August 24, 2023 • 28 mins
Mobsters & Movie Stars. The Wild Origins of West Hollywood.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide.
If you or someone you know is suicidal in the
US down nine eight eight, check out this podcast notes
page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in
your community.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Let's recap where we are in this story.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I need to remind you that two gay black men
have been found dead eighteen months apart in the same
West Hollywood apartment. Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean both died
of meth overdoses at one two three four North Laurel Avenue. Now, initially,
both desks were ruled accidental overdoses. Ed Buck, a gay
white man who was fairly well known around town, rented
(00:44):
that apartment in West Hollywood. Now that's two overdoses at
the exact same address, in the exact same apartment in
less than two years. Yet ed Buck was still free,
and he was still persuading men to cross this threshold
and enter into what some might have called ed Bucks
gates of health. It's important if we're going to understand
(01:10):
what happened in ed Bucks apartment, we have to understand
where this all happened when we started looking at the
story of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean, we realized that
not a whole lot has been written about the history
of West Hollywood specifically, so we thought we'd stepped back
from the specific aspects of the crimes of that book
to take a look at the place where ed Bucks
(01:32):
crimes were made possible. I'm scenario Glennon. This is shattering
the system the true crime podcasts. That's about more than
crowd on this episode, Come as you are, the story
of West Hollywood and its rise from a wallless, mob
run railroad town to a modern gay mecca. More after
(01:55):
this break Well, I just got off the bus in
the center of West Hollywood's Boystown area on Santa Monica
and Robertson, and I'm headed towards the abbey. Now it's
(02:19):
not a church, it has no religious affiliation. If not
quite a sacred space, it's supposed to be a safe space.
It started off as a coffee shop, but in the
more than thirty years since it's opened to stores, it's
become one of the most important bars in the whole
gay world. The motto of the bar might as well
be the motto of the city of West Hollywood, come
(02:41):
as you are. Let me tell you a short story that,
whether than true or not, has become a local legend.
In the fifties, the police in this area were known
for doing stings on places where gay men gathered. On
one particular, the police showed up to raid a gay
(03:02):
bar and the most famous movie actress of the time
was there. Elizabeth Taylor strolled to the door and informed
the police that there was nothing to see here. The
police sheepishly left empty handed. Think about that for a moment, police,
gay people, celebrity, and what it says about power and
(03:24):
this place. Hank Scott is a pioneering journalist. He's worked
at the New York Times, he ran Out magazine, and
he's one of the many people we've interviewed not just
about the case of Ed Buck, but about the city
of West Hollywood, gay life, and local politics. West Hollywood
is the gayest city in the country, but Hank Scott
(03:45):
says the city has a mixed reputation in the gay world.
He learned that when he started the newspaper Wehovill.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I reached out to publishers of leading gay publications around
the country and asked them in ten words or less
to describe West Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Scott thought it would be a good idea and a
fun story.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Oh how wrong he was.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It was so upsetting that I thought this isn't something
I should probably publish in my first week on the job.
Twink Town, Silly Go Go Boy. And it turns out
there's a lot more to West Hollywood than that. I realized.
There were a lot of stereotypes about West Hollywood, and
(04:27):
one of the things that I saw is my mission,
both with the Lejoville and West Hollywood Magazine is to
dig deep and find out what West Hollywood was really like.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
West Hollywood is a lot of what people are imagining
when you think Hollywood. Just want to make sure that
folks understand that Hollywood is a neighborhood fully within the
boundaries of the city of Los Angeles. In the mid
twentieth century, what is now West Hollywood wasn't its own
city yet. It wouldn't be officially incorporated until nineteen eighty four.
The city is only about one point nine square miles,
(05:03):
hemmed in by Los Angeles to the north, south and
east and Beverly Hills to the west, and there are
about thirty six thousand people who were squeezed into this
less than two square miles, and that number can triple
or even quadruple on the weekend. How did we get
to here? Well, we need to step into the wayback
machine to help us understand what made it possible for
(05:26):
ed Buck to so brazenly commit crime for millennia. That
bright sunshine that brings people to southern California, well that
was a curse. The semi arid landscape and the insanely
large number of man eating bears meant that huge parts
of Los Angeles were sparsely populated. Now, the ancient people
(05:47):
lived here. The Tongva stalked deer in the Beverly Hills
and fished in what is now Malibu. All the places
where rich people live now are where people have kind
of always lived the terrifying California. The bear kept the
population low, but the Spanish and later the Americans massacred
the bears and decimated the native population. By the time
(06:09):
a huge deposit of oil was found in eighteen ninety two,
Native Americans in the area were decimated and divested of
their land, and by nineteen hundred Los Angeles had swelled
to more than one hundred thousand people. Now, while La
grew up, there was one area, a railroad town called Sherman,
that sprang up.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
And it was the home of the Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Pacific Railroad, all its main shops, its main railroads, and
for decades a train ran down what is now the
Santa Monica Boulevard. Sherman was where railroad and oil workers
lived and played. It would become West Hollywood some time later.
