Eve's Hangout

Eve's Hangout was a New York City lesbian nightclub established by Polish-Jewish feminist Eva Kotchever in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, in 1925. The establishment was also known as "Eve Adams' Tearoom",[1] a pun on the names Eve and Adam.[lower-alpha 1]

Eve's Hangout
Eve Adams' Tearoom
The former site of Eve's Hangout, now a restaurant, and wine tasting room.
Address129 MacDougal Street
Manhattan, New York City
Coordinates40.73098°N 74.00018°W / 40.73098; -74.00018
OwnerEva Kotchever
TypeSpeakeasy, Lesbian bar, Tearoom
Opened1925
Years active2

History

After running "The Gray Cottage"[2] with Ruth Norlander in Chicago in 1921–1923 , Kotchever left Norlander and moved to Greenwich Village, which had become an important area for the gay and lesbian community in New York City.[3][4][5]

In 1925, Kotchever opened "Eve's Hangout" at 129 MacDougal Street, a mecca for bohemian New Yorkers.[6] The only source that mentions a famous sign on the door that allegedly read "Men are admitted, but not welcome" is a 1926 article in Variety, which accused Adams of being financed by "a ring of rich women cultists" and inviting "mannish" women preying on girls. This led Adams's biographer, Jonathan Ned Katz, to claim that the sign "probably never existed".[3]

The place was a haven for lesbians and migrants, working-class people, and intellectuals. It became a popular club, especially for artists like Berenice Abbott.[7] Kotchever organized concerts and readings and meetings where it was acceptable to talk about love between women, political matters, and liberal ideas.[8] Consequently, Kotchever became a notable figure of "The Village".[9]

Police raid and closure

Bobby Adward, writing for the conservative newspaper the Greenwich Village Quill, described the club as a place "where it is not very healthy for teenagers or comfortable for men."[10] An upstairs neighbor complained to the police.[11] On June 11, 1926, the Vice Squad of NYPD organized a raid on the bar.[12] One of the detectives, the young Margaret Leonard, discovered the book Lesbian Love,[13] that Kotchever wrote under the pseudonym Evelyn Adams. Kotchever was charged with and found guilty of obscenity and disorderly conduct. The bar did not survive the arrest of its owner and soon closed. Kotchever was imprisoned at Jefferson Market before being deported from the United States to Europe,[14] but Greenwich Village did not forget her.[15][lower-alpha 2]

Legacy

Eve's Hangout is notable for LGBT history[18] as well as for New York's Jewish history.[19] It is considered one of the first lesbian bars in the United States and is recognized as part a New York City's heritage,[1] and is recognized as historic by the National Park Service.[20] It is included on tours for Europeans on official US websites.[21] and has become a must-see.[22][23]

Playwright Barbara Kahn wrote a play, "The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams," and musical, "Unreachable Eden," about Eve's Hangout.[24][25][26]

As of 2020, the building houses an Italian restaurant and jazz club named La Lanterna di Vittorio.[27][28]

See also

Notes
  1. Eva Kotchever was born Chawa Zloczower in Poland and it seems that her name has been spelled as "Eva Kotchever" at Ellis Island in 1912 when she was 21-year-old. In fact, she was in Greenwich Village better known as Eve Adams (sometimes spelled Eve Addams), and the Eve's Hangout is therefore often said "Eve's Adams Tearoom". Otherwise, Kotchever's pen name was Evelyn Adams
  2. Eva Kotchever was arrested in Nice by the French police and Nazis in 1943, just before she was scheduled to join her family in Palestine. She was emprisonned near Paris at Drancy internment camp before to be murdered at Auschwitz's gas chambers.[16] The city of Paris paid tribute to Kotchever by naming a school and street after her.[17]

References
  1. "Eve Adams' Tearoom". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
  2. "Grey Cottage Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 08 Dec 1922, Fri Page 23". Chicago Tribune. Newspapers.com. 2018-10-08. p. 23. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  3. Katz, Jonathan Ned (2021). The daring life and dangerous times of Eve Adams. Chicago. ISBN 978-1-64160-517-5. OCLC 1242879685.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. Chauncey, George (June 26, 1994). "A Gay World, Vibrant and Forgotten". The New York Times. Section 4; p. 17.
  5. Hampshire, Audrey (May 2008). "The Lavendar Lens: Lesbianism in the United States 1870-1969". Nonviolent Social Change. Manchester College. 35. Archived from the original on 2020-03-11. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  6. "LGBTQ History: MacDougal Street - GVSHP | Preservation | Off the Grid". GVSHP. 2014-10-30. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  7. Haaften, Julia Van (2018). Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-29279-4.
  8. Scelfo, Julie (2016). The Women Who Made New York. Basic Books. ISBN 978-1-58005-654-0.
  9. Gattuso, Reina (3 September 2019). "The Founder of America's Earliest Lesbian Bar Was Deported for Obscenity". Atlas Obscura.
  10. Wallace, Kreg (May 28, 2011). "Eve's Hangout". Lost Womyn's Space.
  11. Gonzalez, Alexander (2017-11-02). "A Herstory of Lesbian Bars in NYC: Gwen Shockey Charts No Man's Land". Bedfordandbowery.com. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  12. "Policewomen, Plainclothes, and Pelvic Examinations: NYPD Abortion Investigations, 1913 –1926" (PDF). socialhistory.org.uk. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  13. Pitillo, Angelo (4 January 2013). "The History of Gay Bars". New York Magazine.
  14. Carpenter, Julia (26 June 2019). "A Woman to Know: Eve Adams". A Woman to Know. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  15. Tallmer, Jerry (20 April 2010). "At 129 MacDougal, circa 1926, lesbian tearoom ruled". The Villager.
  16. "EVA ZLOCZOWER". Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database.
  17. "Ecole polyvalente Eva Kotchever". www.paris.fr.
  18. Shockey, Gwen; Loew, Karen (2018). "Photo-Documenting the Lost Landscape of Lesbian Nightclubs in New York City". Change over Time. 8 (2): 186–205. doi:10.1353/cot.2018.0014. S2CID 182229534. Project MUSE 723965.
  19. "Untold stories of Jewish Women" (PDF). 2018.
  20. "LGBTQ America" (PDF). www.nps.gov. 2016.
  21. "Profiter de la Pride pour explorer Greenwich Village, New York | Visit The USA" (in French). Visittheusa.fr. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  22. "NEW YORK: Stadtgeschichten". 12 December 2019.
  23. "GREENWICH VILLAGE - PASSION NEW YORK CITY". passionnyc.canalblog.com. Archived from the original on 2020-04-11.
  24. Manfre, Katelyn (15 February 2012). "Lesbian Tearoom Before Its Time". The Forward.
  25. "All About Eve (Adams)". jewishweek.timesofisrael.com. 13 April 2010.
  26. "At 129 MacDougal, circa 1926, lesbian tearoom ruled". The Villager. April 20, 2010.
  27. Jim Naureckas. "Macdougal Street: New York Songlines". Nysonglines.com. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  28. Miller, Tom (2 August 2010). "Daytonian in Manhattan: 'Men Are Admitted, But Not Welcome' -- 129 MacDougal Street". Daytonian in Manhattan.
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