About 27 years after “No U-turn” signs were posted along Griffith Park Boulevard in Silver Lake in an attempt to keep gay men from cruising the neighborhood to pick up other gay men, members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community joined two Los Angeles city councilmembers on Monday, June 10, as they took down the last two remaining “No U-turn” signs that were put up in the 1990s.
The removal of the signs took place at Griffith Park Boulevard and Fernwood Avenue, which straddles Los Angeles City Council Districts 4 and 13.
Getting rid of the signs was long overdue for many, including Donovan Daughtry, a gay man who five years ago moved to Silver Lake, known as being LGBTQ-friendly.
Two years ago, Daughtry reached out to L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office about the signs after learning about them from a podcast hosted by Chris Cruse, founder of queermaps.org, an online archive of 150 years of queer history in L.A. On Monday, moments after he helped take down the last sign, Daughtry said, “This is a small effort, but just to have a sign that I would have to walk past with my dog every day be taken down meant a lot.”
Before the signs came down, city elected officials and community members gathered nearby at the AT Center, a recovery and wellness center for the LGBTQ+ community, to mark the occasion with speeches and performances.
The AT Center is less than half a mile from The Black Cat, a famous tavern on Sunset Boulevard that was the site of a 1967 demonstration after police raided the gay bar. That demonstration preceded the 1969 Stonewall Inn uprising in New York City and was, at the time, the largest pro-LGBTQ+ demonstration in the nation.
City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez represents Council District 13 where one of the signs was removed Monday. Given Silver Lake’s history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community, one might not think that signs meant to stop gay men from meeting would appear in this community, he said.
“It’s just another…
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