Los Angeles officials applauded the decision to do away with street signs that they say were remnants of bigotry and discrimination against the gay community in the nineties.
City officials had set up signs in 1997 against cruising and U-turns in the Silver Lake neighborhood of L.A. after residents complained about gay men cruising for romantic partners near some popular gay bars.
‘An opportunity for the LGBT community to try to find human connection and intimacy.’
The Silver Lake Neighborhood Council first voted to take down the “No Cruising” signs in 2011, but the “No U-Turn” signs continued to spew forth bigotry for another 13 years.
The impetus for their removal was a podcast.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman said that she was alerted to the sign’s hateful presence by a constituent who heard about their history on a podcast.
“The podcast mentioned that there had been ‘No Cruising’ signs along Hyperion that had been removed in 2011, but that nine signs still remained on Griffith Park Boulevard,” Raman said. “Our very own Silver Lake constituent, Donovan Daughtry, heard the episode, and in May of 2022 he reached out to our Silver Lake Field Deputy at the time.”
Raman said it took months to work through the bureaucracy to take down the signs of hate.
“For me, growing up in South Central Los Angeles, cruising had a very different meaning. It usually meant folks in their lowriders or their cars, a lot of hip-hop music, just going up down Crenshaw Boulevard,” said Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, who helped with the campaign.
“But here in Silver Lake, cruising, of course, meant something very different. It meant an opportunity for the LGBT community to try to find human connection and intimacy and to be able to express themselves in a society at the time that was not very welcoming to the LGBT community.”
Video from the removal ceremony included Pickle, a drag queen, who joined city officials.
“I was unaware of those signs and never would have found [them],” said the drag performer.
“The last two no U-Turn signs remind us of that troubled past that we have here in this neighborhood,” said Soto-Martinez.
Some on the right mocked the removal ceremony and were then immediately accused of homophobia.
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