How Lesbian Bars Built Community in San Francisco’s North Beach
As a young architectural historian in San Francisco, Shayne Watson would take lunchtime walks near her office, pondering how and where the city’s lesbian history took shape. She discovered that one of the earliest lesbian bars once stood right up the street in North Beach, a neighborhood that served as the birthplace of the city’s lesbian community—though you’d never know it just by looking. After earning her USC master’s degree in 2009, Shayne decided to do something about underrecognized LGBTQ history in San Francisco. She never looked back and is now a national leader in LGBTQ preservation.
Producer Willa Seidenberg took a walk with Shayne in North Beach to see some sites from her thesis, Preserving the Tangible Remains of San Francisco’s Lesbian Community in North Beach, 1933 to 1960. They discuss the neighborhood’s roots in tourism, its transformation after Prohibition, and its uncertain fate in the face of the affordable housing crisis.
Male-Impersonating Performers in Mona’s 440 Club, ca 1945. Source: Wide Open Town. 
Tommy Vasu in Mona’s Candlelight, ca. 1945. Source: Wide Open Town. 
Advertisement for Mona’s 440 Club, 1939. Source: Where to Sin in San Francisco. 
Former home of Mona’s Candlelight Club, 2009. Source: Shayne Watson. 
Beige Room postcard. Source GLBT Historical Society. 
Mona Sargeant in 1991 holding a photograph of herself from the 1940s. Source: Wide Open Town. 
The site of Mona’s 440 Club on Broadway in San Francisco’s North Beach. Photo by Willa Seidenberg. 
Historical marker for Mona’s 440 Club on the sidewalk on Broadway in San Francisco’s North Beach. Photo by Willa Seidenberg. 
Graffiti on the wall of the building that was the site of Mona’s 440 Club on Broadway in San Francisco’s North Beach. Photo by Willa Seidenberg. 
Page from sample self-guided walking tour brochure, featuring a map with sites related to the lesbian community in San Francisco’s North Beach. Source: Shayne Watson. 
Cover page of sample self-guided walking tour brochure. Source Shayne Watson.
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Featuring
Shayne Watson is an architectural historian and preservation planner based in the San Francisco Bay Area, known for her work in preserving LGBTQ historic sites and narratives. Shayne co-authored the Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco, a project that earned both the Governor’s Historic Preservation Award and the California Preservation Foundation’s Trustees Award for Excellence. She contributed to the National Park Service’s LGBTQ Heritage Initiative, and was a roundtable scholar and co-author of the San Francisco chapter of the LGBTQ America theme study, marking the first federal initiative to document LGBTQ history in the United States.
Shayne is a founding board member of the Rainbow Heritage Network, a National Trust for Historic Preservation affiliate, and actively serves on multiple committees, including the TurkxTaylor Coalition and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. She also co-founded Friends of Lyon-Martin House, a preservation group dedicated to saving the home of LGBTQ pioneers Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, which led to an official landmark designation.
Learn More
Thesis: Preserving the Tangible Remains of San Francisco’s Lesbian Community in North Beach: 1933-1960 by Shayne Watson
Citywide Historic Context Statement for LGBTQ History in San Francisco
Citywide LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy
Wide-Open Town: A History of Queer San Francisco to 1965, by Nan Allamia Boyd
Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco
USC Heritage Conservation Programs
Your Hosts
Co-host Trudi Sandmeier is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of Graduate Programs in Heritage Conservation, and Professor of Practice at the USC School of Architecture. Her work centers on the conservation of the recent past and the impact of under-recognized communities on the historic built environment. Read more in her USC faculty bio.
Co-host Cindy Olnick serves as both Associate Director of Heritage Conservation at USC and a communications consultant for heritage conservation, historic preservation, and the built environment. Read more in her USC faculty bio.
Podcast producer Willa Seidenberg taught audio journalism and podcasting at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, while pursuing a USC Master of Heritage Conservation degree. She retired from teaching and earned her degree in 2023.
A 20-year broadcast journalist and an inaugural fellow with USC’s Center for Excellence in Teaching, Willa founded Annenberg Radio News, the university’s radio news operation; and Intersections South LA, a reporting lab and community website for South Los Angeles.
With photographer William Short, Willa is the author of two oral history/photo projects: A Matter of Conscience: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War and Memories of the American War: Stories From Viet Nam.
