Harriet Tubman Young Women's Leadership Academy

Students at Harriet Tubman (February 2012)

Harriet Tubman Young Women's Leadership Academy

Location: 2231 North Flint Avenue, Portland, Oregon, USA

Opened: 2007

Closed: June 2012

Here's the description from Facebook:

The Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women is the only all girls public school in Portland, Oregon serving grades 6 through 12. It has a focus on math, science and leadership-areas where women are grossly underrepresented.

 

And now it's gone.

 

Can't help but see this within the context of the overall destruction of womyn's spaces, whether it's a college or a bar. Given that schools that serve young women of color and help them "find their voice" are especially rare, the loss of the Harriet Tubman Academy is especially sad. I wonder if the same "queer women" who cheered the destruction of Portland's last lesbian bar also see this closing as a good thing?

 

From the Oregonian, June 13, 2012:

 

As Shea Turner marched through the halls of the Harriet Tubman Leadership Academy for Young Women in her yellow cap and gown, the recent graduate couldn't help but smile.

Girls protesting the closing of
Harriet Tubman (April 2012)

Throngs of her classmates had lined up along the lockers on the last day of school to cheer on Turner and three other graduates, before joining the four in a parade to the auditorium.

 

But even with the fanfare, Turner, 17, found herself in a somber mood. The ceremony just reminded her that the 163-student building, the only all-girls public school in Oregon, is shutting down for good.

 

"It's a family," Turner said. "You're leaving your family behind."

 

The school, which served sixth through 12th grades and focused on science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes, has long had a presence in the city's African-American community. Tubman originally began as a neighborhood middle school, and moved to the current North Flint building in 1985. After that school closed, the young women's academy got its start five years ago as a place for girls to focus on academics in a small setting without distractions like boys and cliques.

 

Despite community opposition, the Portland School Board confirmed in April that Tubman and Humboldt, another North Portland school, would be closed because their low enrollments would be difficult to sustain.

 

Those who fought to keep the school say the district will be losing an irreplaceable program. The small enrollment helped build community, students say, and single-sex education helped girls feel more comfortable in their skin.

 

At Tubman, Turner said, girls grew into themselves. "Every girl I know found her voice here."

 

Allie Beard, 16, was just barely passing classes in middle school before she ended up in the program for ninth grade. As Beard transitioned into a foster home, Tubman became a place of family and stability: teachers went to her roller derby bouts, and she didn't worry about being judged.

 

"I wasn't dreading coming into school each day," she said.

 

On Wednesday, the girls took their seats at 10 pink lunch tables in the auditorium to celebrate the last day. They listened to speeches from Superintendent Carole Smith  and former Tubman Middle School Principal Paul Coakley, and they whooped approvingly for friends as they were given awards.

 

By the time students settled into lunch, Medha and Shradha Pulla, both 16, had kept on their caps and gowns. The reality of the situation had not yet sunk in, said Medha.

 

She'll be attending Portland State University with her sister next year and credits Tubman's access to advanced classes for their early graduation.  The Pullas and their mother, Jyothi Pulla, were some of the loudest voices asking the district to keep the school open.

 

Medha said she hoped a community could still come together and bring back the program in some way -- some parents are even considering proposing a charter or alternative school.

 

In the end, she said, Tubman would still be a part of her classmates even if they leave.

 

"They've gained something here that can't be taken away from them," Pulla said, then turned to hug a classmate goodbye.

 

Two weeks after the school closed, students did a Silent Protest at the school board.

 

Two sisters protest closing of Harriet Tubman (July 2012)

 

 

 

Club Libations

Club Libations

Club Libations
Location: 231 North Broad Street (some sites say South Broad Street), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.

Opened: 1998 or before?

Closed: 2009?

From what has become my gold mine for lost lesbian bars, Clubfly:

Type: Lesbian Club
In a nutshell: A rare find and dance club for lesbians of color. Open Friday and Saturday nights...

This truly is a "rare find" as I seldom find lesbian space that is predominantly for Black women or women of color. Of course, Clubfly reports that it is now "closed," but with no date.

Here is more from Philly2Night:

A rare find and dance club for those who range from gay to straight with everything in between. This upstairs hideaway is the ultimate girls for girls' night scene. Not your typical underground finding above a Northern Italian restaurant. Known as Libations, it is a local change from popular LGBT night spots.

