Eve's Hangout

The story

A 1926 Variety article accused Eva Kotchever of being financed by 'a ring of rich women cultists' — and the scandal only deepened her legend. The Polish-Jewish feminist had already run a tearoom in Chicago before opening Eve's Hangout at 129 MacDougal Street in 1925, planting it squarely in Greenwich Village's growing gay and lesbian community. She built a haven for lesbians, migrants, working-class people, and intellectuals, organizing concerts, readings, and meetings. Artists like Berenice Abbott came. The place made room for people the city otherwise refused to see.