The Garden of Allah was a mid-20th century gay cabaret that opened in 1946[1][2] in the basement of the Victorian-era Arlington Hotel in Seattle's Pioneer Square. It was Seattle's most popular gay cabaret in the late 1940s and 1950s[3] and one of the first gay-owned gay bars in the United States.[1] Prior to becoming a cabaret, the space had been a speakeasy, during Prohibition, and then a tavern.
The Garden catered to both gay men and lesbians, though straight tourists and military personnel on leave also visited. Acts were primarily female impersonation, though some male impersonators also performed; the former sometimes included stripping. One act was the professional female-impersonation Jewel Box Revue,[4] though that act was largely geared to and supported by straight people.[1]
Patrons report that the cabaret became like a "family" or "support group,"[3] and Don Paulson, author of An Evening at the Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle, noted that he believes the sense of community and group consciousness produced by the Garden was what made the gay rights movement of later decades possible.[1]
The Garden closed in 1956, when a combination of a rate raise from the musicians' union and a raise in city taxes on locales that provided both entertainment and alcohol put it out of business.[3]