So we also find out that not only was this lesbian space limited in time (Friday and Saturdays only), it was limited in space, i.e. confined to the second floor--a familiar location for dedicated readers here at Lost Womyn's Space. This is a very familiar pattern existing from at least the nineteenth century and the era of ladies restaurants and ladies dining rooms, which were nearly always placed on the second floor above the "main" (men's) facilities. Also reminiscent of racial segregation in general, and the way in which Black patrons were often limited to the balconies in movie theaters.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. We may have the right to vote, the right to go to college (if you are willing to go deeply in debt), but the overall spatial pattern of pushing (limited) women's space to more marginal real estate (i.e. the second floor, which may be accessible by stairs only) remains.

GayCities adds a few more details:

Upstairs women's bar and nightclub
Dark and dive-y, this bar, upstairs from a Northern Italian restaurant is popular with ladies on the weekends. The dress is upscale.

Tags: Mostly Women, 20-somethings, 30-somethings, African American, Dancing

 

Fortunately, GayCities also has some customer reviews which are always nice to have. Sadly, they also document the entrenched racism/sexism that still exists in the GLBT community:

 

From October 2009:

 

coming to philly

IM COMING TO PHILLY THIS WEEKEND AND I BEEN TOLD THIS IS THE SPOT FOR LESBIAN WOMEN OF COLOR...LET ME KNO WHATS UP

 

From January 2008 (PhillyStud9):

 

Not what it used to be

Libations has now become the kiddie club to hang out at on Friday and Saturday night. Back in the day(1998-1999) it was great, all races, all ages. Not is just the menatlly young black crowd that is not worth the $5 cover charge....

 

Also from January 2008 (SoulSista):

 

Can we do better ?

First, Libations isn't a nightclub...its a bar that's gay on the weekend. This bar is definitely not for the mature crowd and the people there are not social at all. Most just stand against the wall with a scowl on their face. While I waited for my sweety to get her drink, I looked around the bar at all the depressed faces. My fiance and I went because we wanted to get out of the house...bored as we usually are in this city. Sadly Libations and Sister's shows the racial divide in the community. if you are looking for fun, smiling faces, diversity and great atmosphere..skip this club.

 

Sister's was another lesbian bar in Philadelphia--now lost as well (2013). 

 

And finally, here is a great narrative from April 2007 by Nigia at uwishunu:

 

The dramatically narrow, dark staircase at the top of Philadelphia restaurant Upstairs At Varalli, reveals that the underground scene has emerged. Located at Broad and Locust, it is a light at the end of the tunnel for Black and Latino lesbians looking for an underground scene. This upstairs hideaway is the ultimate girls for girls’ night scene. Not your typical underground finding above a Northern Italian restaurant. Known as Libations, it is a local change from popular LGBT night spots. The night club is also an alternative scene for hip-hop and R&B lovers. This club mixes up the local Philadelphia LGBT scene and puts a definite twist on Philadelphia night life.

Libations is an experience of real underground Philadelphia nightlife. The life that many thought only existed in cities like New York, D.C and Atlanta. The club blends the intimacy of a small 21 plus venue with the atmosphere of a dance heavy mega-club. The walls sweat in hip-hop and R&B rhythms that keep the crowd moving and when it dies down to a simple two-step, female bar tenders serve up the best, only to rejuvenate the crowd who always finds its way back to its dance floor.

So yeah, it is definitely not an ambiance for the mild with a cultural scene that exudes of modishly chic women and flair. This Friday and Saturday night hang-out has a sound and a style that calls for you to roll out of the house in only the best and latest attire. A style that creates a fashion playground that can range from diva avant garde to edgy androgynous. Let’s just say that with its pulsating realm and indulgence for eye catching ladies, Libations night club keeps its girls fully aroused.

Fayetteville Female Seminary

Fayetteville Female Seminary

Fayetteville Female Seminary

Location: Fayetteville, Arkansas, USA

Opened: 1841

Closed: 1862

Though the Fayetteville Female Seminary may not have been progressive in every way, it appears that Miss Sophia Sawyer was very principled when it came to equal opportunity for her students.  From the Fayetteville, Arkansas site:



Sophia Sawyer (1792-1854)

It [the Fayetteville Female Seminary] was founded by Miss Sophia Sawyer, a missionary teacher who had worked with the Cherokees in Georgia and then in the Indian Territory that would one day become Oklahoma. A private tutor for the Ridge family, she first came with them to Missouri and the Indian Territory, and then after John Ridge was killed, she came here with John's widow, Sarah.

David and Jane Walker gave the land for Miss Sawyer to open her new school. Miss Sawyer was very religious and apparently quite the taskmaster, but she adamantly insisted on teaching young girls regardless if they were white or Cherokee and by 1854 there were 103 students.