Now fast forward to the nineteen twenties. Los Angeles is
(06:51):
one of the most important oil producing sites on the
planet and Sherman was the wide open town that attracted
lots of money. And while gambling was illegal in Los Angeles,
it was legal over in Sherman, and all that money
attracted bohemians, criminals, gays, hustlers, bohemians, and the mob. In
(07:14):
the mid nineteen thirties, Bugsy Seagull, famous East Coast mobster,
a hitman part of a group called Murder Incorporated. Well,
he moved to southern California and this man got into
almost every racket you can imagine, extorting the studios through
the unions, and gambling and prostitution. Bugsy Seagull is probably
(07:36):
though best known for helping build the Las Vegas Strip. Well,
he made the money and the connections. He needed to
do that in part because of the money and what
he learned from running the Sunset Strip, the Sunset Strip
that runs right through West Hollywood. Before it became a
tourist trap, it was a cash register for the mob. Now,
(07:58):
if you watch a mob movie Goodfellers of the Godfather,
they sort of weave out that a big racket for
the mob was gay bars.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
You could pay off the Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Hank Scott, the founder of jujo Vel.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
If you were gay, you serious problems if you were
in the city of Los Angeles, seriously persecuted. But there
were gay bars that could pay off sheriff's deputies and survive.
And you know what the game was, Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They thrived in this town where a prostitute, a speak easy,
a casino, a gay bar, a mobster, or a drag
queen was just left alone. The gin, the drugs, and
the sex have always been easy in West Hollywood. That
image actually no, that reality stuck, and traces of West
Hollywood's very complicated history persist to this very day. This
(08:53):
is shattering the system. More after this break, if you're
(09:14):
at a name a nightclub that you've heard of in
the LA area, it is probably in West Hollywood or
incredibly close. Now I'm going to read you a list.
See if you recognize any of these CEO's. That's where
Sammy Davis became a star. Cafe Chocadero, the Rainbow Room,
the Viper Room, that's where if River Phoenix died outside,
Chateau Momanc, The Troubadour where Elton John first played the US,
(09:37):
The House of Blues, the Roxy, the Comedy Store. If
you were to look up any of those names, you
would have a pretty decent history of the nightlife in America.
While West Hollywood clubs in its social scene would continue
the thrive, ordinary people began to suffer. Rints began to rise,
and affordable housing was being demolished and replaced with big
(09:58):
hotels for tourists and expensive apartment towers. Here's journalist Hank
Scott again.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
What happened was Los Angeles Board of Supervisors had become
dominated by Republicans who were not interested in preserving a
portable housing for people and the elderly people In once Hollywood, a.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Group called the Coalition for Economic Survival was formed to
fight gentrification.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Russian Jewish immigrants were struggling to pay rent, so they
really pulled things together. But then the Coalition also decided
to engage the gay community, which was smart because this
was a community that wanted to live in a city
where their rights were understood and protected.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
This was the eighties, when the gay world was essentially
reaching peak. Activist HIV and AIDS hit West Hollywood like
a nuclear explosion. A monster you hear from the men
who survived that in West Hollywood is that lesbian women
were the superheroes. And when West Hollywood finally became its
(11:07):
own city in nineteen eighty four, Valerie Tarrigdo became its
first mayor. That made history. She was the first lesbian
to be elected mayor of any incorporated municipality in the
United States, and to paraphrase President Joe Biden, it was
a big fucking deal.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Do solemnly swear.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
One of her first official acts was to march to
a popular straight bar and remove a sign in the
window that read no faggots.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
This is going to be a turning point and look
back at some of the oppression. Gays and lesbians have
felt and say, why were we doing that? This makes
absolutely no sense or just people. It took time in
every oppressed class for that consciousness to be raised to say, well,
we're all alike here, and those those class distinctions, whether
it be women, men, blacks, Hispanics, it's all irrelevant.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
She helped pass one of the strongest rent control laws
in the country, and under Tarigno, the city became the
second US city to legally recognize same sex partnerships and
offer domestic partner benefits. This is in the nineteen eighties,
but everything in West Hollywood has two sides. On March sixteenth,
(12:23):
nineteen eighty six, Valerie Trignau was convicted of embezzling. She
resigned from the West Hollywood government after being sentenced to
sixty days for embezzling public funds. The very first mayor
West Hollywood went to jail. West Hollywood by the eighties
(12:47):
transformed itself from that little railroad town to a progressive mecca.
The city was becoming as progressive or as left as
any American city, with stances on almost every single internet
national issue you can imagine. Meanwhile, West Hollywood has more
than its fair share of illegal straight massage parlors, which
(13:08):
has been a part of recent things, and human trafficking,
which is a problem of epic proportions in Los Angeles,
has one of its centers in West Hollywood. West Hollywood
was also a center for the legal and illegal marijuana trade,
alongside a massive illegal drug trade.
Speaker 7 (13:27):
It's one point nine square miles of the most fun
you'll ever have.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Lindsay Horvat, she was the second woman mayor of the
City of West Hollywood. As a city prospered because of development,
it also struggled with its identity.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
It is the Sunset Strip, it is Melrose and Beverly
and the design districts and creative district businesses like the
Pacific Design Center. There's the Rainbow District with all of
the LGBT nightlife, including some of the shows that you
see on TV. Pump and Sir and you know, the
(14:01):
vander Pumper Rules World is all of there is all
located there on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Group sixty six.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Like what makes what makes West Hollywood special?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So old or there's some weird, there's some pecuriarities beyond
just you know, being gay, but.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
Sure, city sure so there, I think, especially because of
the LGBTQ identity of the city, a lot of people
expect the mayor to make statements or take positions on
LGBTQ issues.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Writ Large.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I met Lindsay Horrvath in her office in downtown Los Angeles.
