downtown: los angeles’s new “gayborhood”?
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You’ve all noticed it, so don’t act so surprised.
Over the last year, Downtown Los Angeles has welcomed an increasingly diverse population — a noticeably large percentage of which are gay males.
A couple weeks ago, Curbed LA made a mention of the apparent gay influx into Downtown, but dismissed it as a trend of the larger population (gay and straight) moving to the city’s new hotspots. They also tried to debunk the notion of the “gay urban pioneer” as nothing more than a stereotype.
Both of those arguments hold certain degrees of truth, but there may be more to the story.
Back in October, the NY Times took a detailed look at how demographics were shifting in traditional gay communities across the country. Areas such as San Fransisco’s Castro, New York’s Greenwich Village and our own West Hollywood, are experiencing a decentralization of gay residents.
Many of them, the article states, are relocating to less expensive city districts nearby or smaller metropolitan areas across the country such as Albuquerque, Fort Worth, El Paso and Louisville.
Why is that? From the NY Times article:
“The Castro, and to a lesser extent the West Village, was where you went to express yourself,” said Don F. Reuter, a New York author who is researching a book on the rise and fall of gay neighborhoods, or “gayborhoods.”
“Claiming physical territory was a powerful act,” Mr. Reuter said. “But the gay neighborhood is becoming a past-tense idea.”
Locally, this paradigm shift is evident as some popular West Hollywood hangouts are beginning to cater to a more “mixed” clientele. Also, younger gay males (and females) today feel less pressure to seek that sense of belonging and security these liberal and often flamboyant communities offer — or don’t.
Diverse urban environments such as Downtown are an ideal alternative. This theory has proved true for other fringe neighborhoods such as Silver Lake, Studio City, Venice and Eagle Rock that have received their rainbow stripes, but without the stigma that has accompanied past generations.
In fact, as Downtown’s social identity continues to take shape, I hope that’s exactly how it stays. Our central city should be seen by visitors and residents as a gay-friendly locale without being excessively “spirited.” And with only one gay bar to speak of, that risk is unlikely in the near future.
Even still, business owners and nightlife moguls should take notice of this untapped market. With the onslaught of new nightclubs and lounges set to open over the next 6 to 18 months, at least one should make a name for itself by catering to the growing gay population. The potential for success and community support here is overwhelming.
But let me warn you, we don’t want some tasteless offshoot of The Abbey!
29 comments
I too have increasingly noticed an influx of gay people in the downtown area. Although downtown has always been diverse in the personalities that I come across, there are much more gay people now than ever before. It is especially evident on Main st. and Spring st where there is much more life on the streets as opposed to say Alameda st or Los Angeles st.
It is obvious to me why gay people are opting to call downtown home as opposed to Silver Lake or West Hollywood. There are so many leisure activities in downtown that are within easy reach, there is history, there is beautiful architecture, plenty of bars/clubs/restaurants/art galleries/museums, and most important of all- DOWNTOWN IS TOTALLY WALKABLE.
Face it-gay men LOVE TO WALK. Every neighborhood that is dense with queers is walkable. We just love to walk and be active…it is part of having a touch of urbanity in your life. Downtown is LA’s transit hub and is accessible from practically any pocket of LA you can possibly think of. And downtown is leading LA to the future. With a proposed Frank Gehry project, the Gold Line extension, the Expo Line, new LEED skyscrapers, all of these projects are progressive and gay men like being
thought of as progressive and trend setters and the media likes categorizing us as such.
Downtown has always been popular with gay men but in a much more quiet and subtle way. We have always had to see an opera at the Dorothy Chandler or see a play or possibly attend a concert at the Mayan. Not too long ago there were even a couple of gay bars/clubs but they are now defunct….their clientale was mostly Latinos. I believe there still is a bath house though. We have also always had to be a part of the underground abandoned warehouse scene. So there has always been room for us here. But now there is a much broader range of gay people moving to downtown. They can be hipsters. They can work in the
industry, They can be struggling artists. They can also simply be people attracted to the area. Downtown LA is getting diverse but what I’m noticing is that diversity is much more evident in the gays that downtown is attracting.