She was once confronted by the Georgia militia for teaching African-American slave children of the Cherokees to read. She told them in no uncertain terms to go away, saying she was not subject to Georgia law since she was in Indian Territory and that the Cherokees were too civilized to have such a law.

The school catered to young ladies of distinguished families from all over the region, and offered classes in music, literature, French, and embroidery. The seminary was one of the most influential institutions in early Arkansas, and is often mentioned as one of the factors leading to the location of the state's land-grant university, the University of Arkansas. One of the music teachers was Ferdinand Zellner, a Prussian violinist with P.T. Barnum's nationwide tour of the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind. In 1856 he composed and published "The Fayetteville Polka", and later went on to conduct the San Francisco Symphony.

In spite of their best efforts to save them, the school buildings were also burned in the Civil War and the school never recovered.

See more about the life of Sophia Sawyer here.

Roy's Comfort Zone

Roy's Comfort Zone (2007)

Roy's Comfort Zone

Location: 1412 West Huntington Park Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Opened: At least as early as 2005

Closed: Till at least 2012

If you go by Clubfly, Roy's Comfort Zone was a clearly a lesbian place, no doubt about it--though now out of business:

Roy’s Comfort Zone Philadelphia (CLOSED)

1412 W Hunting Park Ave
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140 
(215)324-7562

Type: Lesbian Bar
In a nutshell: Friday night watering hole for the ladies. The music is fair for the average gal just needing a drink to end a hectic week. Warning - parking is on the street, and it is on the north side...


Just one problem. There are not a lot of formal reviews that implicitly call this a lesbian place. Or even a gay place necessarily.

For instance, here's what Clubplanet has to say:

Roy's Comfort Zone is the type of place you start off your night. The drinks are cheap and strong but the crowd isn’t the type to get the party started. Grab a quick drink here and then head out to the real party. 

This place has/had such a low profile, that there are no reviews at yelp. Just mention of its existence.

Ah. Here's a clue. It was apparently still in existence during Pride Week 2012. And it appeared to cater to Black "sexy females":

Philly Black Pride Party

Friday Apr 27, 2012 8:00PM-01:00AM in Philadelphia   

Its that time of year PHILLY PRIDE, Sweeties is setting if off with old & new skool music, putting it down again. If you missed last years party, then you dont want to miss this years, if you want to see some of the hottest, sexiest females from Delaware, D.C., New York, and Atlanta then Phillys Black Pride is the place to be Roys Comfort Zone.

 

Oh. And then there's this news story. Not good.

 

HUNTING PARK - December 31, 2009 (WPVI) -- Police are on the lookout for a man who opened fire in Hunting Park.  Investigators say the 38-year-old victim was hit in the leg at about 1 a.m. while he played video games inside Roy's Comfort Zone on the 1400 block of West Hunting Park Avenue.
The man who fired the gun then ran out of the bar and police are looking for him.

There's no word on any motive in the shooting.

Pay dirt. We finally locate some customer reviews at yahoo local from what appear to be Black lesbians. Here's what they say:

 

JewelzOhSoSexii 08/09/05:

 

I LIKE ROY'S JUST GET SICK OF SEEING THE SAME PPL!

 

buttercup 01/25/06:

                  

It was ok in there. I went there for the first time last fri and it was alright. It was very hot in there and not enough ...more

It was ok in there. I went there for the first time last fri and it was alright. It was very hot in there and not enough space but there were definitely alot of sexy ladies in the spot. Not to mention the music was aight!!!!

 

Mssweet31 04/30/06: 

                  

Yes I finally made and I had a ball!!!!!!!!!!! The music was good and the people were nice!!!! It was a good atmosphere and I defin...more

Yes I finally made and I had a ball!!!!!!!!!!! The music was good and the people were nice!!!! It was a good atmosphere and I definately will be goin again!

 

TreasureT 01/13/12:

                 

Wow I hear that something new is coming, the reopening of ROY'S COMFORT ZONE. ...more

Wow I hear that something new is coming, the reopening of ROY'S COMFORT ZONE. P&C Productions wll be presentng a place for you to party again on every first[1st] and third[3rd] Friday of every month catering to the LGBT community. Starting Feb. 3, 2012 9pm to 2am. I hear from 9 to 10 its free but $10 to get in SO I SAY GET YOUR PARTY ON, you know get the party started some place for the family to party again:]

 

A lesser trafficked review site called gayscom also notes that Roy's is "Mostly Women."

We also hear that the food was good solid down-home cooking (no vegan quinoa sliders!). From foursquare:

 Sakinah T.· December 29, 2011

Turkey wings mac and yams 10$ best platter

Yum!

