The Journaling of Olsen 368

In a room swathed with green carpet, mirrored walls and pink tinted art-deco bas-relief, jazz singers and a menagerie of performers crooned away on its many stages. The side streets off of Hollywood Boulevard, such as Ivar, Cosmo, and Cahuenga, were home to numerous speakeasies. They did not advertise their existence, and many were open only briefly before they would be raided by the LAPD and closed. Nightclubs that endured slightly longer included B.B.B.'s Cellar, the Montmartre, and Jimmy's Backyard.
"Mustache incorporated all of these different talents into the making of a queer nightclub," he said. Mustache Mondays traveled from bar to club to venue around downtown. Anywhere it went, Mustache attracted a steady stream of partygoers from around L.A. And mainly from the working-class communities of color closest to downtown. C. Frenz Nightclub brings the local LGBTQIA+ community together and creates a hometown — the “Cheers’ ‘ of the San Fernando Valley for the rainbow community.



Everybody likes to be surrounded by people with common interests and as such a there a few hotels in Los Angeles favored by gay travelers – although to be clear there are no exclusively gay hotels in Los Angeles sadly. In this glorious and extremely liberal city, you will not find any major hotel accommodation that isn’t gay-friendly. Hollywood Food Tour – Get a taste for the delicious variety of Southern California’s food scene and its key attractions during this 4-hour, small-group Hollywood food tour. The first hour is a historic walking tour and the remaining three hours you’ll be driven to various tasting stops, where the walking includes getting in and out of the van to the restaurants. A range of foodie delights gets the starring role during this culinary discovery of five different locales found along the Sunset Strip, Melrose and Hollywood. Will Rogers State Beach – The go-to Gay Beach in LA, though it’s quite expansive so you’ll need to go to Pacific Coast Highway to find the boys.
“People are happy to be back and we’re happy to see them back,” she said. Sign up for our award-winning Daily Dispatch newsletter—delivered to your inbox every week. It’s still steaks and chops, Caesar salads, shrimp cocktails, and icy martinis, just slightly elevated. The intention was never to change so much that lifers wouldn’t come back, but in order for it to remain, they needed to attract another new generation. Scum also serves as a beacon to the essential identity of the Eastside of Los Angeles County.

Artists whose work may have been marginalized in other venues found a platform for expressing political goals and viewpoints. Provided safe space for women artists and writers, including Terry Wolverton and Cheri Gaulke. From 1973 to 1991, the Los Angeles-based organization and facility stood as a counterpoint to most major American museums, galleries, and arts programs, which routinely excluded female artists from their circles. Created by and for women, The Woman’s Building exemplified the impulse among feminists, including lesbians and bisexual women, to establish autonomous spaces outside of traditional, patriarchal institutions.
In 2019, the mural "Nostra Fiesta" by Rafa Esparza and Gabriela Ruiz was commissioned by the bar owners and curator Paulina Lara to be painted on the bar's storefront, to pay homage to the venue's Latinx, LGBTQ, and working-class clientele. The mural was featured in the multimedia exhibition at the ONE Gallery Liberate the Bar! Queer Nightlife, Activism, and Spacemaking, curated by Paulina Lara and Joseph Daniel Valencia. We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.
Until recently, when he was vaccinated, Lawrence and his friends had been hosting patio cocktail parties rather than going out to the bars. Exactly 30 years ago, in 1991, the first gay bar opened up shop on Arenas. Hollywood Spa – A well-located gay bathhouse in North Hollywood with private rooms, large gym, steam room, dry sauna, XXX cinema, lockers, and a tropical sundeck. It’s quite a bit more expensive than Roman Holiday, however, with less clean facilities and the same unfriendly staff. Silver Platter – A fun alternative gay pub to simply hang out while having a beer.

And, for that matter, this laid-back, darkly inviting bar near the junction of Sunset and San Monica boulevards has plenty of straight fans, too. It's the mix - women and guys of all ages and inclinations unified by a shared appreciation of indie music and darkly lighted, cozy lounges. If NYC's East Village is your vibe, this is your best bet in Los Angeles. We are a fun gay shop in the heart of the West Hollywood bar scene.
And in Los Angeles, the Black Cat raid was one of many documented instances when the LAPD harassed, entrapped, and assaulted LGBTQ people. Often these raids resulted in plea deals, or a fine running from $1,000 to $1,500. Six of the people arrested there were tried by jury and found guilty of lewd conduct. The demonstration attracted nearly 600 people, who gathered in front of The Black Cat building in peaceful resistance. Activists called on LAPD to end entrapment, cease illegal searches, and to respect the basic rights and dignity of gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals.

The bar was opened by life and business partners Walter Schneider and Alex Alexander, who had previously started the first gay establishment in West Hollywood, the Gallery Room, as well as a discotheque called Up Disco. After a friend spotted the current location on Abbot Kinney, the pair bought it and opened its doors in 1979. They frequently visited Cabo San Lucas and, on one of their trips, decided to name the bar after a species of game fish. A strict uniform club -- you weren't allowed in the club in street clothes at all. Now the Bullet Bar, this address has a long history and has gone by several names, including the Hanged Man and the Signal. The lights went on, the music stopped, and multiple police sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer and closer.
Today, Being Alive serves as a beacon of emotional support, treatment education, and empowerment to thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS. In 1992, three women artists founded REACH LA in response to the lack of HIV/AIDS prevention education for youth of color. They worked with teenage youth to develop educational programming that was targeted to combat the rise in HIV infection rates among adolescents and young adults. We have since cultivated our legacy into a multifaceted approach that includes HIV prevention education, HIV testing, linkage to care and support services for HIV positive & high-risk negative youth and young adults. REACH LA has built a safe and supportive environment that strives to educate, motivate and mobilize youth around sexual/reproductive health, culture and self-preservation. Upscale mixology gay bar named after the 1950s pioneering gay activist group the Mattachine Society.
As many as 37% of LGBTQ bars shut down between 2007 and 2019, according to a study by Greggor Mattson, a sociology professor at Oberlin College in Ohio. The trend is even starker among bars serving people of color, with nearly 60% having closed by 2019. The New Jalisco Bar welcomed people in just as they were — homosexuales, transgeneros, Dex Franco sin papeles, dressed as vaqueros and old enough to feel out of place dancing to house music in West Hollywood. The nightly drag shows were advertised in dramatically stylized Spanish-language Facebook fliers. And Yesenia Gaitan’s Saturday “Taboo Nights” was billed as the best musical show in downtown Los Angeles.

As President Joe Biden readies to sign into law a Congressional bill declaring Pulse Nightclub a national memorial, the relevance of the nation’s remaining gay bars depends on their embrace of the changes that are defining queer life. Anytime you go, you're likely to see a number of queer revelers, either dancing to DJs or live bands. The Sunday night Latin Quarters parties feature meringue, cumbia, and the like, there are comedy nights midweek, and the after-hours Does Your Mama Know blowouts are de rigueur among plenty of gay night owls.
Part of the Louisiana Purchase shopping center, and opened by restauranteur Arthur J. Bean was a Motown and disco singer, noted particularly for his version of the early gay liberation song "I Was Born This Way" and autobiography of the same title. When West Hollywood became a city on November 29, 1984 , Plummer Park is where the country’s first openly lesbian mayor and four other councilmembers were sworn in. Club New Yorker was opened on the former site of the Greenwich Village Café. The club was situated in a basement adjacent to the Christie Hotel, with access from the street by a steep staircase. "Gay bars that emerged during World War II included the Crown Jewel, Harold's, and Maxwell's in Downtown and the House of Ivy and the Windup in Hollywood."