By Stuart Timmons and Karen Ocamb

Editor’s Note: Sept. 4 marked the 225th anniversary of the founding of the city of Los Angeles. The event coincides with the soon-to-be published and already praised book, Gay L.A.: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Politics, and Lipstick Lesbians, by historians Stuart Timmons and Lillian Faderman. To celebrate the LGBT community’s long participation in the life of Los Angeles and environs, IN asked Timmons to help put together a list of 225 historical LGBT sites. This list is not as rigorously co-gender as their book, and given the energy of L.A.’s gay scene, it’s certainly incomplete. But we hope that, in a fun way, this illustrates that LGBT people are a distinct minority within our own culture and history dating back to the “two-spirit” shamans of Native American times. – News Editor Karen Ocamb

Introduction

Though they were driven out of the city limits, the “first Angelenos”—Gabrielino (Tongva) Indians—originally honored same-gender love and had initiation ceremonies for lesbian and gay adolescents, who were known as “two-spirit” people. The Chumash Indians, who lived north of Malibu, and Jauneno Indians, who lived north of San Diego, held similar beliefs. The Gabrielino lived right near the old Plaza, at a village called Yang-Na, in what is now downtown Los Angeles.

Old L.A. was a town with more saloons than churches, and a thriving sex industry able to pay politicians and police to look the other way. Homosexuality was officially despised, but existed in the shadow of that underworld, its only traces found in jail rosters and accounts of scandals.

Today openly gay men sit on the city councils of L.A. and West Hollywood and an openly gay Latino is mayor of Huntington Park.

Downtown/Silver Lake/Echo Park/Central/South

1 Los Angeles Street off the Plaza was L.A.’s original red light district in the 1800s where “pariahs” and “outcasts” of society lived. 2 At the Los Angeles River, men and boys regularly bathed, and were often arrested. 3 On a lost downtown alley called “Jail Street,” the Los Angeles Jail was the site of “sodomitical attacks” among male inmates kept at very close quarters.

4 At 420 N. Spring Street, the Merced House still stands. It was L.A,’s first theater, circa 1870, next to L.A.’s first hotel and in close proximity to a slew of saloons. The Merced hosted masked balls for male and female prostitutes and later became a covert gay lodging house. 5 The Vienna Buffet (on Main) offered beer, painted women and, sometimes, painted boys. In 1890, “she-boys” who hung out there wound up in jail. 6 At the nearby Thalia Beer Hall, “faeries” worked as “beer slingers” and “song and dance artists.” 7 In the swanky Alexandria Hotel at 5th and Main, where dignitaries hobnobbed with movie stars, an unknown Italian, Rudolph Valentino, danced the tango for hire and was said to have romanced a busboy, Latino beauty Ramon Novarro.

8 Purssord’s Turkish and Electric Light Baths on S. Spring Street was run by Frederick Purssord, an outrageous queen who made the L.A. Times for his practice of nudism. He was later arrested as a “degenerate,” and died in police custody in 1913. L.A. had numerous bath houses, open for ladies for a few hours in the afternoon, open for men all night—with rooms for those who had no place else to sleep.

9 In 1976 a handful of checkbook activists, including Diane Abbitt and Peter Scott, formed MECLA (Municipal Elections Committee of Los Angeles), a political action committee to elect pro-gay candidates to City Hall, 200 N. Spring St. Mayor Tom Bradley facilitated grants to the center and then-closeted Joel Wachs wrote the city’s first anti-discrimination laws. MECLA was succeeded by ANGLE (Access Now for Gay & Lesbian Equality), which helped elect openly gay Jackie Goldberg and Bill Rosendahl, and gay-friendly Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa among others.

10 Brother’s (Adams Boulevard), an interracial club that was part of the Central Avenue jazz scene in the 1940s, was said to be run by a pair of lesbian lovers (“the brothers”) or by “a man in flowing robes.” Actors and entertainers were among those “guys who went for guys” who frequented Brother’s. 11 At the Dunbar Hotel, 4225 S. Central Ave., Billie Holiday and other entertainers stayed and partied in the days of segregation. 12 Cross-dressing performer Gladys Bentley, a successful product of the Harlem Renaissance, owned a home at 654 E. 42nd Pl.

