The City Aroused: Sexual Politics and the Transformation of San Francisco’S Urban Landscape, 1943-1964
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Copyright by Damon John Scott 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Damon John Scott Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The City Aroused: Sexual Politics and the Transformation of San Francisco’s Urban Landscape, 1943-1964 Committee: Steven D. Hoelscher, Supervisor Paul C. Adams Lawrence M. Knopp, Jr. Elizabeth Mueller Leo E. Zonn The City Aroused: Sexual Politics and the Transformation of San Francisco’s Urban Landscape, 1943-1964 by Damon John Scott, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2008 Dedication For my folks Acknowledgements Before thanking the legion of mentors, colleagues, friends and family who have helped me along the way, I first want to “acknowledge” that I never really thought I would be writing these words—the last before I send them off to posterity. It’s not because I did not somewhere deep inside have the determination to finish, but because the things I want to understand are endless. How could I really gather enough bits and pieces to say something new about San Francisco? How could I interweave the well documented history of sexual politics in the city into a new historical geographic context? Would it really look any different? I am writing these words because, mercifully, this dissertation project ultimately does have an end point. That being said, I am comforted by the fact that there is still more to the story than I have been able to piece together here. I look forward to seeing how these and other chapters come together for their next unveiling. I have had intellectual and academic support from a number of advisors, including Terry Jordan, Julie Tuason, and Steven Hoelscher. Terry steered me to the topic and provided institutional support, and frequent encouragement during the early phase of the project. It saddens me that he will not be able to see the results. Julie introduced me to feminist geography in a graduate seminar that was both lively and engaging. Steve has been a source of unqualified support, indispensible advice, incisive comments, and v constructive criticism. I am very fortunate that he has been the one to guide me through the process of completing this project and embarking on a career in academia. His approach to mentoring, his creative intellect, and his teaching style have already shaped my outlook and aspirations as a faculty member. In addition to Terry, Julie and Steve, who have all served as dissertation committee chair at some point in the process, I want to also recognize the other members of my committee. Larry Knopp, who I met soon after I learned of Terry’s illness, has been an approachable mentor, cheerful companion, and thoughtful friend over the course of many AAG conferences. His addition to my committee has made my project stronger and my respect for him as a scholar even greater. Elizabeth Mueller, who I met when I took her qualitative methods course, has been a very helpful, constructive reader whose feedback has helped me see my project in new ways. I also very much appreciate the helpful comments and constructive engagement of Paul Adams and Leo Zonn. During my career as a graduate student, I had the support of many friends, students, and colleagues, both at UT and at Sonoma State University where I taught. For all the ways that they kept me going, I would like to recognize Jennifer Lipton, Eunice Blavascunas, John “Booth” Babcock, Andy Miles, John Hubbard, Joy Adams, Ken Foote, K C Somdahl, Laura Gobbi, Andrew Willis, Kate Alloco, Maria Fadiman, Heather Osterman, Carole Geiger, Jim Smith, Gabe Wasserman, Kim Green, Vic Wright, Ellen Thompson, Paul Fischer, Cesar Escalante, Eduardo Contreras, Constanza Svidler, Brian Springfield, Elizabeth Chur, Remy Charlip, Brent Armendinger, Elizabeth Romero, Aaron Hamburger, Cheryl Deaner, Sylvia Israel, Deb Reichman, Shelley Curnow, Dolly Friedel, Rheyna Laney, Emilie Zaslow, Jen Stumpf, Maria Elisa Christie, Mike Hearty, Trushna Parekh, Valinda Kyrias, Kay Ebel, students in my “Social Geography” courses at Sonoma State, and students in all my field courses at Sonoma State. vi I would also like to recognize the support my parents John and Sunny Scott who only once asked me if I thought it was a wise career choice to study gay geography. They have been very supportive throughout the process, including during a sticky, Missouri August when they let me come home for a month to break one of many writing blocks. Although I am not sure that they appreciate what good parents they are, they have helped me in an incalculable number of ways to be the person I am today. Their character traits that I try to channel myself are creativity, curiosity, and independence in thought. I would also like to acknowledge the love and support of my grandmother Ruth Scott, my grandfather Ken Morris and my aunt Joan Morris. I have nothing more artful to say about them, other than that they are really super “cool” people and I brag about them every chance I get. Finally, I would like to acknowledge José, my partner for whom I reserve my strongest appreciation and my deepest love. I am found of saying to him in times of difficulty and in times of joy that “we are a team.” Those simply words have never felt so right and true as they do at this moment. vii The City Aroused: Sexual Politics and the Transformation of San Francisco’s Urban Landscape, 1943-1964 Publication No._____________ Damon John Scott, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Steven D. Hoelscher This dissertation examines the intersections of urban redevelopment and sexual politics in San Francisco from the first calls for a comprehensive land-use plan in the early 1940s to the highpoint of landscape destruction in the mid 1960s. During the war years, city leaders and prominent citizens compiled and prioritized a list of postwar planning projects that included improvements to the mass transit system, redevelopment of the downtown waterfront, and expansion of the city’s tourism and convention facilities. The footprint of these projects necessitated the destruction of significant elements of the built environment, including cable car lines, low rent hotels, industrial zones, and nighttime entertainment districts. After the war, civic leaders, elected officials, business interests and newspaper publishers attempted to rally support for these projects and searched for new ways to assert control over the urban landscape. San Franciscans, however, resisted significant components of the post-war civic improvement program by mobilizing against plans to replace cable cars with buses, by voting down schemes to redevelop the viii waterfront, and by blocking efforts to expand the freeway network. In this larger context, gays and lesbians in San Francisco in the early 1960s organized as a response to displacement from the low-rent hotel and bar districts on the edge of an expanding downtown. Specific examples of the loss of gay social spaces due to redevelopment pressures include the destruction of a popular gay bar to make way for a new airline bus terminal; the acquisition and razing of several businesses on the waterfront that hosted a thriving gay subculture; and the closure of a gay-oriented movie house after it aroused the ire of neighborhood activists in the Haight Ashbury district. This dissertation builds on previous work that examines the cultural politics of urban landscape change, as well as literature on the formation of urban sexuality-base subcultures to argue that the material transformation of urban space played a fundamental role in the emergence of contemporary notions of sexual difference. ix Table of Contents List of Tables ....................................................................................................... xiii List of Figures...................................................................................................... xiii Chapter One: Introduction .......................................................................................1 Planning, Development, and Modernity .........................................................3 The Changing City: San Francisco in the 1950s and Early 1960s..................7 Sexual Geographies ......................................................................................12 Gay Urban Subcultures in the Making..........................................................24 The Terrain Ahead ........................................................................................31 PART I: RENEWAL 35 Chapter Two: Pioneering a New “Space for Living” ............................................38 Introduction...................................................................................................38 The Telesis Approach to Planning................................................................39 Wartime Planning: New Priorities, New Visions .........................................46 Telesis at the Helm of the City Planning Department ..................................56 Conclusion ....................................................................................................61 Chapter Three: Sentimental Friction and the Need for Speed ...............................63 Introduction...................................................................................................63 The Disposition of the Cable Cars................................................................67