Kandy’s Of Course Beauty Salon and the Lola
Where for your hair? Kandy's, of course!
When it came to getting your hair done on Broad Street, Kandy’s Of Course Beauty Salon was the place to go. The owner, Kandy Rainey, lived above her beauty salon in a building named the Lola Apartments. Together, these two spaces bravely created an important nexus of community and a safe haven for trans and gender-nonconforming people in Providence.
Kandy Rainey opened Kandy’s Of Course Beauty Salon in 1968. The salon was first located at 246 Broad Street at the intersection of Wickham Street, where the Upper South Providence and West Side neighborhoods meet. Providence was undergoing a massive shift at that time. The population of the city was decreasing and the city government’s hostile urban renewal policies began to push Black people and families in South Providence to the outskirts of the city. Kandy’s was located near the newly-constructed Interstate Highway 95 (I-95), which split the city of Providence in two. I-95 demarcated communities along the lines of race and class in the city.
For most of Kandy’s time there, Broad Street was considered the declining outskirts of the city; but for LGBTQ+ people, the outskirts were safer than the so-called thriving parts of the city. The city itself was not a safe place for LGBTQ+ people in the 1960s, and while things improved slightly with communal events like the city’s first Pride March in 1976, LGBTQ+ people were still being harassed and assaulted by police and average citizens alike.
As a sanctuary for trans people and drag performers, the Lola was more than just an apartment building; it was a family. Former resident Brian Belovitch wrote in his book, Trans Figured, “the Lola was an education at best in how to survive a life that was going to be extremely challenging.” This feeling of family and care extended to Kandy’s Of Course Beauty Salon. In its early years, below the Lola Apartments, the salon was known by the neighborhood kids who would, in Belovitch’s words, “watch the drag queens running in and out of the beauty salon.”
Eventually, in the 1980s, Kandy’s moved to 802 Broad Street, a mile south of the Lola. As the only beauty salon along Broad Street for a long time, Kandy’s became an important part of the community. As so many beauty salons in Black neighborhoods do, Kandy’s Of Course provided a gathering space, a center of care, and a place of refuge. Kandy’s longstanding dedication to the neighborhood was even noticed by the local government, and Kandy received a commendation from the State of Rhode Island House of Representatives in 2005 for “outstanding and dedicated service to improve the quality of life.” Kandy’s went on for another decade and, after 49 years of serving the community, closed in 2017.
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