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The Black Cat

Photos, Menus, Etc
The Record LP
Articles & Clippings
Programs

Plus, check out my interview with Jose, Nov 2012

    

Above, The Black Cat, 710 Montgomery St
in business from around 1910 until 1963, but "turned gay" around 1948

below, 1940s photo....off limits to military
photo by Peter Stackpole

Below, souvenir of 1972 Black Cat reunion

Menus, pass cursor over them to see back

Below, this is a cardboard cut-out, about 8" x 8", handed out to be carried by the club patrons doing drag
to avoid arrest. During my interview Jose explained it as follows:

JS: In the early days Halloween you could be arrested after midnight, because the law reads "with the intent to deceive,"
and those silly bitches, they thought they were real. So at midnight on Halloween the paddy wagons would hit the road and
arrest you, because you looked too much like a woman. It was plain harassment. So the law reads for a man to put on clothes
of the opposite sex with the intent to deceive is against the law. And so if you let them know what you are, you're
not deceiving them. You know, the police would stop you. So I figured out the police officer would stop a queen at
five minutes after twelve, and if you said "I am a boy," they wouldn't dare arrest you, because they would be
open for a lawsuit. So that ended that harassment.

Mattachine Review article about the club's closing, from November 1963

The News, Nov 1963, article on the club's closing

Coverage of the closing of the bar, 1964

"Remember the Black Cat," by Allan Berube, 1983