She's now on the La County Board of Supervisors.
Speaker 7 (14:40):
It's one point nine square miles thirty six thousand people,
so a very densely populated city.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Somebody described the city as the no man's land between
Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
I don't know that anybody would call it no man'stown today,
but I think once upon a time there it was
certainly known that the share Griff's Department sort of looked
the other way at behavior that was going on in
this one point nine square mile enclave. And that's where
you know, sort of the gangsters on the Sunset Strip
(15:12):
would go to many of the historic venues on the
Sunset Trip. You know, they went there because they knew
that it would be a safe place for them to
go about as many people were paying attention, So it
let people kind of live and let live.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So before West Hollywood became a city of its own.
It was an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, and
it used the LA County Sheriff's Department for police protection.
This is a system that's called the Lakewood Plan, which
was developed where small towns can stay independent but also
provide services like police and fire without the costs of say,
(15:48):
starting your own police force from scratch. And when West
Hollywood was incorporated, the city founders stuck with the sheriff.
I asked Lindsay Horvav, the former mayor, about the historic
relateationship between the City of West Hollywood and the LA
County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
It's been a colorful history, as you might imagine. The
Sheriff's Department, as many law enforcement agencies did, had a
pretty fraught relationship with the LGBTQ community. There was, and
some are you continues to be a very difficult relationship
(16:26):
between law enforcement and lgbt community members just wanting to
live their lives out freely and safely. And there were
many raids on gay bars in West Hollywood that created
a very tense and hostile relationship between law enforcement and
(16:46):
the community.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Now, remember West Hollywood contracts the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department,
which has about two dozen patrol stations across the region
to provide law enforcement services. West Hollywood doesn't have a
lot of leverage when it comes to policing its own.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Police force as a city that has nearly fifty percent
of the community identify as LGBTQ plus. There are cultural
sensitivity trainings and cultural competencies that are required in order
to keep people safe, and so the relationship then improved
and there are now some community members who still to
(17:25):
this day feel very strongly that the Sheriff's Department station
in West Hollywood is different than the broader department and
cares for the West Hollywood community quite effectively. There are
folks who do not believe that, and very much believe
that the Sheriff's Department hasn't done enough to understand and
(17:45):
appropriately serve and keep safe the LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Were you satisfied with the Sheriff's Department when you were
in the city.
Speaker 7 (17:54):
I think that the Sheriff's Department in many ways did
a great job. In many ways was very challenged to
have a city of thirty six thousand people that could
on any given night quadruple just because of who was
coming in to go to the night life. That makes
your job and your responsibilities very difficult. It's not like
(18:19):
you're patrolling bedroom community of thirty six thousand people that
goes to sleep at ten o'clock at night. But I
will also say because of that, they had to be
prepared for a different kind of experience. And I think
there were ways that the department fell short in terms
(18:40):
of the expectations of the community as it related especially
to cultural competency.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
And there's no like, oh, in order to come the
west out Like in my mind there would be like, oh,
there is this sort of special training or maybe why
I want to know this, But there's none of that
in your shade.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
You shugar head requirements. No, there there was discussion that
certain trainings happened, and I asked that question at a
public meeting, and I just asked someone from the station
who was a sergeant, what sort of training he had
had as it related to LGBTQ plus cultural competency. And
(19:23):
he said that he had been trained on the flags.
That was literally his answer.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Oh, trained on the flag.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
Literally the flags, that was his answer. And so he
didn't even say pride flags he just said the flags.
So when that is an answer that you get from
a sheriff sergeant who is dedicated to the West Hollywood station,
it is troubling to think that not everyone at the
(19:53):
station could receive the kind of training one might expect
in order to properly serve the lgbt Q plus community
and keep people safe.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Members of the community like Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean,
this is shattering the system. The True Crime podcast that's
about more than crime more after this break. If you've
paid any attention to the news of pop culture in
the last I don't know, fifty sixty years, you understand
(20:26):
that the LAPD, the police for the city of Los Angeles,
have historically been the symbol of police brutality and aggression. Well,
the LA Sheriff is like the cousin that doesn't get
quite as much attention. There really aren't any PBS documentaries
about the LA Sheriff, though there should be right now.
For instance, there's a group of whistleblowers and you cannot
(20:48):
make this up. A group of LA County sheriffs who
are claiming that some of their own colleagues other sheriffs,
were members of the gang called the Bandidos. The plaintiffs
claim that the Bandido's gangs that these are police officers.
Mind you, we're harassing and intimidating and even physically attacking
(21:08):
other sheriffs. So I don't think we have the greatest
leadership right now and West how A Day got rid
of several sheriffs which were getting rid.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Of the bad apple since there's bad cops at discriminating
against people for because of their ethnicity.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
A special Council report that was published in early twenty
twenty three indicates that gangs within La County Sheriff's Department
have existed for decades and that quote members not only
use gang like symbols, but engaging gang type and criminal
behavior directed against the public and other department members. Some
(21:43):
of the accused sheriffs have been fired, and the county
denies the allegations that the internal gangs act with impunity.