As far as I can tell, no business has replaced Roy's at this location. So is it still in operation? Given the lack of any reviews since 2012 and the clubfly notation, I'm going to assume not. If I'm wrong, y'all let me know.

Given the rarity of Black lesbian space, it was a real treat to stumble upon this one.

St. Joseph's Female College

Patee Female College

St. Joseph's Female College

Location: St. Joseph, Missouri, USA

Opened: 1875

Closed: 1881

The Patee House, which was built in 1858 as a hotel, now operates as a  National Historic Landmark and museum. The location has had a variety of usages over the years, but what we're interested in here is that it once housed two private women's colleges: The Patee Female College (1865-1868) and the St. Joseph Female College (1875-1881).

Here's the standard write-up on St. Joseph derived from that "free encyclopedia":

 

Affiliated with the Baptist Church, St. Joseph Female College was opened in 1875 by the English-born Rev. Elijah S. Dulin. The college was located for most of its operating years in the Patee House, a hotel and office building. It had previously housed the Patee Female College from 1865 to 1868.

 

Patee House today

Patee House has historically been most commonly associated with the founding of the Pony Express in 1860, and the death of outlaw Jesse James nearby in 1882.

The college moved out of Patee House in 1880 and constructed its own building at a cost of $100,000 on a hill near the city's center. According to The Baptist Encyclopedia, the board of trustees was composed of the state's leading men, with Rev. Dulin serving as president throughout the college's life.

It's a pattern we've seen before with 19th-century women's colleges: no signs of any actual women! The president is a dude. The Board of Trustees were dudes. And it was short-lived. Big surprise. We often see this too, as the dudes really don't have much motivation for keeping a women's college afloat through all the challenges.

Mary Alicia Owen

And yet women students often transcended the oppressive educational and religious limitations put upon these schools, and creatively reworked the educational opportunities to their own advantage. 

One of these students was Mary Alicia Owen (1850-1935), who attended Patee Female College for three years. Most unusual for a Missouri frontier girl of the time (even a white girl from a fairly prosperous family), Mary then proceeded on to Vassar College, which was one of the few women's colleges of the time that offered women a liberal arts education that was comparable to the ones offered by the men's schools. (Alas, Vassar is no longer a women's college as it began admitting men in 1969.)  

Mary was intent on remaining independent and never married. She later became a writer and renowned folklorist, with a particular interest in local Native American and African-American folklore and "voodoo" (as it was called at the time). She has been described as "the most famous American Woman Folklorist of her time."

While growing up, her family owned slaves. According to the State Historical Society of Missouri,  

Mary would recall how she loved to listen to the myths and stories told by the slaves.  As an adult, she wrote about one slave in the household, Mymee Whitehead, who was a conjurer.  Conjure, or Hoodoo as it is sometimes called, is the African American folk practice of using spells or creating potions to ask the spirit world for help.  Mary loved to watch “Aunt” Mymee prepare special potions.  She sometimes helped by getting needed ingredients from her grandmother’s kitchen.

Mary says more about Mymee here:

Mary Alicia Owen around 20

Aunt Mymee gave me the first glimpse of her secret business by importuning me to get from my grandmother some amaranth seeds. When I insisted on knowing what she wanted with them, she acknowledged she wished to make them into a little cake which would make any who ate it love the one who handed it to him. That sounded reasonable enough to anyone as fond of all sorts of sweeties as I was, so I procured the seeds, and had the cake made up.

Not long after I heard other servants of the family say that Mymee had surely conjured me, for I followed at her heels like a dog that had eaten shoebread.

What she learned from Mymee Whitehead and later from another area conjurer named King Alexander, who was part African American and part Cherokee, was recorded in her first book: Old Rabbit, the Voodoo, and Other Sorcerers (1893).

Mary's life has been written up in a recent book by Greg Olson, Voodoo Priests, Noble Savages, and Ozark Gypsies: The Life of Folklorist Mary Alicia Owen (2012), so I'm not going to summarize it all here. Nor do I want to minimize the legitimate criticism that her work has received in recent years for its racist assumptions and connotations--though the same could be argued about all the other white anthropologists and archaeologists of the time, since these "disciplines" were essentially constructed around the exotic "other".

But as a woman who is little known today outside American folklore circles, it is still important to recognize her contributions and the role that women's schools played in sustaining her life.

Still, I wish we could hear Mymee Whitehead in her own voice, and that she could have had a school of her own....

Cloud Nine Lounge

Cloud Nine Lounge

Location: 7126 Sterling Road, Davie, Florida, USA

Opened: At least as early as 2007

Closed: Spring 2012?