Downtown is also much cheaper than if you were to head West.
Count us in too! There are several gay couples (and some single ones too) here in our building…
What’s surprised me most when we moved downtown last summer was seeing young gay Latino couples out and about holding hands in public - in front of Macy’s Plaza or around the Artist District. Twice, I even spotted gay couples kissing (THE SHOCK!) and being affectionate over in Pershing Square. After moving from West Hollywood, it was a nice sign that I was the only one gawking at them.
Don’t forget about the weekly gay club at the Alexandria hotel every monday. Mustache Mondays
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfmfuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=238563521
Sorry bad link for the gay club. This one works
http://www.myspace.com/mustachemondays
For anyone interested in learning about some of the history of Downtown as a gay neighborhood, John Rechy’s “City of Night” should be essential reading. The novelized memoirs, set in the late 1950’s, proclaimed that the zone between 3rd and 6th Streets, from Pershing Square east to Los Angeles Street, was the “Times Square of the West” long before that approbation was rewarded to the LA Live project. However. the Times Square he was referring to was the seedy, sleazy version that existed before its present corporate homogenization. Those folks who now revile the present scene found in Pershing Square would be completely demoralized by his description of a dissolute place filled with dope fiends, hapless hustlers, pedophile preachers and corrupt police. The streets, bars and hotels of the Historic Core are portrayed as being peopled by a multitude of johns looking to score and heart-of-gold transvestites on the make. The gay zeitgeist represented is the one that pre-existed Stonewall and the Gay Pride movement. This was a Los Angeles where homosexuals remained in a closet within which self-revulsion and self-discovery could occur simultaneously.
It would be fascinating to hear Mr. Rechy, who is on the faculty at USC, speak on the history and apparent changes between the Downtown that exists today and those mean streets he trod some fifty years ago.
Downtown has always had a gay population, but not of the Weho or hipster kind. Gay latin males, who I think for the most part were on the DL, would frequent two Bars The score, now known as bar 107 and Jalisco bar. Not too far from Petes cafe heading towards Los Angeles street is a gay bath house. Which makes since for those men who are on the DL. Go to either gay bar, then hook up at bath house.
Now the new gay population is the well to do or the hip and artsy. I’ve been to a few loft parties were the majority of the folks are gay and now with gay nights like Mutache Mondays and Friday night Shits and Giggles (same guy who does beige) well start attracting more gays to downtown. Downtown needs a girls night, I’m sure my lesbian sisters need to release some energy.
I celebrate downtowns diversity and the chance meeting of a good looking guy in Downtown.
Dennis, that’s interesting you bring that up.
When I first moved to L.A. in 1999, my very conservative grandfather told me to avoid Pershing Square because it’s where “all the fags are.” He spent time here back in the 40s and 50s. I never knew it had that reputation.
Obviously, he didn’t know things had changed so much since his time in Downtown, or that he has a gay grandson. LOL.
it would have been nice of you to mention the two openly gay downtown bloggers in your post.
lastraphanger,
That wasn’t an oversight. We didn’t even mention ourselves - it just didn’t fit with the flow of my content.
gay latino here! I love downtown, more so now than ever before. Ive never liked the “gay ghettos”, though ive visited them. I like the urban touch and feel- raw gritty and dirty lol
I love going to Chinatown,Little Tokyo,Historic Core and South Park
I have some memories in the 80’s of going to the j.j. newberry’s(fallas y paredes now)and woolworths (footlocker now)on broadway and even going to the million dollar theatre to see Vicente Fernandez with my parents.
It still has the same energy i remember of people and traffic. But its much safer now, especially around main st. Though you wont catch me walking it at night alone after 10pm.
Ive never been the “public display of affection” type and the guy that im dating is. Because for fear of getting jumped (after all we are still a minority). Mind you we are both very “straight acting and looking”.
I have noticed lesbians kissing and holding hands, i think they are more brave in that respect- plus “straight guys” think its hot lol.
I think we (the LGBT community in general) are more open to see and try new things.
