By Karen Ocamb
March 31, 2015 :: 11:36 AM
News about the demolition of the French Market Place in West Hollywood has been circulating for years. But you never think it’s actually going to happen—not to the comfort food of gay establishments! But apparently, today, Tuesday, March 31, is the last day of operation. No idea what happens next.
Rick Castro of Antebellum Gallery has some great photos marking the end of an era, notably ones inside with the faux New Orleans style French Quarter restaurant inside. “I have been coming to french market (sic) since 1976!,” Rick writes. “It was always the gayest place on earth.”
Indeed, Diana Abbitt recalls that MECLA had a little office upstairs when the first gay political action committee was making an impact. ACT UP/LA also had a spot there, if I remember correctly. And numerous gay media outlets had offices while many LGBT organizations and leaders used the post office drop box in the back.
I was introduced to the French Market Place when I first arrived in West Hollywood in 1983—it served as a post-meeting hangout for 12 Steppers like me. The French Quarter folks would let us sit and talk and drink coffee for as long as we needed. They did the same for seniors who came in for the Early Bird Specials and talk about the need to form a new city that was responsive to them.
When I got back into journalism and freelanced for a slew of gay and lesbian publications, I used to do my interviews there since I’ve lived not far from the spot at the intersection of Santa Monica Blvd and Laurel Ave. for most of my time in WeHo.
The French Market was also the jumping off or come-back point for lots of LGBT political events and a refuge for those needing a break from AIDS protests. And when Rob Roberts went on his hunger strike on the grassy triangle nearby to urge Gov. Pete Wilson to sign the gay civil rights bill, AB 101—those of us who joined him in a fast-for-the-day went to the French Market where we broke bread with a sense of significance. Rob is pictured above with AIDS and Queer Nation activist Wayne Karr, who went on a hunger strike over fast-tracking AIDS drugs in 1988 in the same grassy triangle.
How gay was the French Market Place? Longtime gay civil rights leader Morris Kight brought then-former Gov. Jerry Brown there to meet gay people when Brown was running for president in 1991.
If the French Market Place is demolished and replace by something else—no matter what that something else might be—I will look at that space and think of what used to be, like remembering an amputated limb, still feeling its presence.
Thank you to all the employees at the French Market for making our community feel so safe, well-served and united, if even just through those wonderful bran muffins.