Gay Bars Fort Lauderdale is pretty much to the point. Cloud Nine Lounge is a "Lesbian Neighborhood Bar, Mixed Crowd." 

From sunny.org: "Lesbian-friendly nightclub with nightly drink specials such as 2-4-1 everything everyday 12pm-8pm, Fri Ladies Night, Sat Free Drinks 11pm-1am, and Sun Karaoke 9pm-1am."

From SouthFlorida.com: "Cloud 9 offers entertainment and mingling for gay women in South Florida."

And from lesbian night life:

Run by women for women, this lounge features two pool tables, dartboards, and beer-pong tables, a dance floor with a pole and a friendly staff.  

Cloud Nine (2008)

Cloud Nine won "the Best Cheap Thrill in Broward" award in 2007. (Woo Woo!) Here's how Voice Places described it: 

Cloud 9 is lesbian hangout that's also the kind of place you turn to for good conversation -- and when you're in need of a stripper pole. The understated interior is disguised by a generically painted/decorated exterior that might lead many a passerby to drive on, ignorant of the genial friendliness inside... And of the amateur strip contests like Dare 2 Bare.

This description is derived from a longer piece (by a dude) on Cloud Nine published on November 15, 2007:

Cloud Nine Lounge 

You can learn a lot about women at Cloud 9 Lounge, a local's bar in Davie where on many nights the majority of the patrons are lesbians. Cloud 9, with its many faces, can act like a dive bar one night, then put on its dancing shoes and act like a naughty schoolgirl on her way to the sock hop the next night. Cloud 9 is not exclusive. It doesn't pretend. It's functional — two bars, three pool tables, TVs, a dance floor, a stage, and, oh yeah, a stripper's pole. And it's the kind of place you turn to for good conversation. The understated interior is disguised by a generically painted/decorated exterior that might lead many a passerby to drive on, ignorant of the genial friendliness inside, ignorant of the stage with the stripper's pole and the few of us guys taking notes. What we're learning is that too often, guys neglect these good traits (functionality, good conversation, humility) for the sake of being a hunter. For the sake of being a "man." You see, here, the hunt is futile, making for excellent practice on how to become better-rounded. Social classroom or not, after a few Corazon tequila shots, it's still a bar (full of women) famous for its amateur strip contests, like this week's Dare 2 Bare, in which someone will take home $150. Friday is ladies night, which means $5 Jäger bombs. On Saturdays, get $3 Long Island iced teas and get spun by DJ Buttafingaz all night.

If you want a sense of the atmosphere, here's a 40-second video from 2008. 

Earlier customer reviews from citysearch are fairly upbeat. 

From September 2008: "it's very crowed, but all the girls are fine."

From January 2010: "fun times.... great time with friends. cozy atmosphere and friendly people."

So are the ones from the yellow pages: 

From December 2007: "Regulars and bar staff alike are always happy to see you and are friendly. just soak up the good vibe. There are some interesting house specials. it feels inviting."

From February 2011: "Although my recent visit to Cloud 9 was during the morning, as one of the few places open during those hours, I could tell it was a cool place to hang out anytime, 24/7....The people and staff were friendly, so it was naturally inviting. Yes, this bar is known to be a favorite of a certain type of female, but who cares?....everyone is there to have a good time, and so will you."

Yelp features four later reviews, though, and all of them are pretty negative. 

By 2010 - 2011, a lot of problems with general quality were apparently starting to develop at Cloud Nine. 

Admittedly, some complaints were of the whiny variety--the "eh" music that was too "ghetto" along with the empty dance floor. That the bartender had an "attitude" and "dressed like an early 90s stripper- not cute."

But not all of the complaints were whiny or minor. For example, we're informed that the bathrooms were both "disgusting" and "horrifying." And it sure sounds like they were.

From July 2011: "One toilet had no seat, and the other was covered in vomit.  Ugh. I probably get herpes just thinking about this place."

In addition, we now had lots of boundary problems with men--a sign of incompetent and/or indifferent management, particularly at a bar that identifies itself as a place for lesbians.

From July 2011:  "The locals were a small handful of local lesbians, and a TON of straight guys, just staring at them (and us).  Not exactly what I want in a bar.  I'm all for mixed crowds, and I rarely enjoy all-lesbian clubs. But cmon guys, don't come just to stare.... pick  your jaws up off the floor, and stop being creepy."

From another reviewer, also July 2011: "full of horny old men who stalk you."

There were also, unfortunately, (barely veiled) racist reactions to Cloud Nine's mostly African-American clientele. 

