People from Los Angeles love to make fun of San Francisco and vice versa. We might not admit it openly, but behind the rivalry, we kind of like each other.
Although exact numbers are hard to come by, gay tourists represent a significant component for tourism numbers for both northern and southern California. Foreign gay visitors often make the trek between San Francisco, Los Angeles/West Hollywood, Palm Springs, and San Diego.
WeHo
West Hollywood has been celebrating its 25th anniversary as a city all year. It turns 26 on November 29. But its big day is not its birthday but Halloween, when thousands pack Santa Monica Boulevard. Since the Castro ended Halloween, WeHo is the place to be on that night.
In its 25 years, West Hollywood has never looked better. Like the stars who hang out there, the city is addicted to facelifts. A $5.4 million renovation project was just completed on the Sunset Strip that includes median landscaping and sidewalk widening. The city is in the process of building a new park and library. And WeHo residents will soon be seeing red. A lot of red. A new red building is being added to the green and blue glass buildings that make up the city’s iconic landmark, the Pacific Design Center.
West Hollywood is very walkable but it’s not the only part of Los Angeles County where you can get around without a car. Just two miles southeast of WeHo, in Los Angeles’ Fairfax District, you will find the Original Farmers Market and the Grove entertainment shopping complex. The Grove opened in 2002 and features an art deco facade in the center of the complex complete with an old-fashioned trolley that runs through it.
Los Angeles’ Museum Row and "Miracle Mile" corridor are less than a mile south of the Farmers Market. The centerpiece of Museum Row is the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A stunning new one-acre pavilion opens October 2. The Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibit Pavilion, with 45,000 square feet, is billed as the largest naturally-lit, open-plan museum space in the world. The new pavilion will open with exhibits showing off ancient Mexican art, European fashion from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, and a collection of paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts from the museum’s namesake donors.
LACMA’s signature piece of art stands in front of the entrance on Wilshire Boulevard. The Urban Lights sculpture was installed in 2008. It is made up of 202 restored cast-iron street lamps. And just across Wilshire Boulevard from Urban Lights is the largest section of the Berlin wall outside of Germany.
The world-famous La Brea Tar Pits is next to the LACMA. In the George C. Page Museum next to the pits, you can see paleontologists cleaning and repairing some of the ancient bones that were found in the black goo. The museum has exhibits that explain how now-extinct animals got trapped in the tar.
The three other museums that make up Museum Row are the Peterson Automotive Museum, the Architecture and Design Museum, and the Craft and Folk Art Museum.
LA’s best-known museum is the Getty Center. It is in the Brentwood section of LA on the top of a hillside with sweeping views of the city and ocean. Admission to the museum is free but parking costs $15. Public transit directions can be found on the museum’s website, http://www.getty.edu. The Getty’s not so-well-known sister museum is the Getty Villa in Malibu. It is dedicated to the arts and culture of ancient Greece, Rome and Etruria.
The last of the finishing touches on LA Live, Los Angeles’ latest major attraction, were completed earlier this year. LA Live is a huge entertainment complex next to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles with nightclubs, restaurants, the Nokia Theater, and the Grammy Museum.
The Hollywood and Highland Center opened in November 2001 and has helped revitalize the heart of Hollywood. Its name comes from the intersection where it is located, Hollywood and Highland. The complex of over 75 shops, restaurants, and museums includes the landmark Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the Kodak Theater, which was built from the ground up as part the complex. The Kodak, by the way, is being renovated to host a permanent Cirque du Soleil show which will begin a 10-year run next year. It will be interrupted only by the Academy Awards show. If you spend anything in one of the center’s shops, even just buy a cup of coffee, you can get a validation stamp allowing you to park for four hours for only $2.
Hollywood and Highland is a perfect place to launch a Hollywood sightseeing adventure. The multilevel complex includes a great view of the Hollywood sign. If that’s not enough Hollywood for you, you can catch the Starline Movie Star Homes Tour that will take you by the haunts of the rich and famous, including Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive. The $39, two-hour ride is the best way to see the homes without getting lost. Redline’s Hollywood Behind the Scenes Tour leaves from the famous Egyptian Theater and is a great walking tour through the heart of Hollywood. The 90-minute tour costs $24.95. The easiest way to "meet" the stars is at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum. The museum displays some incredible life-like statues of the stars. You are welcome to get up close and personal, put your arms around the faux stars and take as many pictures as you want. Unlike other wax museums, the figures are not behind velvet ropes. The museum opens with the unlikely duo of President Barack Obama (D) and Republican Joan Rivers.
The Egyptian Theater goes gay two Wednesdays a month when it hosts the Outfest LGBT film screenings. By the way, for live theater, be sure to check out the Davidson/Valentini Theater in the LA Gay and Lesbian Center.
If you have had your fill of Tinsel Town, make your way to the beach. LA’s gay beach is about a 25-minute drive from WeHo. It is a section of Will Rogers State Beach opposite Entrada Drive and West Channel Road. Gay locals call it Ginger Rogers beach. If you are driving, take Sunset Boulevard west to the Pacific Coast Highway. Make a left on PCH and then turn left onto either Entrada Drive or West Channel Road. There is usually free street parking available. There are a couple of pay parking lots nearby, including a public parking lot at the beach. It is about 45 minutes if you take the bus. You can take the #4 or #704 bus to Broadway and 4th Streets in Santa Monica, then transfer to #9 bus to Entrada and PCH.
