By JOSE HERRERA | City News Service
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday, Aug. 8, voted to designate the Westlake-area home of gay-rights pioneer Morris Kight as a city Historic Cultural Monument.
To the delight of community groups that had backed the proposal, the council voted unanimously for the designation. The home, at 1822 W. 4th St., already has designations from the National Register of Historic Places and the California Register of Historical Resources as a historic resource.
Kight moved to Los Angeles from New Mexico in 1958, and was instrumental in founding multiple local gay-rights organizations, including the Christopher Street West gay pride parade, Aid For AIDS and the Gay Community Center (now the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center). He was also active in the labor and civil rights movements. He died in Los Angeles in January 2003 at the age of 83.
While the council’s vote Tuesday was unanimous, the matter’s path to passage was not a smooth ride.
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the First District, in which the 1911 California bungalow home is located, previously called on her colleagues to delay the decision because “we were extremely concerned about the status of the property.” Additionally, she noted, the home had undergone “some significant alterations” since 1973, when Kight lived there.
“While the current owner of this property had offered to work with and sell the property to a number of organizations, including AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who put forward the nomination, none were wanting to take on the responsibility of rehabilitating this property or restoring it to its original state,” Hernandez said.
The site was originally proposed as a Historic Cultural Monument in October 2020 by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. But the nomination stalled for two years as a result of former Mayor Eric Garcetti’s toll order — which suspended certain deadlines, prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
When…
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