back the mid-1980s, I ed to go wh iends to a happeng gay dis spot LA, a place lled Catch One. I would go wh my then-girliend and… * los angeles gay bars 1980s *

”The closg of many east-si gay bars n be blamed, part, on gentrifitn’s effect on rents. It also n be argued that the ongog expansn of jt what queerns n mean uld have ma a segment of gay bars, which thrived a sort of self-intified exclivy, obsolete. “I’m not one of them, ” Jony says, “but a lot of gay men my age and a generatn olr like to talk about the days of male-only spac and what that meant to them.

LA’S GAY PAST: THIS IS LGBT HISTORY, TOLD SIX LANDMARKS

One of Los Angel' last historic gay bars, The Other Si was a “bt iend” to a generatn of LGBT bar goers who were left wonrg: Where will we go now? * los angeles gay bars 1980s *

” Jony is pleased that anyone who intifi as male — trans men, for example — are now more wele at gay bars than they were the past.

A third factor the shrkg number of gay bars L. ’s gay bar scene was headier, wilr and perhaps more excgly illic. Back the mid-1980s, I ed to go wh iends to a happeng gay dis spot LA, a place lled Catch One.

A LOOK BACK AT HOLLYWOOD’S UNRGROUND GAY CLUB CULTURE OF THE 1970S

I’m not gay nor were the iends I’d go wh, but Catch One was always such a fun, iendly place.

Moreover, ’s always been a place where gay men and women of all lors have felt ee to dance and jt be themselv.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* LOS ANGELES GAY BARS 1980S

Gay Bars of LA: Then and Now - Curbed LA .

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