History! Like radon, it’s all around us, even though you can’t see it. But unlike radon, absorbing it makes you a better person with a more informed future. Fortunately, in L.A. at least, it can also be fun.
The city is particularly effervescent with LGBT history, with countless little fragments of the past hidden here and there. We’ve gathered together a listing of some of our favorite hotspots where you can see what made us the amazing community of equality and diversity we are today. Learn, enlighten your friends, and pay homage to those whose sacrifices made us who we are today.
You can walk to most of these destinations, or bike, or take the bus. Or you could even drive, if you’re that kind of person.
1. Garden of Allah
Originally built as a palatial residence, the Garden of Allah was built just before World War I. It went through several owners, including lesbian actress Alla Nazimova, before landing in the hands of Dorothy Parker.
Ms. Parker is one possible origin of the term “Friend of Dorothy.” Most folks assume that it’s a Wizard of Oz reference, but another theory suggests that it actually references the very gay circle of men who attended Dorothy’s Parker’s frenetic Hollywood parties.
Alas, the beautiful Garden of Allah, with its elaborate wooden flourishes and gardens, is long gone. But you can visit the McDonald’s that now stands in its place.
2. UCLA AIDS Institute
The University of Southern California is at the vanguard of medical research into AIDS and HIV. It was the first to unravel why early HIV meds weren’t working; the first to understand how HIV effects the brain; and the first to develop animal models for HIV that allowed for groundbreaking new research.
And the discoveries keep coming: in recent years, they generated T cells from embryonic stem cells; developed rectal microbicides that reduce transmission in primates; and discovered a link between childhood sexual abuse and HIV transmission.
3. The Black Cat Tavern
A few years before Stonewall, The Black Cat was the site of a major police raid on a gay bar.
It was New Year’s Eve, and undercover cops tried to arrest patrons who kissed at midnight. In response, bar-goers rioted — a tactic that’s proved popular over the years in Los Angeles — and eventually police reinforcements arrived to beat people into submission.
In the days that followed, local organizers held a protest rally. The event served to unite the community and drove further activism — including the founding of a magazine that would become The Advocate.
There’s still a cool bar called The Black Cat on the site, but it’s simply gay-friendly instead of gay-focused.
4. Harry Hay’s House, 2328 Cove Avenue
This is where the modern gay liberation movement began: a cute little home near the Silverlake Reservoir. Hay founded a group called “Bachelors Anonymous” that eventually became the Mattachine Society.
Hay was an actor, a communist, and a fairy who pushed aggressively for gay rights while resisting assimilation before it was fashionable.
The Cove Avenue Stairway nearby was renamed a few years ago in his honor. Check it out. It’s beautiful and exudes pride in action at a time when it wasn’t just a big party.
5. Pershing Square, 532 South Olive Street
This unassuming flat public space was ground zero for downtown cruising in the first half of the 20th century. A variety of establishments around the park were friendly toward hookups: The Biltmore Hotel, Westlake Park (now known as MacArthur Park), Maxwell’s at 3rd and Hill, the Crown Jewel, and a variety of long-gone bars.
These days, Pershing Square is a good place to feed a few pigeons, enjoy the sun, and just hang out. The cruisers have all gone online. Well, mostly…
6. Will Rogers State Beach, 15100 Pacific Coast Highway
This is the gay beach of LA. Why is it the gay beach? It just is. The bathing- suited boys are everywhere, for one thing.
Alternately known as Ginger Rogers Beach or Will Rogers State Screech, its been home to sandy shows and movies like Baywatch and Creature from the Black Lagoon. Take the Santa Monica Blue Bus #9 and wear as little as possible.
7. ONE Archives, 626 N Robertson Blvd
Home to the world’s most extensive LGBT history archive, ONE collects and protects our vast queer past from LA and around the globe.
The gallery on Robertson hosts ever-changing exhibits of art and artifacts. And over at 909 West Adams Blvd, the main archives are a great place for research and quiet reflection.
8. El Pueblo Historical Monument
The first inhabitants of the LA region, the Tongva, were startlingly queer-friendly. They observed same-sex marriages, and believed that a person’s sexual orientation was determined prior to birth. Gays and lesbians were celebrated as two-spirited.
Then the Europeans showed up, and it’s basically been downhill ever since until we decided to take back over. But you can still pay your respects. Although the monument is mostly a tribute to colonists, seek out a plaque on the ground that celebrates LA’s original inhabitants and original name: Yang Na.