13 Pershing Square, at 5th and Hill, was the meeting ground for gay men for most of the 20th century before city fathers uprooted and paved this homoerotic paradise. Discreet gay cruising was tolerated at the bar of the 14 Biltmore Hotel across the street. During WWII, 15 Westlake (soon MacArthur) Park was also a cruising ground. 16 Nearby, smaller Lafayette Park offered cruising on the Miracle Mile in the 1930s. 17 Echo Park Lake afforded cool cruising grounds on the hottest L.A. nights. Older gays whisper that one famous actor was arrested there in the 1940s and lost his career as MGM’s boy-next-door star.

18 For years, police headquarters at Parker Center, 150 N. Los Angeles St., represented lives ruined by harassment and arrest. Sgt. Mitch Grobeson’s lawsuit, alleging interal LAPD homophobia, revealed the venom wasn’t just against gay civilians. In the 1992 Christopher Commission Report, a message about gays read “NHI”—no human involved. But under Chief Willie Williams, and then Chief Bernard Parks and Mayor Richard Riordan, attitudes started to change. Two open gays were appointed to the Police Commission and Dave Kalish was promoted to deputy chief. Chief William Bratton has had some missteps, but he sent an openly gay recruitment officer to the Gay Games.

19 In 1948, at RKO’s art deco studios on Western Avenue, secretary Lisa Ben typed a lesbian newsletter called Vice Versa, America’s first gay paper.

20 In the summer of 1948, L.A.’s Harry Hay dreamed up “Bachelors Anonymous,” a gay brainstorm that by 1950 became the Mattachine Society, America’s first gay organization, which started at 2328 Cove Ave., a house overlooking Silver Lake.

21 Out of Mattachine grew ONE Incorporated. Its magazine, run by Don Slater at 232 S. Hill St., was declared obscene, but ONE fought back with the first gay case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. 22 ONE later moved to an office at 2256 Venice Blvd., where the dedicated Dorr Legg taught the first gay studies classes. 23 In high gay intrigue, Slater hired a truck and heisted the collection to 3473 Cahuenga Blvd. Most of ONE’s historic records subsequently moved to 24 909 W. Adams (with help from USC), where it incorporated Jim Kepner’s vast LGBT archive and the Lesbian Legacy Collection and became ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives.

25 In the 1940s, Maxwell’s—just off Pershing Square downtown—was where queens downstairs would target sailors who stumbled in. 26 The 3-2-1, a Main Street drag bar, was made famous in John Rechy’s City of Night. 27 The Crown Jewel, near 8th and Olive and the Central Library, was owned by closeted gay lawyer Harry Weiss, who once sprung Tab Hunter from a gay arrest.

28 At the Dover Hotel on Main Street in 1970, a gay man died during an LAPD arrest, sparking outraged protest by the emerging gay community. The Dover was near other seedy gay landmarks of the downtown butch/femme culture, including 29 Harold’s and 30 the Waldorf, bars dating to the 1930s where butch hustlers wore leather and queens wore Capri pants. 31 Cooper’s Donuts, on Main between Harold’s and the Waldorf, was a late-night hangout for drag queens, butch hustlers, and johns up through the ‘60s. A mini gay riot occurred there in the late 1950s, but never made the papers.

32 Troy Perry founded Metropolitan Community Church in his home in 1968 then bought a church at 22nd and Union, which was burned by suspected arson in 1972. The world headquarters for the MCC is now at 33 8714 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood.

34 After its heyday as a gay porn theater, the Vista Theater, 4473 Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake, hosted the first Outfest festivals, which later moved to the 35 Director’s Guild of America on Sunset and Hayworth.

36 Black Cat, 3909 Sunset, (now Le Barcito), was the site of a New Year’s Eve, 1966 police raid. The patrons fought back and the community held massive demonstrations in early ‘67, predating Stonewall by a year and a half. 37 Another pre-Stonewall protest occurred at the Patch, where owner Lee Glaze bravely lead a bouquet-bearing band to the police station in a flower-power response to a raid.

38 Ken’s River Club, on Riverside in Silver Lake, was the gay spot shared by Latinos and Asians during the 1970s. Pervasive racism in West Hollywood boosted bars in Hollywood and Silver Lake that catered to gay people of color, including the 39 Study at Western and Sunset, and 40 Mugi’s on Hollywood Boulevard.

