Sisterhood Is Beautiful
Trudi Sandmeier [0:07]: Hello! This is Save As, a podcast that glimpses the future of heritage conservation through the work of graduate students at the University of Southern California. I’m Trudi Sandmeier, Director of Graduate Programs in Heritage Conservation at USC.
Cindy Olnick [0:22]: And I’m Cindy Olnick, a communications pro with a passion for historic places and a mission to help people save ’em. So, Trudi, this episode has it all.
Trudi Sandmeier [0:34]: Yeah, this is really a bonanza of different issues in conservation, which is that it talks about women’s history, and it talks about LGBTQ history, and specifically lesbian history, which is an aspect of our field that’s really not covered very well at all. Issues of communities of color, economically diverse communities, how do we grapple with the history of places that are economically disadvantaged? You know, all of these different issues that we don’t normally talk about when it comes to historic preservation and have not done a good job about really exploring over the years.
Cindy Olnick [1:17]: And yet, there’s also a good old-fashioned demolition story.
Trudi Sandmeier [1:21]: Well, yeah, I mean, the fact that well, I don’t want to give too much away!
Cindy Olnick [1:27]: No, no, no, don’t spoil it. Don’t spoil it. Don’t spoil it.
Trudi Sandmeier [1:32]: But it is a nail-biter.
Cindy Olnick [1:34]: It is a nail-biter! I’m sitting on the edge of my chair.
Trudi Sandmeier [1:38]: So having said all of that, before we get to the drama, I wanted to talk a little bit about the archives that Lindsay explored in her research. The ONE Archives at USC is the largest repository of LGBTQ history in the world. And it’s really an incredible resource that our students have been able to tap into, for all kinds of projects, in their thesis work, and in their papers and in their projects that they’ve been doing. And so it plays a particularly important role in the story that we’re going to hear today.
And so I now would like to introduce you all to Lindsay Mulcahy, so we can hear a little bit more about her project.
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Trudi Sandmeier [2:30]: So you were taking an architectural history course of U.S. architectural history. And one of the requirements is to write a paper about the history of a site. And so you made a very interesting choice in your site selection.
Lindsay Mulcahy [2:47]: I came in being obviously really interested in queer spaces, but also in formal and semi private and domestic spaces. Because when you think about, okay, like, we’re preserving gay history, we’re preserving gay bars. And those are incredible places and need all the help that they can get. But I also knew that that wasn’t the full story. And so I wanted to learn more about that. And so I was at ONE [Archives], just just loving it and digging around in the archives, and I don’t even know, stumbled on this place called the Alcoholism Center for Women. And it turned out to be a really dramatic story.
Trudi Sandmeier [3:33]: Tell me what you discovered in the course of your research.
Lindsay Mulcahy [3:37]: The houses that I was researching, that now hold the Alcoholism Center for Women, were both built in 1906. And they’re these kind of classic Tudor Revival mansions, they’re like eight or nine bedrooms, and it was part of an early subdevelopment and a tract, which is now in the Pico-Union neighborhood, that was an early suburb of downtown. And so there was a lot of wealth that went into these big beautiful homes. And like many neighborhoods in Los Angeles, as the city grew and that wealth moved east and expanded out away from downtown, there was an influx of immigrants and disinvestment in those neighborhoods.
At first in the ’40s and ’50s, it was a lot of Eastern European immigrants. And then by the ’70s, it was mostly Latinx people from El Salvador and Mexico. By then, many of the houses had been subdivided. There was a lot of overcrowding, there was a lot of absentee landlordism, and not a lot of care being invested in the built environment. And that’s when this narrative that I had been following and learning from ONE Archive, the ’70s are kind of the burgeoning gay liberation movement and women’s liberation movement. And so there were a lot of really important organizers that were coming together at that time, and Los Angeles was definitely a hub. And there was a recognition that in order to realize the goals of gay liberation, people’s basic needs needed to be met, and they weren’t. And there was, and still is, lots of tension. And lots of the intersections of different people’s identities come into play, and sometimes into conflict.
And a lot of the women and people of color at the Gay Services Center weren’t really getting their dues. And that came to a head with the creation of the Alcoholism Center for Women, where Brenda Weathers and another woman had written a grant for the first-ever alcoholism treatment program for women, and particularly for lesbians, recognizing that those populations weren’t being served by those programs. And they got this grant. And then there was this really dramatic moment where the director of the services center tried to appropriate that money for a different program. And it was kind of this needle that broke the camel’s back, there was this revolt from within the center. And so Brenda Weathers, and a bunch of women who had worked there, broke off and founded their or own organization.
Trudi Sandmeier [6:26]: So did they use the grant money to actually acquire the homes as well?
