Los Angeles, Calif.
Gay Community Services Center
1614 Wilshire Boulevard
With news that the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, Calif., which was founded in 1981, may be forced to close its doors unless it can raise $50,000 by September, I decided this was an apt time to start a series of blog entries on LGBT community centers around the country and why they are so important to our people. Thanks to Richard Burns (former ED of the NYC LGBT Community Services Center) for the idea, and Terry Stone of CenterLink for sending me some terrific photos of centers, which you’ll see in upcoming posts.
The gay community center movement got its start just a couple of years after the Stonewall Riots. As noted by CenterLink, the national association of LGBT centers, the idea was “revolutionary”: “that lesbian and gay people deserve to live open, fulfilling and honest lives free of discrimination and bigotry, with access to culturally appropriate social services, as equal partners in the cultural and civic life of the community.” Prior to the founding of centers, many gay people had no organized meeting places in which to find support, friendship, lovers, and services, other than bars and ad-hoc meeting spots, like the early gay bookstores. Now, many LGBT people will tell you how local community centers saved their lives.
The Los Angeles, Calif., and Albany, N.Y., LGBT centers both claim the distinction of being the first in the country. Since the founding of those two organizations in 1971, the community center movement has grown exponentially, with 181 now listed in the CenterLink directory.
This address on Wilshire Boulevard was the first location of what was then called the L.A. Gay Community Services Center (they added “lesbian” nine years later, and dropped the word “Services” along the way). The physical space changed locations several times over the next three decades; its main building is now at 1625 North Shrader Boulevard (there are four additional buildings). From humble origins, the L.A. center grew to be the largest in the country, with a $43 million budget, serving a quarter of a million people annually. The center provides mental health services, legal help, a cyber center, recovery services, youth programs, an HIV/AIDS clinic, a lesbian health clinic, senior services, and much more.
(Next in the series: the Capital District Gay and Lesbian Community Center, Albany, N.Y.)
The Queerest Places 
A gay community center had already existed in the United States for more than five years before the centers in Los Angeles and in Albany, N.Y., were founded in 1971: The SIR Center at 83 Sixth Street in San Francisco was founded as a community center in 1966 by the Society for Individual Rights, at that time the gay advocacy organization with the largest membership in the city — and one of the largest in the country. Although the Society for Individual Rights and the SIR Center are no longer in existence, they merit acknowledgment for their pioneering role in the development of LGBT community centers in the United States.
Gerard Koskovich
Founding Member
GLBT Historical Society
San Francisco
http://www.glbthistory.org
Thanks for the correction! I actually knew that S.I.R. was the first, and wrote about it in my book “The Queerest Places,” but forgot. Ah, the joys of middle-age brain blips. I greatly appreciate your comment.