Arena nightclub hollywood gay night
If you’re over the age of 26 in Southern California you may recollect partying at Circus Disco/Arena in Hollywood. The watering hole for the homosexual community that drew thousands every bedtime with its thumping of house melody, hip hop, R&B, and the top Spanish music to get you on the dance floor. You may even remember getting drunk on several vodka crans and bouncing your way through the multiple floors reverberating with DJ lights and disco balls.
Before there was Arena there was Circus Disco which was established in 1974 by Gene La Pietra and his then companion Ed Lemos as a nightclub catering to the Latino LGBTQ+ community. One of the earliest nightclubs developed for Latino gay men, Circus Disco was founded in reaction to discrimination queer men of shade received at West Hollywood clubs with a predominately ivory clientele. The 26,937 square-foot building originally served as an ice warehouse as part of an industrial site.
LGBTQ+ animation in Los Angeles was largely underground in the 1970s and functioned along the lines of a subculture. This was primarily due to social and cultural intolerance as well as laws which either directly or indirectly discriminated against g
Arena Nightclub ~ Boy's Late hours ~ Saturdays
6655 Santa Monica Blvd. ~ 323-462-1291 ~ Hollywood, CA 90038
Boys Evening at Hollywood is on fire. There are no two ways about it. After being there on a Saturday night, I couldn’t help taking that Black Eyed Peas tune (which I usually escape humming at all costs because of my sociopolitical hang-ups about ethnic fetishes) and instead sing the following:
Mexican boys, Mexican boys, (yo quiero)…
…Boys, boys, Latin boys
Latin boys, What's happenin' boys?
My, oh my, were there Latino men there, hundreds of them. Secure pants, tweezed eyebrows, gyrate steps that would produce Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation secede, and finally, a love for and fascination with the main attraction of the night: the drag queen show. Luckily for me, I was able to get front row seating with small push and shove.
Being a woman at these places has one great benefit: nobody notices or cares what I do. I had no problem whatsoever being sandwiched in between groping couples bumping into me so long as I could gawk at the performers as closely as I did. I placed my elbows on the wooden ledge surrounding the stage, and I rested my face on
Circus Disco was the oldest, and longest-running LGBTQ Latino nightclub in Hollywood and Los Angeles. From 1974 to January 2016, patrons of all races and orientations walked through the giant clown mouth at Circus Disco and into a cavernous warehouse where the judgments and inhibitions of the outside world got left behind. Opened by Gene La Pietra and Ermilio “Ed” Lemos as a primarily Latino alternative to the then-exclusionary nightclubs of West Hollywood, Circus quickly developed a reputation (along with Jewel's Collect One and, later, its next-door neighbor Arena) as one of the city's few gay clubs with no dress code and no racist door policy. The club expanded its clientele in 2000 when it became home to Giant, the city's first house and techno mega-club. Historic preservation efforts proved anticlimactic: The new owners have promised to maintain the clown entrance and stick a disco ball in the lobby when they turn the site into a 786-unit housing complex.
Circus Disco played an important role in the Latinx LGBTQ community and in its history of political organizing and coalition building. In 1983, civil rights and labor public figure Cés
“How Many Latinos are in this Motherfucking House?”: DJ Irene, Sonic Interpellations of Dissent and Queer Latinidad in ’90s Los Angeles
How Many Latinos are in this Motherfucking House? –DJ Irene
At the Arena Nightclub in Hollywood, California, the sounds of DJ Irene could be heard on any given Friday in the 1990s. Arena, a 4000-foot former ice factory, was a haven for club kids, ravers, rebels, kids from LA exurbs, youth of hue, and drag queens throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The now-defunct nightclub was one of my hang outs when I was coming of age. Enjoy other Latinx youth who came into their own at Arena, I recollect fondly the fashion, the music, the drama, and the freedom. It was a home away from home. Many of us were underage, and this was one of the only clubs that would consent us in.
Arena was a cacophony of sounds that were part of the multi-sensorial experience of going to the club. There would be deep home or hip-hop melody blasting from the cars in the parking lot, and then, once inside: the stomping of feet, the sirens, the whistles, the Arena clap—when dancers would clap swift and in unison—and of course the remixes and the shout out