From September 2010: "I was excited to go here because it was a "club" and so close to home. It was when I arrived when I began to have a mood change. This is a lesbian lounge but obviously you dont have to be homosexual to go. There is not girls all up on each other it is just a place to hang out. The crowd was mostly black, not that this is a bad thing but my friends and I received faces as if saying, "what are you doing here?"

According to jumponmarkslist, Cloud Nine is now closed, but no date is given. However, the last visit regarding health code violations was April 2012 (the reported violations started in November 2010, which more or less coincides with the beginning of the poor customer reviews). 

Wellsworth

7th Avenue and 124th Street (1959)

Wellsworth

Location: 7th Avenue (Harlem), New York, New York, USA

Opened/Closed: 1950s

In the Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures (2000), Bonnie Zimmerman says the following about the Wellsworth:

Public bar life was not as prominent in African American lesbian communities as it was for working-class white lesbians. In part, this was because, until the late 1960s, there were few bars or clubs that welcomed African American lesbian patronage. Most white lesbian bars were either alienating or notoriously racist. Few African American lesbians had the capital or political connections to have their own liquor licenses and establish their own bars. There were, however, some clubs that catered solely to African American lesbians at separate times or in separate spaces. In the 1950s, for example, the Wellsworth in Harlem was a straight bar in front and a lesbian bar in back. Yet bars carried the risk of legal trouble, public exposure and harassment from straight men, so many women avoided them.

This spatial arrangement at the Wellsworth is one we have seen at a number of lesbian bars from that era. Other examples where lesbians were pushed to the back room include the Palais in Detroit and the Goldenrod Inn in New Orleans. 

In a "Praise-Poem Collage" by Winnie Williams, we also see brief mention of the Wellsworth. The piece is entitled "An Autumn Memoir: Of Adam and Sunday Strolls in Mid-Century Harlem" and was published in The Crisis in February 1983: 

Looking east or west, long blocks of neat, brownstone homes;
Down seventh: drug stores, pawn shops, tailors, and small eateries.
We'd pass by Wellsworth's meeting/greeting Lounge
with its "Ladies Entrance" for the "gentler" sex.

We've posted on ladies entrances before, which were side doors, typically into a restaurant or tavern, that were intended for use by women patrons. Their expressed purpose was to allow women access to the ladies cafe/restaurant or dining room without having to pass through the male-dominated "regular" eating/drinking area. 

I have not seen a ladies entrance explicitly attached to a lesbian bar before. But I think there is increasing evidence that these ladies entrances and the safe passageway they provided into ladies cafes and the like were, at minimum, important predecessors to lesbian space as such. For example, Elise Chenier has documented how the old "ladies and escorts room" at Toronto's Hotel Rideau had developed into a lesbian socializing space by the 1950s.  

If Club

South Vermont Avenue & West 8th Street today

If Club

Location: 810 South Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA

Opened/Closed: 1940s-1960s

According to Gay L.A. by Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons, the If Club was a working-class lesbian bar that started in the 1940s, but continued to "flourish" into the 1950s:  

Terry DeCrescenzo, who had been a social worker, remembers that when she walked into the If Club, "a stereotypical dyke bar," as she describes it, the butches there called to each other, "Here comes a dish of ice cream." She was terrified. "I was in there for eight minutes," she says.

810 South Vermont Avenue today

Faderman and Timmons state that police harassment directed towards lesbians increased dramatically over the 1950s at the If Club and other Los Angeles area lesbian bars. An African-American woman named Meko reported that she and her friends were regularly "hauled in" by the LAPD just for standing outside the If Club. 

In a GLBTQ Encylopedia article by Dan Luckenbill, we're told that the If Club was not necessarily supportive of the early efforts aimed at lesbian networking and organizing:

9th and Vermont (c. 1948)
Alan Weeks Collection

In 1947, Vice Versa, a newsletter featuring reviews, articles, and editorials on lesbian life, was created in Los Angeles by a secretary who still prefers not to use her real name. The name she later chose was Lisa Ben, an anagram of lesbian. She called her writing for women "America's gayest magazine," the first written by lesbians and for lesbians. She produced only nine issues of Vice Versa, typing two originals of each with carbons. She learned that she could not mail them and even had difficulty distributing them by hand in lesbian bars such as the If Club.

