Queer Places:
36 Hackensack Ave, Weehawken, NJ 07086
Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles St, New York, NY 10014
126 Jackson St, San Francisco, CA 94111
Henry Robert "Ruby" Bernhammer (October 20, 1904 - February, 1971) was born in Weehawken, New Jersey.
In February 1923 the Charles Street Police Station in Manhattan was paying special attention to Greenwich Village. Deputy Inspector Joseph A. Howard and Captain Edward J. Dempsey of the Charles Street Station, and a party of ten detectives visited each tearoom and cabaret. Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were assigned to the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus", and arrested five women and eight men. However on closer inspection, Ruby Bernhammer, from West Hoboken, New Jersey, did not meet their definition of a woman. Bernhammer was charged with disorderly conduct for giving an indecent dance, and they gave her name as 'Harry'. Another arrested was Arthur C. Budd, who worked as a female impersonator in “The Lady in Ermine” at The Century Theater under the name Rosebud. The next day the local magistrate dismissed charges against all but the proprietors of the Black Parrot. Rosebud lost his job at The Century Theatre, but was working again the next year.
In the 1940s Bernhammer had moved to California and worked for Mattson Navigation Co. and lived in San Francisco.
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