Podcast Summary:

New Books Network
Episode: Damon Scott, "The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco"
Date: January 24, 2026
Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Damon Scott

Overview

This episode delves into Dr. Damon Scott’s book, The City Aroused: Queer Places and Urban Redevelopment in Postwar San Francisco. The discussion traces how postwar redevelopment in San Francisco’s waterfront area intersected with queer space-making, community formation, labor dynamics, and urban planning from the 1940s to the early 1960s. Dr. Scott explores the erasure and transformation of queer spaces, shedding light on how these sites became forces for both collective identity and political action.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins of the Project and the Missing Waterfront

• Scott’s Background and Entry Point: As an urban historical geographer with expertise in cartography, Scott began mapping "queer sites" in San Francisco and discovered many historic addresses had vanished due to urban redevelopment (02:07–06:17).
• Focus on “Unmappable” Places:

  “This book really is the story of those places that I was unable to map.”
  (Scott, 05:43)

2. Defining “Queer Land Use” (06:40–10:23)

• Term Coined by Scott: To describe a range of commercial activities accommodating non-normative sexual desires—beyond just “gay bars”—including hotels, lunch counters, bathhouses.
• Focus on Land, Ownership, and Control:

  “By intentionally focusing on and using the word land uses, I really want to center the narrative… on questions of land ownership, land tenure, property leases, and in particular the role of state actors operating under a very particular vision for managing post war urban development.”
  (Scott, 09:04)

3. Racial Integration and Maritime Labor Solidarity (11:09–17:50)

• The Marine Cooks and Stewards Union & Racial Mixing:
  • San Francisco’s maritime trades fostered cross-racial and cross-sexual solidarity, with unions actively fighting racism and homophobia (12:15).
  • By WWII’s end, about half the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union were African American, fostering racially integrated queer spaces.
• Cultural Reflection:
  • Jazz nightlife, cruising zones, and cross-racial sexual tourism were vital to the waterfront’s social fabric.

4. Cold War Pressures—Surveillance, “Lavender Scare,” and Policing (18:35–25:30)

• Postwar Transformation: The onset of the Cold War led to screening and purging of “subversives and homosexuals” from maritime labor, disrupting livelihoods and increasing surveillance (19:10–22:27).
• Landmark Bar Battles:
  • The Black Cat Cafe fought for the right to serve homosexual patrons—a significant pre-Stonewall civil rights moment (22:45).
  • Other bars like Sea Cow Café became targets for raids and harassment even as they served as gathering spaces for marginalized groups.

5. The Police, State, and Spatial Reorganization (25:53–32:14)

• Persistence Despite Persecution:
  • Many venues persisted through police raids, often reopening with police complicity for graft (“Gayola” scandal) (27:15).
  • The City and business elites began steering queer nightlife to the waterfront, viewed as “vice districts” slated for redevelopment.
• Spatial Politics:

  “You see a lot more crackdowns… and a more kind of laissez faire attitude about the waterfront. And what I attribute this to is that by the mid-1950s… city leaders had already kind of settled on this idea that the San Francisco waterfront… was going to be redeveloped.”
  (Scott, 30:43)

6. The Weaponization of “Blight” (32:39–39:11)

• Blight as a Legal Tool:
  • Declaring areas “blighted” facilitated eminent domain and justified mass clearance for higher-value redevelopment (33:21).
• Economic and Sexual Politics:
  • “Blight” was invoked using coded language about vice, dilapidation, and “abnormality,” targeting economically and socially marginalized queer spaces for removal.

7. Flourishing and Resistance Prior to Erasure (39:36–48:17)

• Late 1950s–Early 1960s: Period of Flourishing
  • Despite looming redevelopment, a vibrant, politicized queer bar culture blossomed, including venues like the Ensign Cafe and the Talk of the Town (90 Market Street).
• Jose Sarria’s Leadership:
  • Sarria, famed drag performer and activist, expanded from the Black Cat to 90 Market, transforming it into a political and social hub (43:05–46:39).
  • Sarria’s efforts included launching one of the first gay newspapers (Citizen’s News), mobilizing voters, and organizing defense funds for threatened businesses.

