(Hoke wrote an article honoring these spots, packed with hilarious anecdotes.) In Berkeley, a feminist collective ran the Brick Hut Café. Nearby Albany had The Bacchanal on Solano Avenue, and Hayward had The Driftwood. There was Camilla’s on 13th Avenue and Ollie’s on Telegraph in Temescal.
In Oakland they had a few such places, most active between the 1970s and ‘90s. “Women thought, ‘We should have something too,’” she said. Sometimes there would be a “women’s night” on the least popular evening. Gay men’s bars have always far outnumbered lesbian bars in most places, Brooke said. In her artist’s statement she notes that lesbian bars are “so often anonymous or mute, and now waning.” Many are “not archived, and not ‘important’ spaces in a mainstream kind of way,” she said. Making these unassuming buildings “monumental” is part of Brooke’s project. The Jubilee also played regularly as one team against other lesbian bars. The denizens of the two floors would sometimes play softball against each other, on teams called the Uppers (upstairs) and Downers, according to Hoke. “Upstairs we played Black music so there were a lot of Black girls there.” It was the only bar that somewhat catered to the Bay Area’s large Black lesbian community, said Davis, who added, “I met my last lover at The Jubilee. Davis, another Jubilee regular, in a 1991 interview conducted for the Wide Open Town History Project. Downstairs, older women held court, listening to country-western music, said T. The Jubilee, like Longworth and Howard’s home, had two levels. “It was such a symbol of the community created there,” she said. That’s how she came into possession of a beautiful old ceiling fan that ran in her Oakland real estate office for decades. “They would throw an auction for any type of crisis a lesbian had,” Hoke said, even if someone’s cat needed surgery. Nevertheless, the hardened bargoers embraced the newcomer into their world, where women took good care of one another. The first time she stepped foot inside The Jubilee in the ‘70s, she made the faux-pas of ordering a glass of sherry. Longworth and Howard demonstrate “joy collectivators” made by Howard. “On the other hand, it was just a total place of freedom,” Hoke told The Oaklandside. 14th bar and murdered someone after discovering his wife was involved with a woman. According to Hoke, that security system was established after an angry husband burst into E. The doors stayed locked, and there was a peephole through which prospective customers were eyed warily. “You couldn’t just walk into The Jubilee,” recalled Barbara Hoke, an Oakland resident whose social life was centered at the bar for years.
Owned by Betty Arnesen and Velma Souza, The Jubilee was a working-class, no-nonsense establishment where women came to play pool and knock back a few. It quickly became a second home for a tight-knit community of lesbians, who formed their own softball team. 14th Street (now International Boulevard). The Jubilee moved there in the mid-’70s, from its previous location on E. Want your home featured next? Let us know more by filling out this quick form.