Lindsay Mulcahy [6:30]: No, so they’re a pretty shoestring budget as most nonprofits are, which is one of the reasons why they were able to afford these houses. And when I talked to Carolyn Weathers, one of the founders, she talks about going there, and it just being a mess, like really not necessarily a habitable place. That was a lot of elbow grease, where these women found this place where they could physically separate themselves and forge their own path for the women and lesbians that they were serving, and put in a lot of physical labor, to make it a habitable and welcoming and a warm place for this activity to occur. On many levels, there’s space claiming that is really foundational to the creation story of this organization, and to this house, and that’s something that is repeated in a different way, in the 1980s, in 1987.
Trudi Sandmeier [7:32]: Why was this place in Pico-Union?
Lindsay Mulcahy [7:34]: Yeah, there’s actually a lot of queer history in Pico-Union. That’s where [gay rights pioneer] Morris Kight’s house is. And there was another house that served as the early Gay Services Center, also in Pico-Union. And then adjacent Silver Lake and Bunker Hill, when that was a place, held a lot of queer history. And also, it was an affordable neighborhood.
Trudi Sandmeier [7:58]: Because of sort-of serial disinvestment in these first-ring suburbs around downtown, there’s often an opportunity for nonprofit organizations who are looking for affordable places to be to find space. In particular, in the ’70s, you could find affordable, large-scale places that you could rent. And so one of the important moments of this story is that when they originally founded the Alcoholism Center for Women, they were renters, they didn’t own the property. And that set up the next phase of this layer of history, right, because they were forced to grapple with a new owner, who did not want to carry on this legacy of this place, and had a different vision for how to use that land. He did not understand the history of the site, either its first history or its subsequent history. And so the threat became very real when he decided to turn the site into a mini mall.
[music break]
Trudi Sandmeier [9:22]: So then what happens?
Lindsay Mulcahy [9:24]: The women get the news on Christmas Eve, actually. And that’s really devastating because it’s served such an important role in the community for so long. And so many of the women who either received services or were part of the the treatment program at ACW were from the surrounding community. Many were unhoused, all were low income, a majority were women of color, and it was going to be a really big blow to lose this building, both for economic reasons as well as the significance for the community.
And so what these women did, they fought back. They’re a really creative and resilient group of women. But they’re not preservationists. The first thing that they did was appeal to the Community Redevelopment Agency, the CRA, because it was a redevelopment zone. And there was a lot of interest in putting more money and investment in this neighborhood, particularly as the convention center is going in downtown and there’s a desire to, quote unquote, revitalize the area, and the CRA says, We’re not going to help you out. It doesn’t really matter to us what the building’s being used for right now. But if you can prove that it’s historically significant, capital H, capital S, then we can step in, and we can stop this project from happening.
And that’s when this incredible grassroots campaign starts. They get a lot of media coverage. They bring in a lot of really heavy-hitting women. [Elected officials] Maxine Waters writes a letter, Jackie Goldberg was very involved, and then they get some preservationists involved. And one [preservation pioneer] Christy McAvoy writes the nomination to nominate these properties as Historic-Cultural Monuments. And it goes through the Cultural Heritage Commission. And it passes because there are these beautiful Tudor Revival buildings that tell the story of the development of early Los Angeles. The names of the monuments are August Winstel and [architect] John Paul Krempel. [Ed. note: Krempel was the architect; the second HCM is the John Potter Residence.]
Trudi Sandmeier [11:36]: Yes, so two old German dudes’ names are on the Alcoholism Center for Women buildings. Yep.
Lindsay Mulcahy [11:45]: Excellent.
Trudi Sandmeier [11:47]: Talk about layers of history.
Lindsay Mulcahy [11:48]: It’s awesome. And then the CRA did what they said that they would, and they stopped the demolition from happening. And they actually helped the ACW buy the building and began to do some serious rehabilitation that was much needed.
Trudi Sandmeier [12:15]: So you write this paper for your class, and a couple months later, you end up being selected to do a summer program with the Places Journal. Let’s talk about that a little bit.
Lindsay Mulcahy [12:27]: Yeah, this summer, I was really fortunate to be part of a group of students and scholars of the built environment. It was over the summer, it was in the midst of the uprisings over the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and others. And there was a real desire among everyone in the workshop to really link the coronavirus pandemic to these ongoing endemic issues of police violence and incarceration to the built environment. I came in with a quote in my head from [author] Robin Kelley, about a radical imagination and the need or the opportunity that history provides to stimulate a radical reimagination of the future. How does history stoke our radical imagination, and although we’re not interested in going back, there are so many layers to uncover that can really inform and inspire how we move forward. This was of course also as monuments to white supremacy and colonialism are being torn down, left and right. And I was thinking, yes, there’s a lot to come down. But there’s also a lot to uncover, and lift up. And what in my environment do I want to lift up? And I just came back to the Alcoholism Center for Women. And so I had a second opportunity to dive into its history, but also focus on its work in the present.
Trudi Sandmeier [14:09]: The title of your journal article is “Preservation on the Natch.” Can you tell us what that means?