8. Bar Cultures and the Early Gay Rights Movement (48:17–54:49)

• Political Organizing Roots:
  • Scott argues for recognizing the role of these “commercial queer land uses” as crucibles of early political organizing—prefiguring the later gay neighborhood and rights movements.

  “I think it happens in 90 Market Street… a new politics about protecting, defending, [and] preserving… gathering space and a place for these queer drinking publics to reconstitute themselves.”
  (Scott, 50:12)

9. The Endgame: Eviction, Violence, and Varied Outcomes (54:49–60:01)

• Varied Policing Responses:
  • Venues with strong political mobilization (e.g., Sarria’s clubs) faced more aggressive eviction, violence, and destruction.
  • Other “managed vice” establishments with less overt political activity persisted longer under tacit police protection.

  “The places that had drag shows that were also fundraisers… met a much more destructive, swift, damaging, violent end… than [places] that… wasn’t actually a place that its patrons were kind of politically organized or radicalized.”
  (Scott, 59:03)

10. Memory, Loss, and Calls for Recognition (60:25–64:25)

• Aftermath:
  • By mid-1960s, the physical queer waterfront was gone, replaced by parks, freeways, and financial offices.
  • Collective memory of these spaces persisted—nourished through community events, publications, and oral histories.
• Commemoration:

  “I think the book provides a really compelling argument for actually renaming what was Justin Herman Plaza… as Jose Sarria Plaza.”
  (Scott, 63:49)

11. Ongoing Research & Legacy (65:01–67:16)

• Scott aims to expand the reach of these stories and further explore San Francisco’s redevelopment politics and the legacy of figures like Jose Sarria and the international court system.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Missing Addresses and Urban Change:

  “Not only were the buildings gone, but the street grid was completely been reconfigured. And so this book really is the story of those places that I was unable to map.”
  (Scott, 05:33–05:43)

• On Queer Land Use:

  “Queer land uses signifies a much more inclusive way of thinking about sexual and gender non normative populations and publics…”
  (Scott, 07:45)

• On Racial Solidarity:

  “They were very proud… about fighting against what they referred to as red baiting, queen baiting and race baiting of their unions.”
  (Scott, 13:41)

• On Blightedness & Redevelopment:

  “It’s a way of condemning something. But it’s [a] combination that has the power, full power of governmental authority… to tear down and rebuild sections of the city.”
  (Scott, 35:13)

• On Loss & Memory:

  “They’re physically torn up and they’re gone, but they kind of live on in the kind of public memory of the people who recognized the kind of social and political significance of those places, even though… they were long gone.”
  (Scott, 62:16)

Key Timestamps

• Introduction & Book Origins: 02:07–06:17
• Queer Land Use Explained: 06:40–10:23
• Race & Labor Solidarity: 11:09–17:50
• Cold War, Surveillance & Raids: 18:35–25:30
• Police Involvement & Managed Vice: 25:53–32:14
• Blight & Redevelopment: 32:39–39:11
• Flourishing Nightlife & Sarria: 39:36–48:17
• Political Organization Roots: 48:17–54:49
• Evictions, Policing, and Differing Outcomes: 54:49–60:01
• Aftermath & Memory: 60:25–64:25
• Future Research & Legacy: 65:01–67:16

Conclusion

Dr. Damon Scott’s oral history-rich account reveals how San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ communities carved out, defended, and ultimately lost their waterfront spaces amid state and economic redevelopment schemes. The episode shows these “queer land uses” as foundational to the emergence of broader gay rights activism—linked inextricably to unions, race, policing, and city planning. Through this lens, listeners are invited to reconsider the origins of queer solidarity and urban change, and to remember the lost geographies beneath today’s city streets.