We reached out to the Sheriff's office for this podcast,
but they decline. This is the sheriff's office that was
in charge, the one that showed up to ed Buck's
apartment when on two different occasions they had countered the
(22:06):
lifeless bodies of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. There is
a huge divide in West Hollywood between renters and homeowners,
between woke gays and often older, wealthy white men, and
there has been a click of older white men who
have been on the city council for decades. No shame
(22:27):
on my home for more than a decade, but some
are Paradoxically, all these smart people in West Hollywood do
not pay attention to local politics, and until recently it
wasn't unusual to get less than twenty percent in a
local election. There's a great saying all politics is local. Well,
if all politics is local, then at least some of
the power eils should be right. So I am standing
(22:49):
right across the street from the West Hollywood City Hall,
and I'm going to see just how much local residents
know about local politics and local power.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Do you mind if I ask your quick questions?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Do you live in West Hollywood?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
I don't think he does.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Would you know who the mayor of West Hollywood is?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
N s I shouldn't like me.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I don't know Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Right now, off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
In Maryland, this is the West Hollywood that Ed Buck
chose to move to. And once he got here, he
jumped right into the.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Mix of things. He showed up to city.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Council meetings advocating for animal rights. He became part of
the Gay Democrats, and he gave the money. He would
end up giving nearly five hundred thousand dollars to politicians
over the course of his time in Wee Home.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Now, that might not seem like a.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Lot, but a few thousand dollars goes a long way
in West Hollywood, where in some municipal elections only a
few thousand people show up. So I'm back at the abbey,
and inside the bar there is a portrait of Liz Taylor.
(24:08):
It reads, this was the last place that Liz Taylor
was seen in public. Now, I tell you something, if
you sit here long enough, you'll see the new kids
just off the bus.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
I'm afraid that a lot of people come here dreaming
of becoming musicians, actors, and then they easily get lost
in alcoholism and drugs, and then they run out of money.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's Otavio today. He was Timothy Dean's roommate. He's a
straight Italian actor and dancer. He's been in the US
for nearly a decade. The beginning of Otavio's story sounds
like a version of I don't know nearly every Hollywood story.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
When I arrived, I slept in a hostel by Hollywood Boulevard,
by the Walk of Fame.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
So many people arrived with the dreams of stardom, just
like Otavio. But if you can imagine what he experienced
in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (25:01):
I have a lot of friends who want to study abroad,
people in the Netherlands, in Spain, in France and Italy,
in the United States as well, or in either places
in the world, and nobody has stories like mine.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
There is something that remains of that old railroad town
and the mob hangout that West Hollywood just cannot shake off.
Now the city of West Hollywood Park, which is where
I'm walking, is alongside also the Sheriff's office. Elsewhere in
(25:40):
the series, we talked to some of the most senior
law enforcement officials connected to prosecuting at Buck. Now, while
ed Buck is an extreme case, law enforcement and some
jurisdictions are looking a bit closer at crimes focusing on
the queer community. Let's hear about a case from Jeremiah Levine.
He's with the US Justice department.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
And during that string of robberies, he exclusively targeted gay
men who he met on the dating app Grinder, and
when he met them, he used gay dating culture in
a way that allowed him to really violently exploit these
(26:24):
men for robbery.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
In the next episode, we'll return to the more direct
story of Jamel and Timothy. We wanted to give you
a sense of where they spent their last days. This
park and this intersection are where so many queer folks
have found their lives and livelihood. I've lived there for
over a decade and it has its problems. But if
(26:49):
I've learned one thing, it's that if the greatest trick
the Devil played was making you believe he doesn't exist,
then just as dastardly is the idea that anyone could
just get off of a bus or chain or a
plane and make it in Hollywood. Well that's the show.
Thanks again the John Ponder of the West Hollywood History website.
(27:10):
That's such a great site. Check it out. And Karina
Longworth well, she's the OG of Hollywood podcast Gotta Find Her.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
This is Shattering the System.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Shattering the System is a production of Macro Studios, and
iHeart podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glinton. You can find
me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One. Our
series executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Royal Reccio, Jonathan Hunger, Lindsay Hoffman and Sinnari Luton.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
That's Me.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper.
The third Erica Rodriguez, is our associate producer. Dana Conway
is our archival producer. Chris Man is our audio engineer.
Sound design and music provided any Via Lobos, Assistant editors
Annie Va Lobos and Edward Bartress, with special help from
Lisa Powell. Also special thanks to Jennifer buen On Toni
(28:10):
and the Press Play Agency. Also special thanks to Porsche Robertson.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Magas and Karen Graff by Bates.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And archival clips provided by The Big Goose Adventures.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
This is Shattering the System
In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide.
