In 2011, the preservation community and Silver Lake residents were shocked to discover that the building housing the former gay bookstore, A Different Light, was demolished without warning, despite ongoing efforts to designate it as a local landmark.

Many other significant community anchors have been lost before their stories could be fully understood and brought to light. The demolition of Cooper’s Donuts, a popular coffee shop in Downtown L.A. within the transgender community, has contributed to the overshadowing of its history. In May 1959, the business was the site of a significant clash between law enforcement and trans men and women, who resisted police harassment and arrest at a time when large numbers of people were imprisoned for “masquerading.” The subsequent uprising predated better-known struggles at Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco, The Black Cat, and the Stonewall Inn in New York.

Significant Nightclubs at Risk

In 2014, Faring Capital, the owner of The Factory, proposed demolishing the industrial building for a new hotel and retail project in West Hollywood. The Factory has a rich history, serving originally as the Mitchell Camera production facility and, from 1975 to 1988, as the site of the iconic gay discotheque Studio One.

This threat landed The Factory on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 2015 list of America’s Eleven Most Endangered Historic Places, in large part due to its LGBTQ history. The West Hollywood Heritage Project is one of the main groups advocating for its preservation.

Hollywood’s Circus Disco, established in 1975 as a haven for gay Latinas/os, was demolished in 2016 as part of a major redevelopment underway at Santa Monica Boulevard and Las Palmas Avenue. The club provided its patrons with a strong support system and served as a meeting place for political and social organizing.

The owner of Jewel’s Catch One in Los Angeles’ Mid-City, regarded as the first large scale nightclub to cater to black members of the LGBTQ community, closed the club in July 2015 and announced plans to sell the building. A new owner purchased the building in November 2015 and the club reopened in January 2016.

Taken together, these three nightclubs tell a critical story about race, gender, class, and sexuality in Los Angeles. Establishments such as Catch One and Circus Disco initially opened their doors in response to rampant discrimination experienced by lesbians and LGBTQ people of color at well-known institutions like Studio One.

These places were more than just bars; they served as vital community centers.

Circus Disco brought activists from broader civil and labor rights movements together with advocates in various LGBTQ communities. The owner of Catch One also opened a neighboring residential HIV/AIDS center for homeless women and children living with the disease. Studio One, despite its exclusionary door policies, played an important role in fundraising for HIV/AIDS research and treatment.

Because none of these three properties has been landmarked, they all lack formal protection from demolition or inappropriate alteration, making proactive efforts to preserve the tangible links to this history all the more critical.