9. Klyt Bathhouse, 132 East 4th Street
The words “LA’s oldest bathhouse” may not sound super-enticing, but queer historians won’t be able to resist the pull of Klyt. Back in the day, it was a sort of flophouse for homeless guys who could afford a few bucks for a room, and for celebrities who wanted to see but didn’t want to be seen.
The baths see fewer closeted celebrities than they did in their heyday, but there’s still plenty of great people-watching to be had.
10. Biltmore Hotel, 506 South Grand Street
The Biltmore’s always been a great place for cruising, even in the days before Scruff. But there’s more significance to the place: in 1971, it saw a crucial turning point in the fight to get the International Psychologists & Psychiatrists to remove homosexuality as an illness from the DSM.
At the 1971 meeting, the idea was floated of officially endorsing electroshock therapy to “cure” homosexuality. The Gay Liberation Front crashed the meeting and started a dialogue that two years later ended the psychological stigma of homosexuality and began an astonishing revolution in American thinking about identity.
REDBEARD
You can tell that the writer of this piece was definitely NOT from Los Angeles. Someone should sit down with Mr. Baume and explain the difference between UCLA and the University of Southern California. Major “oopsie” there, guys.
Palmer Scott
It would be nice if you told people WHERE the Garden of Allah was located.
Built by (and named for) Alla Nazimova (first person to be considered a “star”) is was located between Cresent Heights and Havenhurst on Sunset in West Hollywood. A few bits and pieces can still be seen along the southern edge of the strip mall built to replace the Garden.
Alla Nazimova Society
The origin of that phrase “friend of Dorothy” has nothing to do with Dorothy Parker. It’s a reference to Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” and who was a gay icon in the 1960s. The Dorothy character apparently resonated with Baby Boomer gay men and so to say that someone was a “friend of Dorothy” was a coded way to say that he was gay.
It is not true that Dorothy Parker ever owned the Garden of Allah Hotel, which stood at 8152 Sunset, at the Hollywood end of the Sunset Strip. Mrs. Parker and other ex-pats from New York’s Algonquin Round Table, particularly including Robert Benchley, made the Garden their Hollywood home in the 1930s and ’40s. They were famous for their wild, non-stop parties, but Mrs. Parker was not the host — if anyone was, it was Mr. Benchley (whose grandson Peter Benchley wrote the novel “Jaws”). No password was required. Entry was open to just about any famous actor or screenwriter who could afford the hotel’s exorbitant rents. These get-togethers were not overtly or covertly gay or even gay-friendly, and the hotel never had any association with the underground gay scene in Los Angeles — which is not to say gay people did not live there. Ramon Navarro, Lucius Beebe, Tallulah Bankhead and Marlene Dietrich were residents, among many others, but the vast majority of tenants (ie., Humphrey Bogart, the Marx brothers, Errol Flynn, David Niven, Maureen O’Hara, Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers, etc.) were straight.
It is correct that the hotel was originally an estate. The eight-room Spanish Revival house on 2.5 acres was built in 1913 by real-estate developer William H. Hay, who named it Hayvenhurst.In 1918, he leased Hayvenhurst to Alla Nazimova, a Broadway superstar who was then the highest-salaried actress in Hollywood, making $13,000 a week ($204,000 today). She bought the house outright a year later. Nazimova was bisexual and famous in Hollywood for her women-only pool parties at the estate on Sunday afternoons. After Nazimova’s film career took a nosedive in the mid-1920s, she built the two-dozen villas around the pool that you see in the postcard above and converted Hayvenhurst into the Sunset Strip’s first hotel, which she jokingly called the Garden of Alla. Nazimova sold the property back to William H. Hay in 1928 and returned to Broadway. He later sold it to Central Holding Corp., which changed the name to the Garden of Allah Hotel. The hotel went into a decline after World War II and was demolished in 1959 to make way for the bank building that is there now.
– Jon, Alla Nazimova Society, AllaNazimova.com
JimArnold
I don’t know what beach that is in the photo, but certainly not the enormous expanse of sand at Will Rogers. WTF?
Michael
*Note to the editor: Just a friendly reminder; UCLA shouldn’t be confused with the University of Southern California (USC). The AIDS institute is at UCLA, not at USC (as stated in the first sentence of #2).