Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Green Door

Green Door Bar (August 1955)
Green Door 

Location: Lankershim Boulevard, North Hollywood, California, USA

Opened/Closed: Around 1955

This must have been an archivist's fondest fantasy come true. One day, some photos inexplicably arrive--and they're of a local lesbian bar from nearly 60 years ago. Not only that, they document a bar that had been more or less erased from the record, totally unknown! 

The story is reported in a great article called Remembering LA's Earliest Lesbian Bars:

Recently, the [June Mazer] archive received a donation of several photographs dated August 1955, taken at a bar called the Green Door on Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood. The donation is notable, [Angela] Brinskele, [the archive's communication director] said, because LGBT historians had never heard of the Green Door. Furthermore, the photos show women freely posing, which was rare in a time of police harassment.

The article also identifies several other early lesbian bars in LA--some of which we have discussed here at Lost Womyn's Space, some not. Great material to mine for future posts. Stay tuned!

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