Drag and Mexican food
The old Pelligrino building in the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco preceded Casa Blanca, where female impersonators performed. (Photo courtesy Open SF History) In the 1960s, drag found a home in San Francisco’s Glen Park MATTHEW S.
BAJKO Courtesy of the LGBT History Project During the 1960s, most LGBTQ nightlife in San Francisco was centered in the northern neighborhoods of the city, in the gay bars found along Polk Street, in the Tenderloin, and the South of Market neighborhoods.
In the heart of the city, lesbian couple Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin hosted private gatherings for queer women in their Noe Valley home.
They had been doing so ever since buying their Duncan Street cottage in 1955. And a short drive away in the city’s Glen Park neighborhood, albeit for a brief period of time, one could enjoy female impersonators performing at a restaurant location with a storied past dating back to the 1900s.