If you or someone you know is suicidal in the
US down nine eight eight, check out this podcast notes
page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in
your community.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Let's recap where we are in this story.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I need to remind you that two gay black men
have been found dead eighteen months apart in the same
West Hollywood apartment. Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean both died
of meth overdoses at one two three four North Laurel Avenue. Now, initially,
both desks were ruled accidental overdoses. Ed Buck, a gay
white man who was fairly well known around town, rented
(00:44):
that apartment in West Hollywood. Now that's two overdoses at
the exact same address, in the exact same apartment in
less than two years. Yet ed Buck was still free,
and he was still persuading men to cross this threshold
and enter into what some might have called ed Bucks
gates of health. It's important if we're going to understand
(01:10):
what happened in ed Bucks apartment, we have to understand
where this all happened when we started looking at the
story of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean, we realized that
not a whole lot has been written about the history
of West Hollywood specifically, so we thought we'd stepped back
from the specific aspects of the crimes of that book
to take a look at the place where ed Bucks
(01:32):
crimes were made possible. I'm scenario Glennon. This is shattering
the system the true crime podcasts. That's about more than
crowd on this episode, Come as you are, the story
of West Hollywood and its rise from a wallless, mob
run railroad town to a modern gay mecca. More after
(01:55):
this break Well, I just got off the bus in
the center of West Hollywood's Boystown area on Santa Monica
and Robertson, and I'm headed towards the abbey. Now it's
(02:19):
not a church, it has no religious affiliation. If not
quite a sacred space, it's supposed to be a safe space.
It started off as a coffee shop, but in the
more than thirty years since it's opened to stores, it's
become one of the most important bars in the whole
gay world. The motto of the bar might as well
be the motto of the city of West Hollywood, come
(02:41):
as you are. Let me tell you a short story that,
whether than true or not, has become a local legend.
In the fifties, the police in this area were known
for doing stings on places where gay men gathered. On
one particular, the police showed up to raid a gay
(03:02):
bar and the most famous movie actress of the time
was there. Elizabeth Taylor strolled to the door and informed
the police that there was nothing to see here. The
police sheepishly left empty handed. Think about that for a moment, police,
gay people, celebrity, and what it says about power and
(03:24):
this place. Hank Scott is a pioneering journalist. He's worked
at the New York Times, he ran Out magazine, and
he's one of the many people we've interviewed not just
about the case of Ed Buck, but about the city
of West Hollywood, gay life, and local politics. West Hollywood
is the gayest city in the country, but Hank Scott
(03:45):
says the city has a mixed reputation in the gay world.
He learned that when he started the newspaper Wehovill.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
I reached out to publishers of leading gay publications around
the country and asked them in ten words or less
to describe West Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Scott thought it would be a good idea and a
fun story.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Oh how wrong he was.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
It was so upsetting that I thought this isn't something
I should probably publish in my first week on the job.
Twink Town, Silly Go Go Boy. And it turns out
there's a lot more to West Hollywood than that. I realized.
There were a lot of stereotypes about West Hollywood, and
(04:27):
one of the things that I saw is my mission,
both with the Lejoville and West Hollywood Magazine is to
dig deep and find out what West Hollywood was really like.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
West Hollywood is a lot of what people are imagining
when you think Hollywood. Just want to make sure that
folks understand that Hollywood is a neighborhood fully within the
boundaries of the city of Los Angeles. In the mid
twentieth century, what is now West Hollywood wasn't its own
city yet. It wouldn't be officially incorporated until nineteen eighty four.
The city is only about one point nine square miles,
(05:03):
hemmed in by Los Angeles to the north, south and
east and Beverly Hills to the west, and there are
about thirty six thousand people who were squeezed into this
less than two square miles, and that number can triple
or even quadruple on the weekend. How did we get
to here? Well, we need to step into the wayback
machine to help us understand what made it possible for
(05:26):
ed Buck to so brazenly commit crime for millennia. That
bright sunshine that brings people to southern California, well that
was a curse. The semi arid landscape and the insanely
large number of man eating bears meant that huge parts
of Los Angeles were sparsely populated. Now, the ancient people
(05:47):
lived here. The Tongva stalked deer in the Beverly Hills
and fished in what is now Malibu. All the places
where rich people live now are where people have kind
of always lived the terrifying California. The bear kept the
population low, but the Spanish and later the Americans massacred
the bears and decimated the native population. By the time
(06:09):
a huge deposit of oil was found in eighteen ninety two,
Native Americans in the area were decimated and divested of
their land, and by nineteen hundred Los Angeles had swelled
to more than one hundred thousand people. Now, while La
grew up, there was one area, a railroad town called Sherman,
that sprang up.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
And it was the home of the Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Pacific Railroad, all its main shops, its main railroads, and
for decades a train ran down what is now the
Santa Monica Boulevard. Sherman was where railroad and oil workers
lived and played. It would become West Hollywood some time later.
