A look back at Hollywood’s unrground gay club culture of the 1970s - Curbed LA

Contents:

• GAY BARS OF LA: THEN AND NOW
• A HISTORY OF L.A.’S GAY BAR SCENE, TOLD MATCHBOOKS
• A LOOK BACK AT HOLLYWOOD’S UNRGROUND GAY CLUB CULTURE OF THE 1970S
• THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THREE OF LA'S HISTORIC BUT THREATENED GAY NIGHTCLUBS
• SAN FERNANDO VALLEY HAS A SECRET HISTORY OF GAY BARS

GAY BARS OF LA: THEN AND NOW

There were a uple of sgle mothers raisg teenagers, olr gay upl, a Perry Farrell-like du named Adam who created and tend to the neighborhood’s famo chanlier tree. When the bar opened 1968, was one of many gay bars the neighborhood, and one of que a few piano bars the cy. ” He remembers a time when Silver Lake was home to dozens of gay bars.

Much of the film is dited to memori of LA’s gay nightlife history, when so-lled gentleman’s bars were monplace.

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

Both Cantillon and a number of men terviewed the film blame the ath of the piano bar—and the vast gap between piano bars and morn gay bars—on the missg generatn of men who were lost the AIDS epimic. Ltle ced Akbar, the Sunset Boulevard spot that is paratively young at 22 but is now nsired Silver Lake’s last historic gay bar.

“After that gets younger, and there are lots of women—not gay women—and straight men, too. 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 LOOK BACK AT HOLLYWOOD’S UNRGROUND GAY CLUB CULTURE OF THE 1970S

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

” 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.

THE PAST AND FUTURE OF THREE OF LA'S HISTORIC BUT THREATENED GAY NIGHTCLUBS

’s gay bar scene was headier, wilr and perhaps more excgly illic. When we thk of LGBT culture and the movement for gay rights Los Angel, there's a tenncy to thk first of Wt Hollywood.

SAN FERNANDO VALLEY HAS A SECRET HISTORY OF GAY BARS

But LA's rich gay history touch the entire cy, om Endale (now Silver Lake/Echo Park) to Huntgton Park to "Gger Rogers" Beach. Below is a map of 14 of the most important lotns the fight for gay rights LA.

This cint, though relatively small size, is often nsired by historians to be the first morn uprisg agast police treatment of gay people.

John Rechy, a noted chronicler of gay LA, wrote his book Cy of Night that this lotn of the Cooper doughnut cha on Ma Street was the se of a 1959 uprisg of transgenr women and street htlers. The event has also been tailed the 2009 book Gay L. Rechy, who was prent the doughnut shop on the night May 1959 when the rt took place, not that at this time, was not unmon for police to arrt members of the gay populace simply for ngregatg or beg a bar that was beg raid.