I mean just last week we went to see Juno at the Laemmle Grande 4 at the Marriott- but it wasnt for the facilities but rather the movie programming- documentaries and some gay films- like coming up-“Men in the Nude”-a dark dramafrom Hungary starting Feb. 22
forgot to mention i was lucky enough of catching a movie in the late 90’s at many of the broadway theatres such as the State,Orpheum,Olympic, and Palace
There are two gay bars downtown. You mentioned the Jalisco Inn, but La India on Broadway is also gay. It’s located between 3rd and 4th Streets on lthe east side of the street.
It looks like a taco stand from the sidewalk. Walk straight back, though, and you’ll find the gay bar.
The customers, as at Jalisco, love to drink.
The bar next to Grand Central Market is mostly gay. It’s on the south side of the market. Sometimes they even feature drag shows.
There are a number of mixed bars downtown too.
Joe
To be sure, I do not care who moves into my once-beloved downtown Los Angeles. My gripe is with the burgeoning sterilisation of the place: the happy crap about 7-11, Ralph’s and all the suburban crap that is making DTLA a satellite of west L.A.,or worse, the valley,is repugnant. I have lived in a number of cities in the U.S. and abroad, and am rather unhappy with how DTLA is being transformed to reflect an urban version of a shopping mall dotted with tasteless chain outlets that offer a flavourless safety that eliminates the dynamic of life.
To corroborate my argument, I recommend reading Stuart Timmons’ “Gay L.A.” As mentioned in an above comment about Rechy’s book, DTLA usta be a pre-Stonewall bastion of sexual depravity that only nostalgia allows fools to think it was glorious. It was dangerous, it was literally riotous and it was not for the American Idol mindset that prefers the mundane over the possible dangerous. Timmons offers a superb history and may well be working on a second volume owing to all he dug up and had to cut from “Gay L.A.” (And I am sorry I missed it, because the last seven riots in which I have been swept up,from Long beach, to DTLA, to NYC have been about duplicitous politics and agents provocateurs rather than oppressed lifestyles screaming to break out of their respective ghettos.)
It just ain’t that much fun in the few blocks of left coast semi-skyscrapers these days. . .
^ I hope you’re no longer living in downtown Los Angeles, or plan to move out very shortly. You can relocate to Compton or South-Central LA. Or Boyle Heights. Then you won’t have to deal with the horrors of “sterilization” and can talk about your distaste of it to your heart’s content.
I can verify the reputation of the 1950’s and 1960’s. Countless men approached me as a kid anywhere from the Central Library east to Main, long before I had any idea what they had in mind. But I knew better than to tell my parents or they could have stopped my downtown wanderings forever. Luckily, that scene seems to have long vanished from Downtown.
LAmechan,
I live in Boyle Heights. If you bothered to check my handle’s link, there are more than a few posts attesting this. Moreover, I imagine I know a great deal more about not only Los Angeles but how a proper metropolis should function.
Don’t be a schmuck.
Downtown has its own character and always will. It doesn’t matter that a Ralphs just opened up or a new 7-11. There are mom-pop shops in Little Tokyo and Chinatown that have been there for AGES and they have a loyal following. To say that Downtown is becoming repugnant is to only see what DT is on the surface. There are plenty of other places to go besides the aforementioned chains and there always will be. If cleaning up a city and making it less dangerous for the very people the live there is your basic argument, I suggest you stop right there.
One of the many reasons downtown is thriving is because safety is no longer being seen as an issue here. It is becoming accessible to the general public. Maybe you don’t want other people venturing on to territory they once deemed ‘dangerous’ but at least people are being able to explore a part of LA they once ignored. The change in downtown
was and is inevitable. There simply is not much space left in Los Angeles and it was only a matter of time before there was an exodus to the East.
I don’t miss the old DT becase there are parts of old DT scattered all over. DT has been able to maintain its own character and flavor even with all the new ‘repugnant’ projects. This is definitely something to admire. Oh and by the way BusTard, there is NO proper way for a metropolis to function. ESPECIALLY Los Angeles. Read this poem.