41 Butch Gardens on Sunset in Silver Lake was one of the first gay bars visited by political candidates, including Vince Bugliosi, Burt Pines, and even Paul Lamport, who were driven from office by L.A.’s gay vote. 42 Pattino’s was another Silver Lake hot spot.

43 “Pssst—meet me at Satan’s for the gay lib strategy session.” Now Los Globos, it was located at 3040 Sunset—where hippies worshipped rock ‘n’ roll rebellion in 1970; the Gay Liberation Front fit right in.

44 The first ever Gay Community Services Center started at 1614 Wilshire Blvd. at Union in 1970. The Center moved to 45 1213 N. Highland Ave. and in 1980 added “Lesbian” to the name; in 1991 they moved to the former IRS building at 46 1625 Schrader Blvd. (originally Hudson, the block was renamed for Judge Rand Schrader, the first street in California named for an openly gay person) and became the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center with another site at 47 The Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Pl.

48 1970s lesbians launched an explosion of collective organizations like the Gay Women's Service Center at 1542 Glendale Blvd. 49 Lesbian feminism formulated a new way of thinking at the Women's Center at 1027 Crenshaw Blvd., and 50 Sisters Liberation House at 745 S. Oxford Ave.

51 In 1971, Jeanne Cordova published the Lesbian Tide (for the “rising tide of women”) as an alternative to the 1950s’ Daughters of Bilitis newsletters. The Tide published out of 8855 Cattaraugus Ave.

52 The Alcoholism Center for Women at 1147 S. Alvarado began with a federal grant to the Gay Community Services Center, but disputes over how to spend the money led to the infamous Center strike.

53 The Woman's Building, at 1727 N. Spring St., provided a safe space for women artists and writers, including Terry Wolverton and Cheri Gaulke.

54 During the 1970s and ‘80s, the One Way on Hoover Street was called “L.A.’s most notorious leather bar.” (Later it became a storefront evangelical church.) 55 A few doors down, Celebration Theater, started by Mattachine founder Chuck Rowland, launched many of L.A.’s best gay plays.

56 AT (Alcoholics Together) Center at 1773 Griffith Park Blvd. in Silver Lake was one of the first safe spaces for gays to get clean and sober.

57 VIVA, a LGBT Latino arts organization with an office on Hyperion Avenue, facilitated a flowering of queer Latino/a arts, including the work of Monica Palacios and MacArthur genius grant recipient Luis Alfaro. 58 The ACT UP office in an upstairs room at Sunset Junction produced more power politics with a smaller budget than any Los Angeles organization in history. They literally stopped traffic and changed history.

59 Founded in 1972, Jewel’s Catch-One Disco, at 4067 West Pico Blvd., was the nation’s first black gay disco. It now serves as both a dance club and a community center. Jewel Thais-Williams and her partner Rue also founded Rue’s House, the first shelter for homeless women and children with HIV/AIDS. Jewel also founded 60 the Village Health Foundation Clinic next to the disco which provides free or low-cost alternative healthcare.

61 Owned by classy twin brothers Richard and Ron Harris, the Lucy Florence Cafe at 3351 West 43rd St., near Leimert Park, doubles as a tasteful coffee shop and a cultural center with political forums, music, and an art gallery.

62 In 1999, Chico broke ground as a Latino gay bar in Montebello.

63 In the early ‘90s, ACT UP and Queer Nation protested outside the Academy Awards at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for more stories on AIDS and honest portrayals of gays. Among the ACT UP leaders was transgender “AIDS Diva” Connie Norman.

64 Since 1989, Bienestar Human Services has provided HIV/AIDS services to the Latino community. Headquartered at 5326 E. Beverly Blvd. in East L.A., Bienestar now has 10 centers in Southern California, including the 65 Hollywood Center at 4955 Sunset Blvd., which offers Transgeneros Unidas.

66 The ACLU/SC, at 1616 Beverly Blvd., was home to LGBT legal hero Jon Davidson (before he moved to Lambda Legal), who took on the first gay Boy Scouts case, represented harassed Sgt. Mitch Grobeson against the LAPD, and handled HIV discrimination cases. The ACLU’s LGBT chapter and broad support for gays rights cases continues.

