Eve's Hangout

Eve's Hangout was a New York City lesbian nightclub established by Polish feminist Eva Kotchever and Swedish painter Ruth Norlander in Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, in 1925. The place was also known as "Eve Adams' Tearoom",[1] a provocative pun between the names of "Eve" and Adam".[lower-alpha 1]

Eve's Hangout
Eve Adams' Tearoom
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] in Chicago in the 1920s, Kotchever and Norlander moved to Greenwich Village, which had become an important area for the gay and lesbian community in New York City.[3][4]

In 1925, the couple opened "Eve's Hangout" on MacDougal Street, a mecca of bohemian New Yorkers.[5] At the entrance, Kotchever put a sign up that said "Men are admitted but not welcome".[6][7]

The place was a haven for lesbians, but also for migrants and the working class. Very quickly, intellectuals like Emma Goldman, a friend of Eva Kotchever, frequented it. It became a popular club, especially for artists like Henry Miller, June Miller, Anaïs Nin and Berenice Abbott.[8] Kotchever used to organize concerts and readings, but also meetings where it was accepted to talk about love between women, political matters and liberal ideas.[9] For that, Eva Kotchever became a figure of "the Village".[10]

Police raid and closure

Some conservative newspapers, such as the Greenwich Village Quill, which defined it under the Bobby Adward plume as a place "where it is not very healthy for teenagers or comfortable for men," began to denounce Eve's Hangout.[6] A neighbour upstairs called 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 therefore arrested and found guilty of "obscenity" and "disorderly conduct". The bar did not survive the arrest of its owner and had to close quickly. For that reason, Kotchever was imprisoned at Jefferson Market before being deported from the United States to Europe,[14] but Greenwich Village did not forget her.[15]

In Europe, Kotchever fought, as European intellectuals, for the Second Spanish Republic. She also ran another place, called Le Boudoir de l'Amour in Montmartre and joined the "Dômiers", at Le Dôme Café in Montparnasse.[16] She turned back there to meet her former customers of her Eve's Hangout, such as Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin.[10][lower-alpha 2]

Legacy

Eve's Hangout has become an LGBT historic place,[19] as well as for New York's Jewish history.[20] It is considered as one of the first lesbian bars in the United States and is recognized as a New York City heritage,[1] as well as by the National Park Service.[21] It is included in tours for Europeans on official US websites.[22] and has become a must-see.[23][24]

Playwright Barbara Kahn wrote a play and musical, "The Spring and Fall of Eve Adams" and "Unreachable Eden", about Eve's Hangout.[25][26][27]

Today, the location is an Italian restaurant and jazz club named La Lanterna di Vittorio.[28][29]

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.[17] The city of Paris paid tribute to Kotchever by naming a school and street after her.[18]

References
  1. "Eve Adams' Tearoom". NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
  2. "Grey Cottage Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 08 Dec 1922, Fri Page 23". Newspapers.com. 2018-10-08. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  3. Chauncey, George (June 26, 1994). "A Gay World, Vibrant and Forgotten". The New York Times. Section 4. p. 17.CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. Hampshire, Audrey (May 2008). "The Lavendar Lens: Lesbianism in the United States 1870-1969". Nonviolent Social Change. Manchester College. 35.
  5. "LGBTQ History: MacDougal Street - GVSHP | Preservation | Off the Grid". GVSHP. 2014-10-30. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  6. Wallace, Kreg (May 28, 2011). "Eve's Hangout". Lost Womyn's Space.
  7. McMillan, Keava (November 18, 2019). "Shownotes: Eve's Tearoom Part 1". Queer Ephemera.
  8. Haaften, Julia Van (10 April 2018). Berenice Abbott: A Life in Photography - Julia Van Haaften - Google Livres. ISBN 9780393292794. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  9. Scelfo, Julie (15 November 2016). The Women Who Made New York - Julie Scelfo - Google Livres. ISBN 9781580056540. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  10. Gattuso, Reina (September 3, 2019). "The Founder of America's Earliest Lesbian Bar Was Deported for Obscenity". Atlas Obscura.
  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. "The History of Gay Bars -- New York Magazine - Nymag". New York Magazine.
  14. Carpenter, Julia. "A Woman to Know: Eve Adams". A Woman to Know. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  15. "At 129 MacDougal, circa 1926, lesbian tearoom ruled". The Villager. 2010-04-20. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  16. McMillan, Keava (November 18, 2019). "Shownotes: Eve's Tearoom Part 2". Queer Ephemera.
  17. "Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database -- EVA ZLOCZOWER". secure.ushmm.org.
  18. "Ecole polyvalente Eva Kotchever". www.paris.fr.
  19. "Photo-Documenting the Lost Landscape of Lesbian Nightclubs in New York City". muse.jhu.edu. 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  20. "Untold stories of Jewish Women" (PDF). static1.squarespace.com. 2018. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  21. "LGBTQ America" (PDF). www.nps.gov. 2016.
  22. "Profiter de la Pride pour explorer Greenwich Village, New York | Visit The USA" (in French). Visittheusa.fr. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  23. https://www.maenner.media/reise/new-york-stadtgeschichten-lgbt/
  24. http://passionnyc.canalblog.com/archives/2019/11/05/37710919.html
  25. Manfre, Katelyn. "Lesbian Tearoom Before Its Time". The Forward.
  26. "All About Eve (Adams)". jewishweek.timesofisrael.com.
  27. "At 129 MacDougal, circa 1926, lesbian tearoom ruled". The Villager. April 20, 2010.
  28. Jim Naureckas. "Macdougal Street: New York Songlines". Nysonglines.com. Retrieved 2020-04-06.
  29. Miller, Tom (August 2, 2010). "Daytonian in Manhattan: "Men Are Admitted, But Not Welcome" -- 129 MacDougal Street".
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