No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang - or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you’re fine: that’s just how it works. You can watch Cops all day or you can be a porn star or you can be a Caltech physicist. You can listen to Carcass - or you can listen to Pat Robertson. Or both.
That’s how we dooz it.
L.A. is the apocalypse: it’s you and a bunch of parking lots. No one’s going to save you; no one’s looking out for you. It’s the only city I know where that’s the explicit premise of living there - that’s the deal you make when you move to L.A.
The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.
It says: no one loves you; you’re the least important person in the room; get over it.
What matters is what you do there.
And maybe that means renting Hot Fuzz and eating too many pretzels; or maybe that means driving a Prius out to Malibu and surfing with Daryl Hannah as a means of protesting something; or maybe that means buying everything Fredric Jameson has ever written and even underlining significant passages as you visit the Westin Bonaventura. Maybe that just means getting into skateboarding, or into E!, or into Zen, Kabbalah, and Christian mysticism; or maybe you’ll plunge yourself into gin-fueled all night Frank Sinatra marathons - or you’ll lift weights and check email every two minutes on your Blackberry and watch old Bruce Willis films.
Who cares?
Literally no one cares, is the answer. No one cares. You’re alone in the world.
L.A. is explicit about that.
If you can’t handle a huge landscape made entirely from concrete, interspersed with 24-hour drugstores stocked with medications you don’t need, then don’t move there.
It’s you and a bunch of parking lots.
You’ll see Al Pacino in a traffic jam, wearing a stocking cap; you’ll see Cameron Diaz in the check-out line at Whole Foods, giggling through a mask of reptilian skin; you’ll see Harry Shearer buying bulk shrimp.
The whole thing is ridiculous. It’s the most ridiculous city in the world - but everyone who lives there knows that. No one thinks that L.A. “works,” or that it’s well-designed, or that it’s perfectly functional, or even that it makes sense to have put it there in the first place; they just think it’s interesting. And they have fun there.
And the huge irony is that Southern California is where you can actually do what you want to do; you can just relax and be ridiculous. In L.A. you don’t have to be embarrassed by yourself. You’re not driven into a state of endless, vaguely militarized self-justification by your xenophobic neighbors.
You’ve got a surgically pinched, thin Michael Jackson nose? You’ve got a goatee and a trucker hat? You’ve got a million-dollar job and a Bentley? You’ve got to be at work at the local doughnut shop before 6am? Or maybe you’ve got 16 kids and an addiction to Yoo-Hoo, who cares?
It doesn’t matter.
Los Angeles is where you confront the objective fact that you mean nothing; the desert, the ocean, the tectonic plates, the clear skies, the sun itself, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, even the parking lots: everything there somehow precedes you, even new construction sites, and it’s bigger than you and more abstract than you and indifferent to you. You don’t matter. You’re free.
In Los Angeles you can be standing next to another human being but you may as well be standing next to a geological formation. Whatever that thing is, it doesn’t care about you. And you don’t care about it. Get over it. You’re alone in the world. Do something interesting.
Do what you actually want to do, even if that means reading P.D. James or getting your nails done or re-oiling car parts in your backyard.
Because no one cares.
In L.A. you can grow Fabio hair and go to the Arclight and not be embarrassed by yourself. Every mode of living is appropriate for L.A. You can do what you want.
And I don’t just mean that Los Angeles is some friendly bastion of cultural diversity and so we should celebrate it on that level and be done with it; I mean that Los Angeles is the confrontation with the void. It is the void. It’s the confrontation with astronomy through near-constant sunlight and the inhuman radiative cancers that result. It’s the confrontation with geology through plate tectonics and buried oil, methane, gravel, tar, and whatever other weird deposits of unknown ancient remains are sitting around down there in the dry and fractured subsurface. It’s a confrontation with the oceanic; with anonymity; with desert time; with endless parking lots.
And it doesn’t need humanizing. Who cares if you can’t identify with Los Angeles? It doesn’t need to be made human. It’s better than that.
By Geoff Manaugh
carlos, you’re my new favorite commenter.
carlos, your enthusiasm is appreciated my friend.
That was amazing. Thanks for posting that Carlos.
here is the original post on bldgblog where carlos got that “poem” from.
