On this day, 17 June 1926 Eve’s Hangout, a New York underground queer and radical cafe run by Eve Adams, was raided by police. Adams was born Chawa Zloczower in Poland to a Jewish family in 1891. A lesbian bar, it was host to a number of meetings, poetry nights, and a safe haven for radicals in Greenwich village. The proprietor, Adams, cut a scandalous figure having open lesbian relationships and eschewing what at the time was traditional women's wear. She was a well known associate of anarchists and had made her living in the US through collecting subscriptions to anarchist and socialist papers. The cafe would be targetted by landlords and police and was eventually raided on June 17. Adams was arrested and many queer and radical texts were destroyed including Adams' own Lesbian Love. She would be found guilty for "obscenity" and deported. She then lived in France where she would continue to sell radical publications and fall in love with Jewish cabaret singer Hella Olstein. Adams and Olstein were both arrested in Nice in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered. This is one of hundreds of stories featured in our book, Be Gay, Do Crime: Everyday Acts of Queer Resistance and Rebellion, available with global shipping: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/be-gay-do-crime-everyday-acts-of-queer-resistance-and-rebellion
