Last week during my volunteer shift at the historical society, I encountered the “Gay Liberation” vertical file while investigating the construction of I-205. I held the “Freeways-completed East Side” file full of eminent domain intrigue and the familiar photo narrative of houses, trees segue to dirt, bulldozers, and on to cement, asphalt to the inevitability of smooth curves and fast cars, and I thought, this is not the way I choose to spend the next hour. For those of you who have not pulled the Gay Liberation vertical file from the Oregon Historical Society’s research library newspaper clippings collection, I will tell you it is thick with materials. I will also tell you that the obscure citation: Lauderdale, Thomas M.; Cook, Tom (September–October 1993). “The Incredible Life and Loves of the Legendary Lucille Hart”. Alternative Connection 2 (12 & 13). on the Alan L. Hart wikipedia page is there, both volumes, and that the Alternative Connection seems to be a short-lived early ’90s free gay rights advocacy paper. And yes that is Thomas Lauderdale, as in the founder of Pink Martini, as in my dad’s favorite band, and your aunt’s, and basically if NPR was a virtuoso cosmopolitan 10-piece. After graduating from Harvard and returning to Portland he commenced to accomplish and publish important research on a man assigned female at birth whose transition marked “the first time a psychiatrist recommended the removal of a healthy organ based solely on an individual’s gender identity.” And only then was Lauderdale primed to turn Apollinaire poems into neo-cabaret classics, giving cultured grown-ups the world over an excuse to buy a new CD for the first time since the Buena Vista Social Club. This is super exciting, not just because Hart was an Oregonian, kind of went to my school (Hart attended Albany College [which would become Lewis & Clark, relocating to Palatine Hill in Southwest Portland]), where he was allowed to dress like a man, complete his work with a male pseudonym, and sleep with women because that was normal. And not just because he ended up pioneering x-ray technology in diagnosing tuberculosis, in spite of repeatedly being outed as transgender and having to relocate and start over, which resulted the end of his first marriage, and not just because he ended up becoming a successful novelist as a consequence—however, until I find some evidence regarding Dr. Hart’s relationship to municipal parks, natural areas, etc., I will have to move on. And we will carry on, as though on a walking tour, which one also will find in the file, compiled and published by the Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest, the 1999 Portland Gay History Walking Tour, to Lownsdale Square, and its infamous tearoom: 
Indeed the city does not seem excited about the historical accuracy of its men’s room, since the lengthy article on the city’s website describes in detail everything in the park BUT the bathroom, which is only described in the beginning amenities section, the square “includes accessible restroom,” not a social battleground where the definition of “disorderly conduct involving morals” is under real-time revision. Chapman and Lownsdale Squares represent the conflicting narratives generated by the people and those in whom they invest power. Is the public plaza a place granted to us by the city for our enjoyment as part of a contract in which we submit to its laws, or is it a place where we gather and demand a greater freedom, one more inclusive and even-handed, where a man can fellate another man without fear of losing his job or family, and where symbolic victories can be felt by protestors? In the case of Lownsdale and Chapman, until the ordinance was repealed in 1990, the symbolic victory was simply the subversion of the ban on men in Chapman, and women in Lownsdale, as evidenced by this anecdote:
Eugene Bradley is a retired postal manager who lives in Portland. He recalls visiting Portland in 1971 with his then wife before he moved here. “We both sat down on a bench in the women’s park and a policeman came up and said no, no you can’t sit here, which confused me because I’m not from here. But then I wasn’t sure if my wife could sit with me in the men’s park either,” says Bradley.
1971. NINE TEEN SEVENTY ONE. The tea room must remain a secret historic monument because sexism and homophobia are not historic in our public institutions, they are current. There exists no rupture between the present and a past built upon stratification and exclusion. But this is what is so satisfying about the city perfectly replicating an historic comfort station notorious for casual sexual encounters: it always will represent a liberation of human beings that goes slightly beyond whatever the present status quo provides—no matter what the city officially describes as going on in a park, the people are the ones actually doing it, and freely subverting whatever the state wants them to do. The plazas are sexually segregated to enforce a non-erotic, wholesome atmosphere of newspaper reading and cigar smoking in the north, and pleasant socializing and pushing the stroller to the south, to which the people of Portland say fuck that. This photograph is from 1906: 
NINE TEEN OH SIX. Luckily for everybody, there is an online version of this walking tour which is even more thorough than the copy at OHS, where this photo comes from. It interprets this photograph,
ABOVE: This photo of Lownsdale Square was taken in 1906, well after its reputation as a cruising spot had become known. It’s interesting that one of the gentleman in the foreground is looking unhappily at the photographer. He is lounging with another man on the grass and apparently doesn’t like the idea of his picture being taken.
I wonder why… If this is what was happening in public, out in the open, if still in “the cool shade,” what was going on in that tea room? Laud Humphrey’s 1970 study, Tearoom Trade, took advantage of the need for a third person in the encounters serving as look out: the “watchqueen.” As the work’s wikipedia page describes, “By offering his services as the ‘watchqueen,’ Humphreys was able to observe the activities of other participants.” And so the author delved deep in the world of “tea rooming,” referred to as “cottaging” in England because they refer to public bathrooms as “cottages” apparently, because everything in England is adorable. The idea of calling a stone building with nothing but a toilet and sink in it as a “tea room” already smacks of English preciousness.
The space was already a notorious cruising location by the dawn of the 20th century, and the tearoom can be seen here already constructed in this 1910 photograph, behind and to the left of the memorial statue:
Of course, note the Thompson Elk statue, the point where Lownsdale and Chapman meet, and where men and women could regroup after their segregated park experiences, described in greater length in a previous post on the squares.
The social battleground for gay rights may have shifted, to bakeries specializing in wedding cakes, for example, and the boy scouts, and really everything still, but the park remains a place for pushing boundaries. However, in case the heteronormative binary status quo and the oppression pulled behind it come into question, in the form of a May Day rally for example surrounding Chapman Square and shutting down 3rd Avenue, the police are there to speak to the young white family, mom pushing stroller, dad sucking down mountain dew, feet from the sculpture of that same perfect Oregonian family that followed the trail and discovered the promised land, reassuring them, captured by the author in this grainy photo, this remains all for you, you are the chosen image of an American family, the poor people are politely requesting a raise and upset that black people still get in trouble with the police, carry on and know that you are blessed. Enjoy the day.
Also, this is still the GLAPN Walking Tour, apparently Council Crest was a huge festival of gay sex and purposely abandoned and allowed to decay as a result:
Council Crest Amusement Park, 1907 to 1929. It took little time for the park to develop an unsavory reputation. In 1911, there was an attempt to ban private dances there, with the Mayor noting that “the class of people” attending would not be “the most desirable kind.” During the Vice Clique Scandal, witness Earl Taylor testified that fellow witness Kenneth Hollister seduced him after taking him “on the side hill” away from the actual park. From other references in the Scandal trials, it appears Taylor and Hollister were not the only men using the side of the hill as a trysting place. Another Gay man implicated in the Scandal, Will Phelps, said that he and a straight female friend (apparently a 1912 version of a “fag hag”) visited there together often. Ballot measures to authorize the city to purchase Council Crest lost 72%-28% in 1911 and 64%‑36% in 1913, with evidence showing voters didn’t want the notorious site in the city limits.
An Unauthorized Guide to the parks of the world 