Now fast forward to the nineteen twenties. Los Angeles is
(06:51):
one of the most important oil producing sites on the
planet and Sherman was the wide open town that attracted
lots of money. And while gambling was illegal in Los Angeles,
it was legal over in Sherman, and all that money
attracted bohemians, criminals, gays, hustlers, bohemians, and the mob. In
(07:14):
the mid nineteen thirties, Bugsy Seagull, famous East Coast mobster,
a hitman part of a group called Murder Incorporated. Well,
he moved to southern California and this man got into
almost every racket you can imagine, extorting the studios through
the unions, and gambling and prostitution. Bugsy Seagull is probably
(07:36):
though best known for helping build the Las Vegas Strip. Well,
he made the money and the connections. He needed to
do that in part because of the money and what
he learned from running the Sunset Strip, the Sunset Strip
that runs right through West Hollywood. Before it became a
tourist trap, it was a cash register for the mob. Now,
(07:58):
if you watch a mob movie Goodfellers of the Godfather,
they sort of weave out that a big racket for
the mob was gay bars.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
You could pay off the Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Hank Scott, the founder of jujo Vel.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
If you were gay, you serious problems if you were
in the city of Los Angeles, seriously persecuted. But there
were gay bars that could pay off sheriff's deputies and survive.
And you know what the game was, Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
They thrived in this town where a prostitute, a speak easy,
a casino, a gay bar, a mobster, or a drag
queen was just left alone. The gin, the drugs, and
the sex have always been easy in West Hollywood. That
image actually no, that reality stuck, and traces of West
Hollywood's very complicated history persist to this very day. This
(08:53):
is shattering the system. More after this break, if you're
(09:14):
at a name a nightclub that you've heard of in
the LA area, it is probably in West Hollywood or
incredibly close. Now I'm going to read you a list.
See if you recognize any of these CEO's. That's where
Sammy Davis became a star. Cafe Chocadero, the Rainbow Room,
the Viper Room, that's where if River Phoenix died outside,
Chateau Momanc, The Troubadour where Elton John first played the US,
(09:37):
The House of Blues, the Roxy, the Comedy Store. If
you were to look up any of those names, you
would have a pretty decent history of the nightlife in America.
While West Hollywood clubs in its social scene would continue
the thrive, ordinary people began to suffer. Rints began to rise,
and affordable housing was being demolished and replaced with big
(09:58):
hotels for tourists and expensive apartment towers. Here's journalist Hank
Scott again.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
What happened was Los Angeles Board of Supervisors had become
dominated by Republicans who were not interested in preserving a
portable housing for people and the elderly people In once Hollywood, a.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Group called the Coalition for Economic Survival was formed to
fight gentrification.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Russian Jewish immigrants were struggling to pay rent, so they
really pulled things together. But then the Coalition also decided
to engage the gay community, which was smart because this
was a community that wanted to live in a city
where their rights were understood and protected.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
This was the eighties, when the gay world was essentially
reaching peak. Activist HIV and AIDS hit West Hollywood like
a nuclear explosion. A monster you hear from the men
who survived that in West Hollywood is that lesbian women
were the superheroes. And when West Hollywood finally became its
(11:07):
own city in nineteen eighty four, Valerie Tarrigdo became its
first mayor. That made history. She was the first lesbian
to be elected mayor of any incorporated municipality in the
United States, and to paraphrase President Joe Biden, it was
a big fucking deal.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
Do solemnly swear.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
One of her first official acts was to march to
a popular straight bar and remove a sign in the
window that read no faggots.
Speaker 6 (11:38):
This is going to be a turning point and look
back at some of the oppression. Gays and lesbians have
felt and say, why were we doing that? This makes
absolutely no sense or just people. It took time in
every oppressed class for that consciousness to be raised to say, well,
we're all alike here, and those those class distinctions, whether
it be women, men, blacks, Hispanics, it's all irrelevant.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
She helped pass one of the strongest rent control laws
in the country, and under Tarigno, the city became the
second US city to legally recognize same sex partnerships and
offer domestic partner benefits. This is in the nineteen eighties,
but everything in West Hollywood has two sides. On March sixteenth,
(12:23):
nineteen eighty six, Valerie Trignau was convicted of embezzling. She
resigned from the West Hollywood government after being sentenced to
sixty days for embezzling public funds. The very first mayor
West Hollywood went to jail. West Hollywood by the eighties
(12:47):
transformed itself from that little railroad town to a progressive mecca.
The city was becoming as progressive or as left as
any American city, with stances on almost every single internet
national issue you can imagine. Meanwhile, West Hollywood has more
than its fair share of illegal straight massage parlors, which
(13:08):
has been a part of recent things, and human trafficking,
which is a problem of epic proportions in Los Angeles,
has one of its centers in West Hollywood. West Hollywood
was also a center for the legal and illegal marijuana trade,
alongside a massive illegal drug trade.
Speaker 7 (13:27):
It's one point nine square miles of the most fun
you'll ever have.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Lindsay Horvat, she was the second woman mayor of the
City of West Hollywood. As a city prospered because of development,
it also struggled with its identity.
Speaker 7 (13:40):
It is the Sunset Strip, it is Melrose and Beverly
and the design districts and creative district businesses like the
Pacific Design Center. There's the Rainbow District with all of
the LGBT nightlife, including some of the shows that you
see on TV. Pump and Sir and you know, the
(14:01):
vander Pumper Rules World is all of there is all
located there on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Group sixty six.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Like what makes what makes West Hollywood special?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
So old or there's some weird, there's some pecuriarities beyond
just you know, being gay, but.