Darn, I think I like BusTard better because he is hardcore, esp. his use of the word “schmuck”
That was a great post about it LA— articulated perfectly the feeling here, that nothing really matters other than what you do. So do things.
Like walk around the gayborhood.
Carlos, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it is the vicarious living, especially the seemingly perpetual reference to actors that has always put me off. It is one thing to appreciate another person’s art, and yet I find that too often the idolisation of people in popular media is confused with such an appreciation. the cult of personality is a bit of behaviour I have never favoured.
Having seen what happened to Lower East Side, the Bowery, Times Square and downtown Atlanta as well as what is happening to Coney Island, Brooklyn and Philadelphia is what prompts me to state that what is happening to downtown Los Angeles will be worse owing to the want to be somebody and something else, rather than oneself.
While I am aware of a load of great little places that retain the flavour of olde Los Angeles, I am also aware they are so cottage and boutique that the tsunami of gentrification sweeping the relatively small plot that is downtown Los Angeles is sure to consume them. I walk these streets almost daily, primarily those areas that no one who blogs can name and am watching the LAPD, the street services, the patterns of city behaviour that are indicative of what is to come and what has long been planned.
The bohemian environment that is so keen at present will only make way for its own destruction, by way of making the downtown streets safe for the multinational corporate interests to move in and take over. It is an inevitable pattern. The events surrounding the imbroglio regarding Pharmika nearly being evicted and M.J. Higgens former spot being the new one for a LAPD motor pool are proof positive of the negative. there is more in the works too; these developments do not happen overnight.
The truly big developers have their collective eye on the Arts, Olde Bank and Skid Row districts. I was along on two downtown poet-art walks (back in late 2006) that had Ed Rosenthal and Tom Gilmore participating, and they are well aware of what is possible.
Wow I didn’t know there was such a community here in Downtown! I live over in Chinatown near Figueroa and Sunset. If anyone wants to make a new friend, email me, i’d love to make new friends in this awesome city.
Trojan boy7 at yahoo
another hombre fucking hombre here and i been doing everything in downtown for ages. from the alleys to j-town to the alexandria and of course to score.
while i hate some of the new stuff of downtown. like all the yuppy hipster or whatever the fuck they are, i cant help but look past them like i did when in frisco.
DT just has so much.
the loss of score bar was big. that was the oldest gay bar in LA!!! now its a place packed with a bunch of frat party kids. its horrible, but luckily i still got jaliscos.
and who says i gotta go to a gay place.
i love the FIG and the newer places like broadway bar or GG.
but everyone please dont get $hit twisted the gays have been in DT since forever. la broadway was were all the queens got there gowns. you could not throw a stick with out hitting some queen.
and now a lot of the young gay urban kids hang out in pershing like they did in the past.
lastly, i been sayin that if some promoter or bar owner was smart they would invest in DT and give the gays something in downtown, and not mustache mondays.
some have tried gay nights at the mayan or other places but now that DT is coming back to life it would be perfect and ripe for the picking.
Honestly, I could see how in recent years DTLA has undergone a change. I couldn’t be any happier with it! It makes me happy to read how everyone is so enthusiased by what DTLA is: A city evolving into a fountain of diverse and bright activities and people. I’ve ad many dates with my boyfriend in DTLA and they’ve all been great! Our memories of DTLA are what brought us back together…and I’m glad we can walk the streets in the day holding hands, hanging out at Pershing Square or walking to Angel’s Flight to sit at the park and visiting the garden at the Music Hall and having a private moment. DTLA is growing more and more addicting and, at the risk of sounding like a PSA, I couldn’t be any prouder to have it as my anti-drug.
I am visiting LA for the first time this week. I am from NYC and a friend told me transportation is nothing like NY, I am very worried how I am going to get arround.
Downtown is significantly more queer friendly (yes..I’m a lesbian), than I ever imagined. I recently moved into one of the historic core lofts, and am completely overjoyed with the fact that my girlfriend and I can roam around hand in hand without getting rude comments, or feeling unsafe. It’s a good neighborhood vibe we’ve got going on.