A People's Guide to Los Angeles  informs us that from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, this block of Vermont Avenue was home to "two working-class, racially mixed lesbian bars: the If Cafe (also known as the If Club) and the Open Door." The Open Door was located at 831 South Vermont Avenue:

"Crowd of butch girls, men in 40s, others from area," read the description for the If Cafe in 1966 in the Barfly gay guide; for the Open Door, the same guide noted simply, "Same crowd as at If Cafe." The  clientele of both bars was Black, white, and Latina, demonstrating that Queer life in Los Angeles did not exist only in white and affluent areas but was also embedded in working-class communities of color. 

Women at these clubs developed a strong, oppositional community, with their own styles and slang; for example, butch Black women termed themselves "hard dressers." Women's experiences at the If Cafe and Open Door also remind us that homophobic and racist police practices overlapped in postwar Los Angeles. Police frequently raided the bars and arrested the patrons, charging women either with "masquerading"--that is, wearing men's clothing--or prostitution. While some lesbians did work as prostitutes, many such charges were false and were used simply to harass and criminalize women who did not meet dominant and sexual norms. Black women, who were already more likely to be perceived as "loose" or "deviant" by the dominant culture, faced increased risk of arrest for lesbian behavior. The If Cafe and Open Door stayed open for years and produced a vibrant culture that carried over into activism and community life among lesbians of color in subsequent decades.     

Martin Turnbull also mentions the If Club in his list of Hollywood Places. He simply describes it as a "working class/industrial/butch lesbian hang out" from the 1930s. 

Grace Dodge Hotel

Grace Dodge Hotel (1920s)

Grace Dodge Hotel

Location: North Capital and E Streets, Washington, DC, USA

Opened: October 1921

Closed: Hotel began admitting men as guests around 1924. Hotel demolished in 1972.

The Grace Dodge Hotel was built as a women-only hotel by the National Board of Young Women's Christian Associations. The intention was to create housing for women workers who had flocked to Washington, DC during World War I. But as it turned out, the hotel was not completed until after the war was over. 

The hotel was named after Grace Hoadley Dodge (1856-1914), who was elected as the first president of the Board in 1906. The 8-story, 376-room hotel finally opened in October 1921 under the leadership of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller (1874-1948). 

(As something of a side note, it turns out that Abby Rockefeller was a great booster of womyn's space. As the New York Times reported in 1922, "She hopes to live to see the day when every big city has a woman's hotel." She informed the Times that "If women can go down the corridor in their kimonos knowing they will not meet a man, it will add to their sense of freedom and comfort.")

John DeFerrari has written one of the more extensive descriptions of the Grace Dodge Hotel:

 WCTU members tour the Grace Dodge Hotel
(March 1922)

Designed by New York architect Duncan Candler (1873-1949), the Grace Dodge was stately and elegant but restrained in décor. It was finished in tan brick with limestone trim and featured an enormous three-story tall entrance-way with a neoclassical pediment broken by third-story windows.   In contrast with—or perhaps to complement—its other facilities that aimed to help disadvantaged young women, the Grace Dodge Hotel was conceived from the start as a for-profit enterprise, intended to be managed and operated by an entirely female staff.   It offered professional women traveling alone to the Capital a top-notch hotel experience, free from the harassment by men that they would undoubtedly suffer anywhere else. As summarized in The Washington Post,

The Grace Dodge Hotel, as it is to be called in honor of the woman who did so much for her sex, will have all the useful and attractive features that any hotel has, excepting men, and the housing committee of the "Y," of which Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., is chairman, guarantees that the staff and working force of women will be every bit as efficient and courteous as the best masculine staff could be. And the hotel has some conveniences that no other public stopping-place has offered to date.

Ad for Grace Dodge Hotel (1923)

There are special suites for mothers, with heaters for baby's milk, and cribs constructed on sanitary principles. There will be a nurse on call, to be paid for by the hour. There are valeting rooms where the woman who wants her tumbled blouse laundered in a hurry can slip in and do it herself, at the cost of a small sum for the use of the tubs and electric iron. There are shampoo basins, and the guest may wash her own hair. There are vanity parlors for those who care about their complexions, and there is to be an information service where the visitor can find out what debate is on in the House of Representatives and what the Senate is doing about that bill she is interested in....

Nevertheless, as we have often seen with women's hotels, the restaurant and lounge on the first floor were open to men. In fact, it is reported that these facilities were reserved at least as often by organized groups of men as by women (though Washington men certainly didn't lack for facilities of their own).

After just three years, the women-only policy was abandoned. When the hotel was sold in the mid-1940s, it was renamed the Dodge Hotel, which of course just further stripped it of its female origins.

It's interesting that when the hotel was still owned by the YWCA and managed by Mary A. Lindsley (1876-1949), the hotel paid much higher wages than comparable hotels in the area. Lindsley was apparently able to pull this off by running a tight ship with "efficient, by-the-book, economical operations." She ardently believed that no employees (i.e. management) should have special privileges.

