“Men Admitted but Not Welcome”
In 1925, the hottest place in New York for you and me to get a drink was Eve’s Hangout at 129 MacDougal Street, Greenwich Village. With a sign on the door stating, “Men Admitted but Not Welcome,” Eve’s Hangout was, as one writer put it, “Where ladies prefer each other.”
At the turn of the 20th century, Greenwich Village was a working-class immigrant neighborhood. Writers and artists flocked to the Village beginning in the 1910s for its low-rent furnished rooms and the Old World charm of its labyrinthine streets and small-scale architecture, a reprieve from the grids and skyscrapers of the rest of Manhattan. The new, bohemian residents living alongside Italian immigrants created an atmosphere of tolerance, earning the Village a reputation for free-thinking and alliterative lifestyles. Soon its tea rooms and inexpensive restaurants attracted a gay clientele, who were accorded privacy and respect by most Villagers.
A confluence of events sent Greenwich Village straight into the city’s limelight. In 1914, Seventh Avenue, the main artery into the Village, was widened, allowing new traffic into the neighborhood. Shortly thereafter a subway line along Seventh Ave opened, followed by Sixth in the ‘20s, turning the cozy area into a tourist destination. The Village’s growing reputation for alternative behavior made it a target for tabloids, attracting uptown clients who wanted to “slum it,” and the advent of Prohibition in 1920 made Greenwich Village the place to find a drink, thanks to the homemade wine available in its many Italian restaurants.
The growing attention commercialized the area, which soon lost much of its bohemian charm as rent increases forced artists out, but at the same time it allowed a gay scene to develop. Prohibition became, in a sense, the Great Equalizer, as all gin joints—gay or straight—were forced underground and began paying off police. The area south of Washington Square was soon lined with gay and lesbian bars, and according to one Greenwich columnist, “one of the most delightful hang-outs the Village ever had” was Eva Kotchever’s.
Kotchever, a Polish Jewish immigrant who went by the clever pseudonym Eve Addams, opened Eve’s Hangout in 1925. Called the “Queen of the Third Sex,” Kotchever hosted poetry readings, discussions, and evenings of music at her Hangout, which became popular with the after-theater crowd. After receiving a scathing mention in a local paper (“Not very healthy for she-adolescents, nor comfortable for he-men”), Eve’s Hangout was raided by the police in 1926. Kotchever was arrested for “obscenity” and “disorderly conduct” (often code for “running a gay bar”), sentenced to a year in a workhouse, and deported. Eve’s Hangout was shut down, and for years, Villagers retained some anger toward the offending columnist.
Today, 129 MacDougal Street remains true to Greenwich Village’s roots as La Lanterna Caffe, a beautiful Italian cafe. A rare surviving example of the Federal-style rowhouse, the restaurant is gorgeously decorated with romantic lighting, an indoor patio, and a richly-hued, intimate underground bar that hosts live jazz. An excellent date spot, the mood is darkly romantic, the food is delicious and affordable, and the staff is friendly. In fact, I can’t stress this last point enough—my request to photograph the bar for a profile of its lesbian bar origins was so warmly received, and the managers were beyond gracious. What could be better than a romantic evening in a restaurant with such a rich lesbian history—especially now that you can impress your date with what you know about it?