67 From Lambda Legal’s Western Regional Office at 3325 Wilshire Blvd. (launched in 1990), senior legal eagle Jennie Pizer fights landmark cases involving all forms of anti-LGBT discrimination. For most of the 1980s, Jean O’Leary was the L.A.-based executive director of another legal group, the National Gay Rights Advocates.

68 Black AIDS Institute at 1833 W 8th St. was founded by longtime AIDS activist and survivor Phill Wilson to address the specific needs of the LGBT African American community.

69 Chris Brownlie Hospice in Elysian Park had been a tuberculosis sanitarium after World War II, but became the first institution of Michael Weinstein’s vast AIDS Healthcare Foundation, 70 headquartered at 6255 W. Sunset Blvd. AHF’s mission is to provide “cutting edge medicine and advocacy, regardless of ability to pay.”

71 For too long, L.A. County Hospital had no ward or outpatient clinic for AIDS patients. After months of controversial ACT UP activism—including Mark Kostopolis writing “AIDS ward” in “blood” on the front steps—PWAs got a ward where they were treated with dignity and a clinic called 5P21.

72 Bishop Carl Bean’s Unity Fellowship Church & Minority AIDS Project, at 5149 W. Jefferson Blvd., is America’s largest African-American LGBT church, with 12 branches nationwide.

73 A Different Light Bookstore, originally located at 4014 Santa Monica Blvd., hosted the Lesbian Writers Series, the gay men’s Sundays at 7 series, and visits from famous gay writers like Allen Ginsberg. ADL first opened in Silver Lake in 1979 but closed that store in 1992 after expanding into a national franchise.

74 The Posada, an annual candlelight vigil through old downtown Pasadena remembering those lost to AIDS, is organized by and benefits the AIDS Service Center, 130 S. Arroyo Parkway.

75 For 40 years The Other Side on Hyperion has served as L.A.’s favorite gay piano bar; the last of its kind, it is the subject of a recent documentary film.

76 The Wall Las Memorias in Lincoln Park stands as a tribute to Latino/as who have died from AIDS.

Hollywood

77 The sophisticated Club Bali at 8804 Sunset Blvd. starred comic singer Bruz Fletcher, a standout among the 1930s chic clubs that popped up on the Sunset Strip because it was safely out of LAPD’s jurisdiction. 78 The BBB Cellar and 79 the Club New Yorker featured female impersonators who made jaded film stars blush. 80 Jimmy’s Back Yard, at 1651 Cosmo, was shut down by LAPD raids. 8) Café Montmartre on Hollywood Boulevard had been fashionable in the 1920s, but by the ‘30s became run-down and gay.

82 Dorothy Arzner reported for work dressed in jacket, tie and short, slicked hair as the only woman director of Hollywood’s Golden Age. One of her girlfriends was the ultra-femme Billie Burke, (Glinda the Good in The Wizard of Oz.) She lived quietly with choreographer Marion Morgan at 2249 Mountain Oak Dr. until Morgan's death 40 years after they met.

83 172 S. McCadden Place was the setting of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, played by Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, enduring icons of gay sensibility. Davis lived in a grand apartment on 84 Fountain and Havenhurst in West Hollywood and Crawford (“no wire hangers”) lived at 85 426 N. Bristol, Brentwood, now remodeled into a McMansion.

86 Grand pianist Liberace had a penthouse on Beverly Boulevard, west of Fairfax. Despite his signature candelabras and showgirl style costumes, he never came out. But when asked his opinion on the gay movement, he said, “Well, ‘Lib’ is my middle name.”

87 Just off Franklin on Ivar, the Alto Nido Apartments provide a lofty view for queer sorts including William Holden’s character in Sunset Boulevard, and decades later, for ACT UP hero Peter Cashman.

88 During the soused 1930s, Club Rendezvous on the Sunset Strip was run by comic singer Ray Bourbon, an intimate of Mae West. Bourbon changed his clothes (to female) and his name (to Rae), as one of L.A.’s most charismatic transgenders.

89 The Golden Carp, on Melrose near Stanley, was a dreamy gay bar with a fish-stocked stream winding through it and a system that made interior rain.

