How did Damron organize the gay world?

Damron's Address Books used a unique classification system—"Amenity Features"—to categorize establishments. These lettered designations appeared next to listings and denoted everything from (D) for dancing to (AYOR) for "At Your Own Risk." This visualization lets you track how these categorizations changed over time, compare multiple amenities simultaneously, and examine geographic distributions. Explore linguistic shifts (like the evolution from "Girls" to "Ladies" to "Women"), trace the rise of wheelchair-accessible venues after the 1990 ADA, or map locations marked as dangerous during periods of police surveillance. Select up to three amenities below to compare trends across time and space.

Learn more about using this visualization → Read more about each amenity category and how it appeared in the guides →