Lindsay Mulcahy [14:15]: Yeah, “on the natch” was a phrase that I had never heard of before. But as I was at ONE [Archives] going through all of this incredible ephemera from the ACW from its early years, there were a lot of community posters. They had a lot of public events, about the center as a whole. They had a lot of workshops for lots of different groups, but they also just had like fun events. They had concerts, and Halloween celebrations, and there was this phrase that was repeated on the posters, “on the natch,” which is slang for “sober.”
I was thinking a lot about how to invert how we think about preservation. And really, the core of the field is so, so important. It’s about managing change and really focusing in on the things in our history, in our environment, that are so core and foundational to who we are and letting those things shine and letting those things–or, or cast shadow. They’re not always positive things. But making sure that that essence is told and making sure that it informs how we move forward, which can be sobering. And so I think that there are so many layers of preservation that have kind-of muddled or distorted that goal. And those are obviously shaped by race and class and power dynamics. And so wanting to get to the core, into that essence, that I think sobriety is often about. Yeah, and I just thought it was interesting too how different subcultures have different languages and different ways of describing how they feel and how they move through the world. And I wanted to bring that to light.
Trudi Sandmeier [16:18]: So one of the other things you pointed out in your article was how integral the buildings themselves became to the identity of the ACW, that they use them in their illustrations for their fliers, and they sort-of become a part of the tale itself.
Lindsay Mulcahy [16:39]: Yeah, that was something that was really clear from from the get-go. Carolyn Weathers, when recounting the origin story, talks about the first time they walked in into the building, and what a mess it was, and the physical labor that they expended to make it warm and make it welcoming for the women that it was serving, and how I was really struck by the fact that these buildings are not just like commercial buildings, they’re houses. And this sense of home and sense of place is really strong and kind of reverberates through its history to its present day. For, I think, queer people especially, the idea of home and family is something that’s often really fraught, and that comes not necessarily from the home or the family that you’re birthed into, but the one that you choose. And the Alcoholism Center for Women is a home that people chose to make.
And so the women from the beginning really invested in this home, and there was this reciprocal relationship between the women and the house. It took care of them, and they took care of it. And that’s something that continues today. When I was able to visit the ACW over the summer, I came in and women were sweeping the sidewalks and there are these little garden beds that people were tending to. And I thought that that was a really beautiful thing, obviously, tangibly, it shows this investment and ability to give back to something. And then in like a more theoretical lens, it’s extending this idea of repair, and caring and healing, that takes place within these buildings.
Trudi Sandmeier [18:46]: So you cited in your paper some folks who had written in to support the nomination of the site as a Historic-Cultural Monument. And in one, you quote someone who said, “I owe my life to ACW. In the two buildings located on South Alvarado Street, a miracle happened. I’m not the only miracle.” That sent goosebumps up my arms while I was reading that, because it’s a testament to how place matters to people, how much of a difference an environment can make in the lives of everyday people.
Lindsay Mulcahy [19:30]: I think the biggest takeaway, or the thing that I’m really moved by, is the sense of camaraderie and sisterhood that exists in this building. There’s example after example of how the women in this building, from many different backgrounds, some identified as lesbian, some–there was a large, and continues to be, a large percentage of Black women, of Latinx women, of women who are unhoused, or have housing instability, who’ve experienced domestic violence. And they really show up for each other in so many ways. And it was really, it’s really about self determination of the women within this institution and within these homes. And I think that’s a lesson that is so important for preservation, and just about any other professional field, is giving, or returning, and recognizing the ownership that people have over the spaces that are important to them, and that they know what is best for their spaces in order to retain its value historically and culturally.
Trudi Sandmeier [20:53]: I want to thank you so much, Lindsay, for spending time chatting with me today. And it’s really nice to bring this story to light, to share it with a broader audience, and to really celebrate the work of this place and these women over such a long period of time in this historic part of Los Angeles.
Lindsay Mulcahy [21:15]: Thank you.
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Cindy Olnick 21:20
Cindy here. Is it me, or do sites of cultural heritage typically have to do with the arts, culture, civil rights, and not necessarily health or public health, community health? And I’m excited to see that come into the mix more. I mean, certainly, this isn’t the first but it’s there’s work being done around early hospitals and so forth. But it’s good to see that because Lindsay says, and others have said too, that in order to reach more broad societal goals, you have to first meet basic needs. And I think that’s a really key part of the story that’s often overlooked.
Trudi Sandmeier 21:55
Yeah, and I think community spaces that have such an impact on people’s everyday lives, are things that we kind of take for granted. And maybe don’t focus on those stories, necessarily. And those are places that make a huge difference. And when we talk about community history and places that have an impact on us, that’s the story of a place like the Alcoholism Center for Women.
Cindy Olnick 22:22
Yeah, exactly. And it reminds me of other neighborhood stalwarts that are now being recognized as legacy businesses. And I wonder if this might be considered a legacy business. And also, I have to say, as a communications and editing wonk, that the association with Places Journal is a great example of repurposing content, which, you know, we can’t do enough of.
