Jewel's Catch One was a dance bar owned by Jewel Thais-Williams. It was located at 4067 West Pico Boulevard in the Arlington Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Venue: Jewel's Catch One
Town: Los Angeles, US

Jewel's Catch One was a dance bar owned by Jewel Thais-Williams. It was located at 4067 West Pico Boulevard in the Arlington Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Opened in 1973, it was the longest running black gay dance bar in Los Angeles. After nearly closing in 2015, it was purchased by Mitch Edelson and his father Steve Edelson - who reopened under new management. Briefly called Union after the change in management, it has since reverted to the Catch One moniker. Opened in 1973, Jewel's Catch One was one of the first black discos in the United States and was for a long time the major black gay bar in Los Angeles. The original owner of the club was Jewel Thais-Williams. She graduated from UCLA with a B.A. in History, and during her college years she wanted to be self-employed. Her first business was a boutique, but it went out of business, so she bought a bar. She opened the club after she experienced discrimination in different clubs around West Hollywood, because she was black and female. Women at the time were not allowed to tend bar, but Jewel saved enough money and bought the bar despite the limitations. When the club opened, it became a hub for a diverse population of performers, including Sylvester, Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Janet Jackson, Donna Summer, Whoopi Goldberg, Rick James, and Madonna. Also, it served as a space for political organizations to have their community meetings. As the years went by, the attendance of the bar went down. When Jewel was about to shut the club down, it was bought by Steve Edelson and his son Mitch Edelson in November, 2015. After that, it became known as the last Black owned disco and was renamed The Union. The club was featured as an organization in an exhibit in the City Hall in Los Angeles called "Defiant Spaces". While patrons of Jewel's Catch One as undergraduate students at the University of Southern California in the mid-1980s, filmmaker, Cristina Kotz Cornejo and her life partner, African-American playwrigh