Garden of Allah (cabaret)

The Garden of Allah was a mid-20th century gay cabaret that opened in 1946^[1][2] in the basement of the Victorian-era Arlington Hotel in Seattle's Pioneer Square. It was Seattle's most popular gay cabaret in the late 1940s and 1950s^[3] and one of the first gay-owned gay bars in the United States.^[1] Prior to becoming a cabaret, the space had been a speakeasy, during Prohibition, and then a tavern.

The Garden catered to both gay men and lesbians, though hetero tourists and military personnel on leave also visited. Acts were primarily female impersonation, though some male impersonators also performed; the former sometimes included stripping. One act was the professional female-impersonation Jewel Box Revue,^[4] though that act was largely geared to and supported by hetero people.^[1]

Patrons report that the cabaret became like a "family" or "support group,"^[3] and Don Paulson, author of An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle, noted that he believes the sense of community and group consciousness produced by the Garden was what made the gay rights movement of later decades possible.^[1]

The Garden closed in 1956, when a combination of a rate raise from the musicians' union and a raise in city taxes on locales that provided both entertainment and alcohol put it out of business.^[3]

References

External links

• Queer History in Seattle, Part 1: to 1967, Historylink.org
• A few photos and a small amount of other information, on the site of the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society.
• Photograph of the Arlington Hotel, c. 1900, from the University of Washington collections
• Photograph of the Arlington Hotel, c. 1913, from the University of Washington collections

Coordinates: 47°36′00″N 122°20′03″W / 47.60000°N 122.33417°W / 47.60000; -122.33417