A Los Angeles neighborhood has removed a number of "no U-Turn" signs from the streets after claims that the signs targeted the LGBTQ community in the area.
According to NBC 4, "No Cruising" and prohibited U-turns signs were installed in a Silver Lake neighborhood in 1997 after neighbors reportedly complained about gay men in residential areas outside gay bars looking for dates. The No Cruising signs were removed after a vote in 2011 by the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council, and some of the no U-turn signs have remained up since.
"I was also surprised that these U-turn signs were still up, and at first, they seem a little ... 'Oh, ok, it's just a no U-turn sign,' but when you learn the history of it, and you realize that these were used to profile gay people, it's so important that we have these removed," said drag queen Silver Lake Neighborhood Councilmember Maebe A. Girl.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district includes part of Silver Lake, said she had heard about the remaining signs in a podcast.
“The podcast mentioned that there had been 'No Cruising' signs along Hyperion that had been removed in 2011, but that nine signs still remained on Griffith Park Boulevard,” Raman said. “Our very own Silver Lake constituent, Donovan Daughtry, heard the episode, and in May of 2022 he reached out to our Silver Lake Field Deputy at the time.”
Rama said that after months of "bureaucratic process," she collaborated with Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez’s office, whose district includes other portions of Silver Late, to remove the remaining signs.
Soto-Martinez said, "For me, growing up in South Central Los Angeles, cruising had a very different meaning. It usually meant folks in their lowriders or their cars, a lot of hip-hop music, just going up down Crenshaw Boulevard. But here in Silver Lake, cruising, of course, meant something very different. It meant an opportunity for the LGBT community to try to find human connection and intimacy and to be able to express themselves in a society at the time that was not very welcoming to the LGBT community."
"The last two no U-Turn signs remind us of that troubled past that we have here in this neighborhood," he added.
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