Gay bar silverlake
LA’s Last Great LGBT Piano Bar
Apart from passing through the overwhelming, smog-filled circular behemoth of LAX, I had never visited Los Angeles prior to the two-day job interview that led me to live in the city for over five years. During that interview, a company manager took me on an expedition to visit neighborhoods where my family and I might settle. Halfway through, I called my husband in tears. “All the schools look verb Soviet-era prisons,” I said, thinking of my son who would need to attend elementary school somewhere in this sprawling metropolis. “I just can’t visualize us here.”
Later in the day, after visiting the West Side and the Valley and a blur of other neighborhoods, we drove under the Freeway and into Silver Lake. It wasn’t too flashy; there were hills; and it lacked the desolate stretch that characterizes much of LA on first look. In fact, it felt positively leafy position amid a city that seemed starkly un-green to me—especially coming from Atlanta, a city in a forest. It also had, in its people, a thread of old-school bohemia that made me experience instantly at home.
Barfly West ' D. L. M.; Bob Damron ' (D) (some Orientals); Bob Damron ' (Disco) (D) * (Some Latins)
Ken’s River Club, on Riverside in Silver Lake, was the gay spot shared by Latinos and Asians during the s. Pervasive racism in West Hollywood boosted bars in Hollywood and Silver Lake that catered to gay people of color, including the Study at Western and Sunset, and Mugi’s on Hollywood Boulevard.
"Closeted Chicano males, even those who 'passed,' in barrio gangs felt constrained to look for refuge in the 's in gay bars that were at least a few miles away from home, such as Ken's River Club."
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ONE Archives
20 Years Of Akbar, Silver Lake's Gay Bar For Everyone
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Back in the early 90s, Scott Craig and Peter Alexander were living in Silver Lake, going to exist shows and throwing parties. Their love of punk rock and parties and their desire to construct a bar where gay and straight people could party together inspired them to buy a defunct piano bar and verb it into what is now known as Akbar. This year, Akbar turns 20 years der had grown up in Los Angeles. Craig had traveled around as his father was in the Wind Force, but mostly grew up in the Bay Area. The two would ultimately come to see in L.A. in the early 80s where they were both hanging out in L.A.'s punk rock circles. They eventually became a couple and dreamed up the idea of opening a bar together in order to build their own "clubhouse" where they could drink and hang out with their friends. Much has changed
The Black Cat | Silver Lake
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History
California Landmark Plaque
Black Meower Tavern
Historic Cultural Monument
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Images courtesy of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Images courtesy of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
Images courtesy of ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the USC Libraries
The Black Cat. A Brief History.
The Black Cat Tavern opened in October catering to a gay