Eve's Hangout

The former Eve's Hangout

Eve's Hangout

Location: 129 McDougal, New York, New York, USA

Opened: 1925

Closed: June 17, 1926

This account about Eve's Hangout was written by Kreg Wallace:

Eve Adams (or Addams) was the gender-blending pseudonym of Eva Kotchever, a Polish Jew who had immigrated to New York where she opened a lesbian speakeasy and tea room in 1925 called Eve’s Hangout—at 129 MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. At the Hangout, Eve organized weekly poetry readings, musical performances and salons where sexual topics were freely discussed. A sign on the door announced, “Men are admitted, but not welcome.” Eve was a well known figure in the Village at this time. The famous anarchist Emma Goldman was one of her personal friends and a number of radical activists could be counted among her tea room clients. Eve was hailed by her admirers as “the queen of the third sex” and vilified by detractors as a “man-hater.” One Village newspaper reported that her establishment was “not very healthy for she-adolescents, nor comfortable for he-men.”

The popularity of Eve’s Hangout soon drew the attention of police, who in the mid-1920’s launched a crackdown on gay and lesbian clubs in the Village. On June 17, 1926 an undercover female police officer entered the tea room where Eve showed her a collection of short stories she was writing called Lesbian Love. Eve was promptly arrested on the charge of “disorderly conduct”—for allegedly making homosexual advances toward the officer—and her manuscript along with twelve other “objectionable” books in her possession were seized as obscene material. Eve was sentenced to a year in the workhouse and was deported in December 1926.

Photo: Site of Eve Adams' tea room