A Hole In The Cooper Do-Nut Story!

[+ Lucky]

Los Angeles is about to commemorate a gay riot occurring there some ten years before Stonewall. Famed author John Rechy seems to be the main source for the event, which he said happened at Cooper Do-Nuts in 1959. Cooper was a chain of donut stores and this one was in a gay area known as the Run.

"It has become such a benchmark of L.G.B.T.Q. resistance that on Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council is set to approve the installation of a street sign commemorating a Cooper Do-nuts shop as part of what it calls “the ongoing work to make Los Angeles a more inclusive place.”

Does it matter that there’s little evidence the Cooper Do-nuts riot happened? The NY Times covers the story:

Local newspapers and TV stations didn’t cover any clash, which may not be surprising, given how little the mainstream media reported on gay life in those days. But the city had a vigorous tabloid press that would likely have pounced on such a fracas.

Mr. Rechy, the primary source for the story, has talked about witnessing an uprising at a Cooper Do-nuts since at least 2003. News outlets, including The New York Times, have repeated his account.

Nathan Marsak, the author of several books on the history of downtown Los Angeles, isn’t convinced. In a series of blog posts starting in 2021, he has marshaled old photos and city records to assert that there was no Cooper Do-nuts on the 500 block of South Main Street in May 1959 — the time and place Mr. Rechy has given for the fight. (Mr. Rechy also once wrote that it happened in 1958.)

Mr. Rechy now says that the rebellion didn’t take place at a Cooper Do-nuts. In 2021, he told the Los Angeles blog The LAnd: “There was no riot at Cooper’s. It was actually another donut shop, but at that time, people called every donut shop in the city ‘Cooper’s’ because there were so many.”

In an email last week, Mr. Rechy wrote that the “no-name coffee shop” where he saw the riot was on the same stretch of South Main Street where he has long said the confrontation happened.

Mr. Rechy, who at 92 just completed his 18th book, added that he was weary of the “baffling hostility that has persisted” around his account, calling it “undeserved, incorrect, malicious, infuriating and, yes, saddening.”

Even if an uprising happened, no one still contends that it happened at a Cooper Do-nuts. But the city plans to honor the company anyway, as “a safe haven for all members of the queer community regardless of gender presentation,” according to the motion before the council.

The motion, which refers to tales of a Cooper Do-nuts riot as a “claim,” singles out the former site of a Cooper shop, at the corner of Second and South Main Streets, which would be named “Cooper Do-nuts/Nancy Valverde Square” in honor of Nancy Valverde, a lesbian and L.G.B.T.Q. activist.

The proposal has its detractors. Mr. Marsak, the historian, said that while he is all for commemorating gay history, he is skeptical of contentions, especially those from the Evans family, that Cooper Do-nuts was hospitable to the L.G.B.T.Q. community in Eisenhower-era Los Angeles.

The full story: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/dining/gay-riot-los-angeles-doughnut-shop.html

[+ azdr0710]

obscure history like this fascinates me.......thanks @Lucky

safe link of an aerial view of Main and 2nd in DTLA......

https://www.google.com/maps/search/south+main+second+st+los+angeles/@34.0516894,-118.2444533,72a,35y,177.76h,45.04t/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu

and expanding the topic a bit.....Pershing Square was evidently the heart of "The Run", the gay-friendly area in downtown.....here's a safe link to pictures and a brief history of the square....

https://queermaps.org/place/pershing-square

Angelenos and any others with an interest in this history will find the five tiny links at the bottom of the queermaps link well worth a peek

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by azdr0710

[+ Charlie]

This reminds me of the story of a protest at a Dewey's restaurant in Philadelphia in 1965. The diner was near Rittenhouse Square, a popular gathering place for gays in the evening. It was open late at night, and gays often stopped there when they left the square. The management was upset when some of them became loud, and one night told them to leave; the next day they posted a sign saying that homosexuals were not welcome and would not be served. The Janus Society, the local LGB organization in Philadelphia in those days, organized a protest at the diner, and gave out leaflets outside explaining the issue to potential customers. When three young gays--two males and one female--entered the diner, took seats and refused to leave, the manager called the cops, and the young gays were arrested, along with Clark Polak, the President of Janus. The picketing continued, the local ACLU chapter got involved, news media picked up the story, and the management of the restaurant quickly backed down. The incident is usually reported in histories of gay Philadelphia, but as far as I know, no memorial to the event, the first of its kind in the city, has ever been erected.