90 Griffith Park was the site of exuberant cruising, according to John Rechy’s Sexual Outlaw. In 1968, the park hosted Gay-Ins (inspired by hippie “Be-Ins”). In 1955, the camera caught Sal Mineo’s crush on Jimmy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause at the romantic Griffith Park Observatory. On Feb. 12, 1976, returning from a play rehearsal (he played a gay burglar), Mineo was stabbed to death outside his 91 West Hollywood apartment at 8563 Holloway (between La Cienega and Alta Loma).

92 The first Christopher Street West gay pride parade, created by Morris Kight, Troy Perry, and Bob Humphries, stepped off from Hollywood Boulevard and McCadden Place in June 1970, lead by a lesbian on horseback, followed by a float portraying a crucified Tinkerbell.

93 In the ‘30s and ‘40s, Ciro’s nightclub on Sunset hosted Hollywood royalty—and a few cruising queens. Decades later, it became the Patch II, a go-go gay bar where cruising no longer had to be discreet.

94 Inside the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire, the Coconut Grove nightclub was where Judy Garland danced with handsome young Hollywood homosexuals. (In 1968 presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated there.)

95 From the ‘40s through the ‘60s, Hollywood Boulevard was bustin’ with gay bars like Bradley’s faster than the cops could bust ‘em.

96 Nestled in the armpit of the Santa Monica Freeway, the Black Pipe was a leather bar that made history when yet another LAPD raid turned into a battle when dozens of arrestees refused to cop a plea.

97 Circus Disco, 6655 Santa Monica Blvd., opened as a Latin dance paradise because owner Gene La Pietra saw his non-white friends barred from Studio One in West Hollywood.

98 In 1984 Dr. Virginia Uribe, a science teacher, founded Project 10 at Fairfax High School to help LGBT students. The ground-breaking program and Uribe were vilified by anti-gay Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition.

99 For decades, La Plaza at 739 N. La Brea has showcased defiant divas in drag, lip-synching to the greatest hits of Latina superstars.

100 Greg’s Blue Dot Lounge was the “it bar” of the 1980s (before it became Highland Grounds coffee shop). Of its many traditions, the most memorable was bobbing for dildos.

101 Lesbian clubs ranged from the sophisticated, like Tess’ International on the Sunset Strip, to working-class bars on 8th and Vermont like 102 the If Club where denim was more the style.

103 Beverly Shaw crooned sultry songs in a tuxedo coat and a sequined skirt, cultivating such a following at Club Laurel at Laurel Canyon and Ventura Boulevard, that she was able to buy the place.

104 At Googie’s coffee shop on Sunset, nestled by the legendary Schwab’s, Jimmy Dean drank endless coffee with “glamour ghoul” Vampira lesbian activist Sallie Fisk.

105 In the ’50s, gay teens found a way to connect in coffee shops, such as the Marlin Inn, 106 Arthur J’s (slightly husterlish) and the notorious 107 Gold Cup, all on or around the cruisy/sleazy zone of Hollywood and Vine.

108 Charles Laughton was a genius of Hollywood’s golden age; quietly gay and miserably married, he poured his heart into collecting art, which filled his Hollywood home on Curson Avenue, adjacent to Wattles Park.

109 Dancer, actor, and Hollywood sissy Clifton Webb betrayed himself by living with his mother—in “Belvedere,” a fabulous home on Harold Way in the hills.

110 Van Ness Recovery House, 1919 N. Beachwood Dr, founded in 1973 by Don Kilhefner, was the first residential substance abuse facility for gays and the first to accept people with HIV/AIDS. Today Kathy Watt presides over an explosion of residents with crystal meth addiction; in 2004, 88 percent of the residents were HIV-positive.

111 Before he played a cross-dressing director (played in the biopic by Johnny Depp), Ed Wood lived in a number of Hollywood apartments. His last was on Yucca Street.

112 With red lights, black mazes, and hot men, Basic Plumbing was a legendary ‘70s sex club on Fairfax north of Melrose.

113 Just off Western Avenue, on La Cresta Court, the Radical Faerie movement was conjured into existence by Harry Hay, John Burnside, Don Kilhefner, and others.