But after the hotel fell into the hands of "a group of private investors," with a (male?) former manager from the Waldorf-Astoria hired to run the place," hotel service and food workers voted to strike over poor wages and working conditions, a predicament that surely would never have arisen under Mary Lindsley and the YWCA."

This isn't to say that the Grace Dodge Hotel was progressive in every way. Racial discrimination at the hotel is discussed in The Women and the Warriors (1995) by Carrie A. Foster. 

Bingo's

Bingo's 

Location: Buffalo, New York, USA

Opened: At least as early as 1953

Closed: 1959

Bingo's is one of the lesbian bars mentioned in Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, the now iconic history of Buffalo's lesbian community by Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis.

We're told that Bingo's was one of the more popular bars of the 1950s, and that its "principal patrons were the tough bar lesbians." The refreshment offerings were limited to beer and wine. Narrators often referred to it as "a dump." It was apparently NOT among the handful of gay and lesbian bars where same-sex dancing was permitted.

And yet despite all its seemingly negative qualities, the lesbians at Bingo's were apparently quite friendly and welcoming, especially to newcomers. I find this story (quoted in Kennedy and Davis) a totally charming example of that friendliness. It concerns a woman named Marla who worked as a dispatcher for a cab company. She had realized she was gay from being in the service, but she had yet to go to any gay or lesbian bars in Buffalo.

Buffalo lesbians (1950s)

"I was sitting at the switchboard one day, and the light lit up. It was coming from Bingo's, and they asked for a cab. . . .So, I don't know what made me get into conversation with them, oh, I know, they were surprised that it was a woman at the other end, 'cause men had always been dispatchers. . . .Then I turned around and [saw] the light [lit] up again, and I answered the thing again. And I started talking to them and found out that the woman on the phone and I had been in the same branch of the service. And then I'm trying to find out where the bar was 'cause I was going to go down and meet them, not knowing what kind of bar I was going into right away. Well, we figure we knew each other because we had been in the service together and we just started. . .'cause I didn't even know there were any bars. All I was doing was trying to get friends, you know. I need to find other people, meet people, so the next thing I know they were telling me how to get there."

Sandy, who spoke to her on the phone still remembers actively encouraging her to come to Bingo's.

"And we kept talking and talking. I said, 'Well this is a gay bar,' really come right [out]--I says, 'This is a gay bar, I dare you now to come down.' She says, 'Well, just what I've been looking for, I don't believe this.' . . .And she said, 'Will you be there when I get there?' And I said, 'I'll be here.' She was getting done maybe at midnight or whatever. And she says, 'How will I know you?' And I says, 'I'm tall and thin and have blonde hair.' I says, 'How will I know you?' She says, 'I'm Black with black curly hair.' And of course, if you've ever talked to anyone over the phone, it's never what you visualize they look like. So I'm picturing when I'm talking for two hours to this girl on the phone and I'm thinking, my God. . . .Then when she comes in, cause Blacks weren't around that much then you know, [she says,] 'You got to be Sandy with those golden curls.' I said, 'Yeah, come on have a drink.' Then we go to the bar and we--we've laughed about that ever since because she was looking for the place, but she was also a butch. It was so funny when she did come, she was not only Black but she was butch. But we ended up being all right. She says, 'If I had never took that call that night I'd have never found my way.'"

Later on, Sandy tells us more about that meeting. 

"It was so cute. And here she comes, she's bouncing and bubbly right today like she was then. And she was so happy. She looked around, you know, she couldn't believe it 'cause Bingo's, oh my god, the only ones that had the nerve to go in there were the queers. The place was infested. And she said, 'Oh, I'm home.' God what a homecoming that was."

And then there's this from Marla:

"After I found Bingo's, that was it. From the company [where I worked] I used to take my lunch break , get in my car, go down to Bingo's and have a drink . . .turn around and get back in my car and go right to work. And at one o'clock [a.m.] I'd go right back down there and stay there until the bar closed."

There are several more pages of interesting memories about Bingo's, too much to reproduce here. You'll just have to find the book and read it for yourself.

While Kennedy and Davis provide a rough pinpoint map showing where all the bars they discuss were located, very few of the streets are identified by name. And given that Buffalo's streets do not conform to a neat grid, it's hard to narrow in on a very precise location. Bingo's appears to have been in the block bordered by Clinton Street to the north, Ellicott Street to the west, Eagle Street to the south, and Oak Street on the west. But I'm not positive.