(I can attest to the accuracy of the story, because I was one of the those giving out the leaflets.)

[+ nycman]

51 minutes ago, Charlie said:

I can attest to the accuracy of the story, because I was one of the those giving out the leaflets.

I knew you were trouble.

And in case you haven’t figured it out yet….I like trouble!

Thank you for paving the way.

[+ azdr0710]

8 hours ago, Charlie said:

This reminds me of the story of a protest at a Dewey's restaurant in Philadelphia in 1965. The diner was near Rittenhouse Square, a popular gathering place for gays in the evening. It was open late at night, and gays often stopped there when they left the square. The management was upset when some of them became loud, and one night told them to leave; the next day they posted a sign saying that homosexuals were not welcome and would not be served. The Janus Society, the local LGB organization in Philadelphia in those days, organized a protest at the diner, and gave out leaflets outside explaining the issue to potential customers. When three young gays--two males and one female--entered the diner, took seats and refused to leave, the manager called the cops, and the young gays were arrested, along with Clark Polak, the President of Janus. The picketing continued, the local ACLU chapter got involved, news media picked up the story, and the management of the restaurant quickly backed down. The incident is usually reported in histories of gay Philadelphia, but as far as I know, no memorial to the event, the first of its kind in the city, has ever been erected.

(I can attest to the accuracy of the story, because I was one of the those giving out the leaflets.)

I wonder what that diary you keep says for that day!......

googled this and it was quite a deal......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey's_sit-ins

https://thegayborhoodguru.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/deweys-famous/

https://hiddencityphila.org/2014/08/with-demolition-likely-rip-deweys-famous/

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/deweys-lunch-counter-sit-in/

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by azdr0710

[+ Charlie]

Wow! I didn't start my daily journals until several years after the Dewey's protest, so I was depending entirely on my memory of the details of the event.  These articles have brought back aspects that I had forgotten after almost sixty years, so thanks for finding them. It's interesting that none of them mentions the role of the ACLU in advising Clark about how to handle the situation. Spencer Coxe, the head of the Philadelphia branch at that time, was very sympathetic to the gay community, and was instrumental in helping Clark and the kids who were arrested with the legal issues.

A couple of the sources you listed mention that the protesters at Independence Hall each July 4th always were conservatively dressed--men in suits and ties, women in dresses--which was something Frank Kameny always insisted upon when he organized a protest (I found it risible that Frank even wore a suit when he went to a gay bar to cruise). If you will notice in the photos of the protest at Dewey's, although one of the issues that the management objected to was the "non-conformist" attire of the gay customers, Clark is wearing a dark suit (something he almost never did except in a courtroom), and the leaflet-givers are also conservatively dressed--I was a student and had only one good suit in those days, but Clark told me to wear it, to let the public know that we were serious about the issue.

[+ nycman]

13 hours ago, Charlie said:

The diner was near Rittenhouse Square, a popular gathering place for gays in the evening.

In case any gay historians are looking for the site……
Later it became the home of Little Pete’s (my favorite Philly diner) for 39years,
which was in turn torn down in 2017 to build a Hyatt.

Sic transit gloria mundi

 

[+ Charlie]

5 hours ago, nycman said:

In case any gay historians are looking for the site……
Later it became the home of Little Pete’s (my favorite Philly diner) for 39years,
which was in turn torn down in 2017 to build a Hyatt.

Sic transit gloria mundi

 

One of the articles linked above says that there is a memorial plaque now at 17th and St. James Sts.

[+ azdr0710]

wow, Little Pete's made NPR......

Philadelphia Says Goodbye To Little Pete's, An All-Night Dining Icon

WWW.NPR.ORG

---

For nearly 40 years, the old-fashioned diner has served up round-the-clock Reubens and eggs Benedict to all walks of life. But on Monday, the landmark served up its...