Nightlife
The biggest concentration of gay nightlife is in West Hollywood, but there’s plenty more LGBT options outside of WeHo. The LA area’s other gayborhood is Silver Lake, a section of Los Angeles east of Hollywood. Silver Lake was gay before West Hollywood. The Le Barcito bar (formerly the Black Cat) in Silver Lake is the site of pre-Stonewall gay rights demonstrations and is designated by the City of Los Angeles as an Historic Cultural Monument. MJ’s and Akbar are among the most popular gay night spots in Silver Lake.
The gay nightclub center of West Hollywood is around the intersection of Santa Monica and San Vicente Boulevards. The mainstays include the Rage, the Abbey, Mickey’s, the Mother Lode, Trunks, Eleven, Here Lounge, Fiesta Cantina, and East West Lounge.
Although like almost everywhere, the nightlife options for lesbians are not as plentiful as they are for gay men, there still are options. The Palms on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood is the Los Angeles’ area’s oldest lesbian bar.
The Here Lounge on Santa Monica Boulevard in the heart of gay West Hollywood has women’s nights on both Thursday and Friday. The Abbey is mostly gay men but it is gay, straight and lesbian mixed.
The Factory and the adjacent Ultra Suede nightclubs are gay WeHo’s biggest dance venues. The Factory is generally open on weekends only. Suede is open weekends and Wednesday nights. Suede has a "girls bar" night (http://www.girlbar.com) on Fridays.
The newest gay bar in West Hollywood opened last fall. It is in the space occupied by the lesbian-popular Normandy Room. The new bar is called Gym Sports Bar. It is owned by the same people who own the Gym Sports Bar in New York City. It is mostly gay male, but like the Normandy it is very popular with gay women.
Jewel’s Catch One opened in 1972 and boasts that it was the nation’s first black gay and lesbian disco. It is in midtown LA in the Pico/Arlington area. The club attracts a diverse crowd and has a good reputation for its community and charitable work.
Club Tigerheat is the place to go for the 18 and older crowd on Thursday nights in downtown Hollywood. It’s mostly gay but straight-friendly.
Accommodations
Like everywhere, the rates you pay for a hotel in the Los Angeles area depend on demand. Generally the slowest time of the year is January and early February, when California gets its heaviest rainfall, but LA gets about five inches less rain a year than San Francisco and it is about 10-degrees warmer. So you may not have perfect weather but chances are the weather will be nicer than the Bay Area.
The San Vicente Inn is the only gay hotel in the Los Angeles area. It is in a perfect location in the heart of gay West Hollywood on San Vicente Boulevard. The property is a quiet half-block up from Santa Monica Boulevard so you will be a stone’s throw from the clubs but you won’t be bothered by noise from the crowds on Santa Monica. Most of the rooms are newly remodeled. Rates in the 26-room property start at a bargain $79. Amenities include a pool, hot tub, and steam room. They also offer free Wi-Fi, parking, and a coupon for a free continental breakfast at a cafe around the corner. The property used to be exclusively gay male, but now it is about 10 percent nongay. The property is also women-friendly. The pool and deck areas are clothing-optional.
The Ramada Hotel is on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood just a short walk to the gay clubs and right across the street from a gym. It maintains a web site with the address http://www.yourgayhotel.com, which is a little misleading since on a typical day, most of the guests are not gay. Amenities include free Wi-Fi and a pool and fitness room. Rates start at $139. Parking will set you back $27 per day.
The Coral Sands Motel in Hollywood is a little less than two miles east of the Hollywood Highlands Complex and just a block from the Hollywood/Western Metro Station. The Coral Sands used to be exclusively gay men, but that all changed this year. The owner said it started with Europeans who like the location of the hotel so close to the Metro station and didn’t mind staying in a gay hotel. Gradually more non-gays began to stay there. The last vestiges of it being a gay hotel were eliminated last month when the hotel stopped showing gay porn on its in-house channels. That was done after someone with kids staying there complained. But it is still a very gay friendly property. The owner estimates that about half of its guests are gay but it’s not the wild place it used to be. Amenities include a pool, hot tub, and plenty of free parking but they no longer have a sauna and because of the county health department regulations, and they no longer offer a continental breakfast. Rates start at $73. The rooms are a basic motel style, about what you would expect in a Motel 6-type place and the grounds and garden are well-maintained.
The aforementioned Fairfax District of LA has a great boutique hotel called the Farmer’s Daughter. The landmark hotel had fallen into disrepair but the new owners did a complete rags to riches renovation on the property eight years ago. Celebrities have been known to go there to "escape" because it is not yet on the radar screens of the paparazzi. Each room is beautifully decorated to resemble a room in a farmhouse. It’s right across the street from CBS Television studios, where they film Fox’s American Idol and ABC’s Dancing with the Stars , so you will often see CBS soap stars and AI and DWTS contestants hanging around there or in the hotel’s superb Tart restaurant in between tapings. Rates start at $159. Parking is $17 a day.
For more information: http://www.GoGayWestHollywood.com, http://www.DiscoverLosAngeles.com (click on the LGBT section in the nightlife tab), and Frontiers/IN LA (www.frontiersweb.com. Click on "Gay in LA" tab for the full list of LGBT happenings).