114 AIDS Project Los Angeles began as an information hotline out of a closet at the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in 1983. After a 1984 fund raiser starring Joan Rivers at Studio One, they moved to 115 Cole Avenue in Hollywood. APLA held the world's first AIDS Walk on July 28, 1985, with 4,500 walkers leaving 116 Paramount Studios on Melrose Avenue. In 1987, APLA started their Commitment to Life (CTL) galas, with support from Elizabeth Taylor, honoring first lady Betty Ford at the 117 Bonaventure Hotel. In 1992, CTL honored Barbra Streisand and David Geffen, who came out as gay, at 118 Universal Amphitheatre. Subsequently, APLA moved to the 119 David Geffen Center at 1313 N. Vine St. Today, APLA is headquartered at the 120 Geffen Center at 611 South Kingsley Drive.

121 Project Angel Food, co-founded in 1989 by Course in Miracles guru Marianne Williamson and death-and-dying expert David Kessler, started upstairs at the Crescent Heights Methodist Church on Fountain. Fund raisers Angel Art, then Divine Design, moved to the 122 Pacific Design Center under John Giles. Later Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Divas: Simply Singing! benefits the organization as people of color changed the faces of HIV/AIDS. In 1994, a new facility is opened at 123 7574 Sunset Blvd., inaugurated by Judith Light and Robert Desiderio.

124 After beginning in the basement of ABC Studios in Los Feliz, The Advocate migrated to San Francisco, became a national magazine, and finally came home to L.A. Their offices are now in the Fries Building, across from the Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

125 In the mid ‘80s, Lily Tomlin previewed part of her one-woman show, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe at the Anti-Club on Melrose and Normandie.

126 In 1983 Deborah Johnson and Zandra Rolon went to Papa Choux Restaurant on Wilshire to celebrate a romantic Martin Luther King Jr. Day. When they were refused the “couples’ booth, they hired attorney Gloria Allred to sue the restaurant, which closed rather than seat everyone.

127 Presidential candidate Bill Clinton, David Mixner’s friend, made history in 1992 at The Palace Theater at 1735 N. Vine when he told 700 gays and people with AIDS, “I have a vision and you’re part of it.”

128 From 1932 to 1980 when she died, Mae West lived at the Ravenswood Penthouse at 570 North Larchmont. The sex goddess, movie vamp, and author of The Drag, was a muse to a million drag queens.

129 Falcon’s Lair (1436 Bella Dr.) was the name of Rudolph Valentino’s hilltop home with lesbian wife Natasha Rambova. Valentino was publicly ridiculed as a “pink powder puff” for his outré fashions, including wearing a slave bracelet.

130 Tauntingly bisexual Marlene Dietrich used to strut through the lobby of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (7000 Hollywood Blvd.) wearing a custom tailored man’s suit, and setting tongues a wagging.

131 Hollywood Spa, 1650 Ivar St., was one of the first bathhouses to provide condoms and AIDS education material.

132 PROBE 836 N. Highland Ave.
One of the most famous gay discos in the world, many a man fell in love (or lust) at PROBE. Created as a private club, Hollywood’s elite met Hollywood wannabe’s in a swirling mix that achieved international status. It was said of PROBE’s private club status, that instead of a golfing green, it had a legendary dance floor—a refuge of privacy from the outside world. The police and state bureaucracy, (particularly through Alcoholic Beverage Control) once tried to get a copy of the membership list, but it was successfully legally defended as private property. From the early '80s to the late '90s, many a diva (including Madonna) began and maintained their singing careers on its stage as the music and men throbbed throughout the night.

133 In the ‘70s, every twink in WeHo wore a “Big Weenies Are Better” T-shirt from The Big Weenie Hot Dog on Wilcox. Big weenies sold for $1.39.

134 At Hollywood Forever cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., stars such as Tyrone Power, Rudolf Valentino, Peter Lorre, and Clifton Webb are buried.

135 1125 N. McCadden Pl. is where Morris Kight, the white-haired silver-tongued Godfather of Gay L.A., held court and amassed a gay art collection.

136 Beth Chayim Chadashim, 6000 W. Pico Blvd., was founded in 1972 as the world’s first LGBT synagogue.