Wainwright and Jensen look like hustlers on the streets of 1950’s Los Angeles. Pershing Square and the Run (the 5th street corridor- consisting of the bar and men’s room of the Biltmore Hotel, various gay bars, dance halls, burlesque houses, bath houses, tattoo parlors and the discreet Standard Hotel) the Pacific Electric subway terminal bathrooms, and the LA Central Library were the places to be in the gay hustler world of LA at that time. By the late 1950’s, with crackdowns and redevelopment, the gay hustlers moved first to Silverlake, and then on to West Hollywood. -Rj
It’s funny how odd it is to see them dressed — they seem diminished in their shirts and jeans (although points for not wearing the boxy jackets that seemed to distort the bodies of the wearer). One rarely sees these street scenes in AMG’s Shangri-La, where strapping men in posing pouches twist and strut — an image like this sends us back to a year in the late ‘40s and an actual neighborhood, an actual place. It’s somewhat jarring!
Wainwright and Jensen look like hustlers on the streets of 1950’s Los Angeles.
ReplyDeletePershing Square and the Run (the 5th street corridor- consisting of the bar and men’s room of the Biltmore Hotel, various gay bars, dance halls, burlesque houses, bath houses, tattoo parlors and the discreet Standard Hotel) the Pacific Electric subway terminal bathrooms, and the LA Central Library were the places to be in the gay hustler world of LA at that time.
By the late 1950’s, with crackdowns and redevelopment, the gay hustlers moved first to Silverlake, and then on to West Hollywood.
-Rj
It’s funny how odd it is to see them dressed — they seem diminished in their shirts and jeans (although points for not wearing the boxy jackets that seemed to distort the bodies of the wearer). One rarely sees these street scenes in AMG’s Shangri-La, where strapping men in posing pouches twist and strut — an image like this sends us back to a year in the late ‘40s and an actual neighborhood, an actual place. It’s somewhat jarring!
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