Speaker 7 (14:16):
Sure, city sure so there, I think, especially because of
the LGBTQ identity of the city, a lot of people
expect the mayor to make statements or take positions on
LGBTQ issues.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
Writ Large.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I met Lindsay Horrvath in her office in downtown Los Angeles.
She's now on the La County Board of Supervisors.
Speaker 7 (14:40):
It's one point nine square miles thirty six thousand people,
so a very densely populated city.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Somebody described the city as the no man's land between
Los Angeles and Beverly Hills.
Speaker 7 (14:52):
I don't know that anybody would call it no man'stown today,
but I think once upon a time there it was
certainly known that the share Griff's Department sort of looked
the other way at behavior that was going on in
this one point nine square mile enclave. And that's where
you know, sort of the gangsters on the Sunset Strip
(15:12):
would go to many of the historic venues on the
Sunset Trip. You know, they went there because they knew
that it would be a safe place for them to
go about as many people were paying attention, So it
let people kind of live and let live.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So before West Hollywood became a city of its own.
It was an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, and
it used the LA County Sheriff's Department for police protection.
This is a system that's called the Lakewood Plan, which
was developed where small towns can stay independent but also
provide services like police and fire without the costs of say,
(15:48):
starting your own police force from scratch. And when West
Hollywood was incorporated, the city founders stuck with the sheriff.
I asked Lindsay Horvav, the former mayor, about the historic
relateationship between the City of West Hollywood and the LA
County Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
It's been a colorful history, as you might imagine. The
Sheriff's Department, as many law enforcement agencies did, had a
pretty fraught relationship with the LGBTQ community. There was, and
some are you continues to be a very difficult relationship
(16:26):
between law enforcement and lgbt community members just wanting to
live their lives out freely and safely. And there were
many raids on gay bars in West Hollywood that created
a very tense and hostile relationship between law enforcement and
(16:46):
the community.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Now, remember West Hollywood contracts the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department,
which has about two dozen patrol stations across the region
to provide law enforcement services. West Hollywood doesn't have a
lot of leverage when it comes to policing its own.
Speaker 7 (17:03):
Police force as a city that has nearly fifty percent
of the community identify as LGBTQ plus. There are cultural
sensitivity trainings and cultural competencies that are required in order
to keep people safe, and so the relationship then improved
and there are now some community members who still to
(17:25):
this day feel very strongly that the Sheriff's Department station
in West Hollywood is different than the broader department and
cares for the West Hollywood community quite effectively. There are
folks who do not believe that, and very much believe
that the Sheriff's Department hasn't done enough to understand and
(17:45):
appropriately serve and keep safe the LGBTQ plus community.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Were you satisfied with the Sheriff's Department when you were
in the city.
Speaker 7 (17:54):
I think that the Sheriff's Department in many ways did
a great job. In many ways was very challenged to
have a city of thirty six thousand people that could
on any given night quadruple just because of who was
coming in to go to the night life. That makes
your job and your responsibilities very difficult. It's not like
(18:19):
you're patrolling bedroom community of thirty six thousand people that
goes to sleep at ten o'clock at night. But I
will also say because of that, they had to be
prepared for a different kind of experience. And I think
there were ways that the department fell short in terms
(18:40):
of the expectations of the community as it related especially
to cultural competency.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
And there's no like, oh, in order to come the
west out Like in my mind there would be like, oh,
there is this sort of special training or maybe why
I want to know this, But there's none of that
in your shade.
Speaker 7 (18:59):
You shugar head requirements. No, there there was discussion that
certain trainings happened, and I asked that question at a
public meeting, and I just asked someone from the station
who was a sergeant, what sort of training he had
had as it related to LGBTQ plus cultural competency. And
(19:23):
he said that he had been trained on the flags.
That was literally his answer.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Oh, trained on the flag.
Speaker 7 (19:31):
Literally the flags, that was his answer. And so he
didn't even say pride flags he just said the flags.
So when that is an answer that you get from
a sheriff sergeant who is dedicated to the West Hollywood station,
it is troubling to think that not everyone at the
(19:53):
station could receive the kind of training one might expect
in order to properly serve the lgbt Q plus community
and keep people safe.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Members of the community like Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean,
this is shattering the system. The True Crime podcast that's
about more than crime more after this break. If you've
paid any attention to the news of pop culture in
the last I don't know, fifty sixty years, you understand
(20:26):
that the LAPD, the police for the city of Los Angeles,
have historically been the symbol of police brutality and aggression. Well,
the LA Sheriff is like the cousin that doesn't get
quite as much attention. There really aren't any PBS documentaries
about the LA Sheriff, though there should be right now.
For instance, there's a group of whistleblowers and you cannot
(20:48):
make this up. A group of LA County sheriffs who
are claiming that some of their own colleagues other sheriffs,
were members of the gang called the Bandidos. The plaintiffs
claim that the Bandido's gangs that these are police officers.
Mind you, we're harassing and intimidating and even physically attacking
(21:08):
other sheriffs. So I don't think we have the greatest
leadership right now and West how A Day got rid
of several sheriffs which were getting rid.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Of the bad apple since there's bad cops at discriminating
against people for because of their ethnicity.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
A special Council report that was published in early twenty
twenty three indicates that gangs within La County Sheriff's Department
have existed for decades and that quote members not only
use gang like symbols, but engaging gang type and criminal
behavior directed against the public and other department members. Some
(21:43):
of the accused sheriffs have been fired, and the county
denies the allegations that the internal gangs act with impunity.
