Black Cat Tavern: Why Is the Monument of a Historic LA Gay Bar Covered Shake Shack Signs? | Them

Contents:

• WHY IS THE MONUMENT OF A HISTORIC LA GAY BAR COVERED SHAKE SHACK SIGNS?
• WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE

WHY IS THE MONUMENT OF A HISTORIC LA GAY BAR COVERED SHAKE SHACK SIGNS?

Today, peers out om above the kd of gastropub where you n orr a $16 cktail, easily ftg wh this gentrifyg part of Sunset Boulevard, once known as a workg-class Lato neighborhood and gay enclave. Fifty-five years ago, though, photographs ptured a different Black Cat, a gay bar that spired civilians to gather unr those large fele ey and prott the unfair treatment of LGBTQ people.

They anchor the gay bar not only as a place that once sndalized society wh the tenrns patrons showed one another, but also as a se of polil stggle. Police chased two men down the street to New Fac, another popular gay bar, and beat the owner, a woman named Lee Roy. The New Year’s raid on the Black Cat me at a time when every state the untry had anti-sodomy laws and on the heels of anti-gay McCarthyism known as the Lavenr Sre, a wch hunt that had reverberatns the upper echelons of the natn—Print Lyndon B.

Gay Angelenos’ anger and tratn toward the system had already been reachg a breakg pot.

WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE

What happened at the Black Cat now spired a new aln of gay rights anizatns, helmed by Personal Rights Defense and Edutn (PRIDE), and other groups facg harassment by police—hippi, anti-war activists, club owners targeted by curfews—to jo together prott two months later, on Febary 11, 1967. The gatherg of several hundred people marked a watershed moment for the gay rights movement—one of the first tim LGBTQ people ma such a large public mand for regnn, and a promise to ph back agast police harassment and reprsn.

The monstratn reamed the stggle as a fight for the civil rights of gay people and other mory muni who faced police abe. Although gay activists tentnally left the word “homosexual” off of their signage to appease protters who were not prepared to take an explicly gay rights stance, anizer Jim Kepner gave a rog speech that lled for gay people to stand up as gay people. Raids targetg gay people Los Angel ntued after the Black Cat, and so did ristance.

But the histori of this civic prott are largely neglected the mastream orig story of gay rights, which ually starts wh the monstratns that rocked New York Cy’s Stonewall Inn 1969, and fets altogether that took moments like the raid at the Black Cat to make Stonewall happen. ” The group stalled a plaque that sums up the progrs wrought: gay people won the right to patronize bars openly, to no longer suffer legal or labor repercsns for their sexualy, and, eventually, to participate the stutn of marriage. The plaque also remds that Silver Lake was the “gayborhood” before Wt Hollywood’s “Boystown, ” populated by leather and dance bars, and the us of a good, if unfair, fight.