30 Infamo Police Raids of Gay Bars and Bathho

Contents:

• ‘RIGHTEO ANGER WAS A PART OF ’: THE SHOCKG STORY OF NEW YORK’S GAY BAR KILLER
• GAY NEW YORK CY
• THE BEST BATH GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS BATH
• THE 10 BEST NEW YORK GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS NEW YORK
• BATH GAY BARS

‘RIGHTEO ANGER WAS A PART OF ’: THE SHOCKG STORY OF NEW YORK’S GAY BAR KILLER

As an exhsted and emotnal gay man says archival footage: “Do you know what is to be asslted for beg alive? ”It’s a grim picture by self but that era also saw another threat enter the ame, quietly and gomely pickg off gay men already livg on a knife’s Last Call killer, as the media me to ll him, mostly found his victims the one place his victims ed as safe refuge: gay bars.

GAY NEW YORK CY

“Righteo anger was a part of , ” says Gertler, of makg the project as a gay man.

“The gay thg wasn’t really relevant to the vtigatn, apart om who might have killed him and where he hung out, ” one says, straight-faced.

At another pot, a tective turns the qutns back to ask: “Why is the emphasis on the gay part? ” Photograph: HBOWhile the thori dragged their feet, missg important leads and claimg ignorance over how to handle the se (“I don’t know about where all the gay bars are New York Cy, ” one says, a sense of rigid mascule pri unrlyg) and the media chose to eher ignore or salacly explo, was left up to the same activists who had helped the muny through the early stag of the HIV epimic and ntued to protect them om other forc to do the work. “We’re hearg the same thgs over and over aga by Ron DeSantis, ” Caronna says, parg the rhetoric of now to that of before, phed by the hateful sger turned vol homophobe Ana Bryant, clud the seri.

THE BEST BATH GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS BATH

“It’s this legacy of homophobia that’s still very prent and then we get people like Tmp who stoke the flam of homophobia bee they know ’s a wedge issue, bee they know that their fanbase will love if they e after trans people or they e after gay people. It’s all about power, ’s all jt people knowg how to stoke the flam of homophobia for power.

”Last year also saw a story that chillgly mirrored elements of the Last Call killer’s se, wh a spate of men targeted at New York gay bars before beg murred.

”But what Last Call also do is show the undyg importance of the gay bar, even to those who might not unrstand s need (straight lleagu and iends have asked me why gay bars still exist when “Every bar is a gay bar now” and siarly, madngly, “Is g out even a thg anymore?

THE 10 BEST NEW YORK GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS NEW YORK

To both Caronna and Gertler, pecially at a time of tensified homophobia, the gay bar is as val as ever. “I thk we all have our own lived experienc and my lived experience happens to be the clost wh the gay people that I’m around, ” Caronna says. When Matt [Foreman] said I don’t thk straight people unrstand what ’s like to walk to a gay bar, we were like we need to put this le bee actually is a good way of amg .

Raids on gay bars and bathho served to spire the historic Stonewall rts that lnched the morn LGBTQ+ rights movement the U.

Fifty years after the Black Cat protts Los Angel, which directly led to the lnch of The Advote, we take a look at some of the most nsequential strik on gay bars and bathho datg back more than a century. The rmatn gathered actually led to a wir vtigatn of homosexualy nearby ci, which rulted 20 arrts, cludg two ps on the Baker Street beat, acrdg to Allan Bebe’s A History of Bathho. Moral reformers New York Cy raised polil prsure on police the 1920s to shut down the Lafayette Brothers’ Turkish Baths, a popular spot for gay men livg and visg the cy.

BATH GAY BARS

A German gay magaze 1929 published an acunt of a 26-year-old European visor that said eight tectiv went unrver the bathhoe, then round all patrons the ont room and beat the guts. Loted between Los Angel gay bars Harold’s and the Waldorf, Cooper’s Donuts at night beme a hub of social activy for drag queens, gays, trans people, and htlers the 1950s.

While one of the first known phbacks agast police raids, likely would have been fotten if not for the fact gay lerature pneer John Rechy happened to be there as the time.

San Francis police 1966 announced a crackdown on gay bathho and March of that year raid the 21st Street Baths. A New Year’s police raid on the Black Cat, a gay bay the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angel, rulted the beatgs of more than a dozen people; two men were arrted for the crime of kissg and a bartenr suffered a ptured spleen. While such raids of gay bars were mon the late 1960s, the severy of this cint sparked protts for weeks.