We reached out to the Sheriff's office for this podcast,
but they decline. This is the sheriff's office that was
in charge, the one that showed up to ed Buck's
apartment when on two different occasions they had countered the
(22:06):
lifeless bodies of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. There is
a huge divide in West Hollywood between renters and homeowners,
between woke gays and often older, wealthy white men, and
there has been a click of older white men who
have been on the city council for decades. No shame
(22:27):
on my home for more than a decade, but some
are Paradoxically, all these smart people in West Hollywood do
not pay attention to local politics, and until recently it
wasn't unusual to get less than twenty percent in a
local election. There's a great saying all politics is local. Well,
if all politics is local, then at least some of
the power eils should be right. So I am standing
(22:49):
right across the street from the West Hollywood City Hall,
and I'm going to see just how much local residents
know about local politics and local power.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Do you mind if I ask your quick questions?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Do you live in West Hollywood?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
I don't think he does.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Would you know who the mayor of West Hollywood is?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
N s I shouldn't like me.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
I don't know Gavin Newsom.
Speaker 7 (23:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Right now, off the top of my head.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
In Maryland, this is the West Hollywood that Ed Buck
chose to move to. And once he got here, he
jumped right into the.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Mix of things. He showed up to city.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Council meetings advocating for animal rights. He became part of
the Gay Democrats, and he gave the money. He would
end up giving nearly five hundred thousand dollars to politicians
over the course of his time in Wee Home.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Now, that might not seem like a.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Lot, but a few thousand dollars goes a long way
in West Hollywood, where in some municipal elections only a
few thousand people show up. So I'm back at the abbey,
and inside the bar there is a portrait of Liz Taylor.
(24:08):
It reads, this was the last place that Liz Taylor
was seen in public. Now, I tell you something, if
you sit here long enough, you'll see the new kids
just off the bus.
Speaker 8 (24:19):
I'm afraid that a lot of people come here dreaming
of becoming musicians, actors, and then they easily get lost
in alcoholism and drugs, and then they run out of money.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
That's Otavio today. He was Timothy Dean's roommate. He's a
straight Italian actor and dancer. He's been in the US
for nearly a decade. The beginning of Otavio's story sounds
like a version of I don't know nearly every Hollywood story.
Speaker 8 (24:47):
When I arrived, I slept in a hostel by Hollywood Boulevard,
by the Walk of Fame.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
So many people arrived with the dreams of stardom, just
like Otavio. But if you can imagine what he experienced
in West Hollywood.
Speaker 8 (25:01):
I have a lot of friends who want to study abroad,
people in the Netherlands, in Spain, in France and Italy,
in the United States as well, or in either places
in the world, and nobody has stories like mine.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
There is something that remains of that old railroad town
and the mob hangout that West Hollywood just cannot shake off.
Now the city of West Hollywood Park, which is where
I'm walking, is alongside also the Sheriff's office. Elsewhere in
(25:40):
the series, we talked to some of the most senior
law enforcement officials connected to prosecuting at Buck. Now, while
ed Buck is an extreme case, law enforcement and some
jurisdictions are looking a bit closer at crimes focusing on
the queer community. Let's hear about a case from Jeremiah Levine.
He's with the US Justice department.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
And during that string of robberies, he exclusively targeted gay
men who he met on the dating app Grinder, and
when he met them, he used gay dating culture in
a way that allowed him to really violently exploit these
(26:24):
men for robbery.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
In the next episode, we'll return to the more direct
story of Jamel and Timothy. We wanted to give you
a sense of where they spent their last days. This
park and this intersection are where so many queer folks
have found their lives and livelihood. I've lived there for
over a decade and it has its problems. But if
(26:49):
I've learned one thing, it's that if the greatest trick
the Devil played was making you believe he doesn't exist,
then just as dastardly is the idea that anyone could
just get off of a bus or chain or a
plane and make it in Hollywood. Well that's the show.
Thanks again the John Ponder of the West Hollywood History website.
(27:10):
That's such a great site. Check it out. And Karina
Longworth well, she's the OG of Hollywood podcast Gotta Find Her.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
This is Shattering the System.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Shattering the System is a production of Macro Studios, and
iHeart podcasts. I'm your host, Snari Glinton. You can find
me on Instagram at Snari plus the Number One. Our
series executive producers are Charles D. King, Asha Corpus, Win
Royal Reccio, Jonathan Hunger, Lindsay Hoffman and Sinnari Luton.
Speaker 4 (27:47):
That's Me.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Our podcast is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper.
The third Erica Rodriguez, is our associate producer. Dana Conway
is our archival producer. Chris Man is our audio engineer.
Sound design and music provided any Via Lobos, Assistant editors
Annie Va Lobos and Edward Bartress, with special help from
Lisa Powell. Also special thanks to Jennifer buen On Toni
(28:10):
and the Press Play Agency. Also special thanks to Porsche Robertson.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Magas and Karen Graff by Bates.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
And archival clips provided by The Big Goose Adventures.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
This is Shattering the System
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