LGBTQ+ communities have shaped the Santa Monica Boulevard corridor in West Hollywood for decades. This project maps the lesbian and queer women's spaces, stories, and communities often left out of that history, which existed long before the city's incorporation in 1984. The interactive digital map includes businesses ranging from bars and bookstores to the offices of nonprofit organizations that changed how lesbians saw themselves. It incorporates sites dating from 1927 to the present. Some were explicitly lesbian spaces, while others were shared LGBTQ+ spaces where lesbian and queer women played important roles in community life.
The histories of these locations show how lesbian and queer women built community and organized for change along a road whose history has often been told without them. The project also includes oral histories with women connected to sites such as Little Frida's, the Palms, the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, the Normandie Room, and more. Visitors are also invited to submit photographs, memories, and experiences connected to these places and contribute to the archive.
This project was made possible with support from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. For more than 75 years, the National Trust has worked to save historic places, tell fuller American stories, strengthen communities, and invest in the future of preservation. We are grateful to the National Trust for supporting work that preserves lesbian history and connects these stories to the living landscape of West Hollywood today.