Piec | Gay Bar | New York Cy, NY

Contents:

• THEN&NOW: AN OVERLOOKED CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY SCENE
• THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC
• NEW YORK CY GAY BARS
• GAY NEW YORK CY

THEN&NOW: AN OVERLOOKED CHRISTOPHER STREET GAY SCENE

New York's Lost Gay BarsWe've known for many years that too many of our cherished gay bars and clubs are shutterg, fallg victim to risg rents and the ubiquy of apps like Grdr and Scff.

Over the urse of the early 20th century, was a safe haven for New York's LGBTQ muny and home to events—cludg the Stonewall Inn protts—that would bee flash pots for the mastreamg of the gay rights movement all across the remas to this day an important symbol of LGBTQ life New York (photographs of the sign at s tersectn wh Gay Street are tourist souvenir shop stapl), even though 's now more populated wh luxury shops and extravagant gyms than the nightlife hotspots that was once famo for. At this time gay bars were still not openly operatg, but the way the thory wrote s l meant they would later bee the unexpected llateral damage of the legislatn.

While the thory did not directly ce gay bars any of s extensive regulatns, police will go on to terpret a le agast nng a "disorrly" tablishment to mean venu equented by gay people. Durg this time, the FBI matas a list of gay Amerins, who will subsequently be targeted by police for an array of illegal activi, cludg habatn and kissg the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, many queer people of lor had been leadg a (relatively) open life the north Manhattan neighborhood—as celebrated gay artist Bce Nugent put : "Nobody was the closet. Drag queens beg to flock to the Village om all over the cy, pg plac where drsg female clothg public rults eher arrt, or beatg om homophobic vigilant.

THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC

In the face of laws barrg gay men om beg seen public together, gay men and drag queens beg to cise the wateront and steal away wh anonymo lovers to the squalid flopho dotted along the P. Proprietors of gay-iendly bars are routely harassed; gay patrons are refed a bid to spotlight this discrimatn, on April 21, 1966 the gay rights group the Mattache Society cis to hold a Sip-. Activists hatch a plan to go around bars the Village, and tt out whether they will still receive service after revealg to bartenrs that they are gay—all ont of the half dozen reporters they have ved along for the ri.

The former 1920s speakeasy—which is still around today—is actually an gno gay bar, but the manager is hoots wh the activists and ref them service ont of the reporters. Amid the chaos and uncertaty happeng on Christopher Street, 's a moment that's e to be known as the trigger for the morn mastreamg of the gay rights movement. In the immediate aftermath of Stonewall, gay activists and rints of the neighborhood beg batg how to harns the thst of the rts to an assertive fight for eedom.

NEW YORK CY GAY BARS

On June 28, a few hundred gay men and lbians march om Christopher Street up Sixth Ave and to Central Park bearg handma banners wh slogans like "Gay Pri" and "Gay is Good. " After Stonewall, relatns between the police and gay muny are still tense, and Augt, police raid the club on the grounds that they're searchg for dgs. The Osr Wil Bookshop, found by leadg gay activist Craig Rodwell as the first store New York to exclively sell tl by gay and lbian thors, mov to Christopher Street.

First opened at 291 Mercer Street 1967, mov to the rner of Christopher and Gay Streets (the etymology of Gay Street's name, cintally, is a total cince) held on Christopher Street for the victims of the Orlando shootg. Cmpley opens fire outsi a li at the rner of Washgton and 10th Streets, woundg two people before movg on to Ramrod, a gay club on Wt Street between 10th and Christopher. By 1982 the term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is formally troduced by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn for the disease that is sweepg through the untry, and cimatg the Village's gay populatn.

Bailey Hoe, the untry's first hog plex for HIV/AIDS sufferers, opens on the wtern end of Christopher Street, a four-story buildg that had once hoed a gay dis.

GAY NEW YORK CY

The AIDS epimic, but also the crack crisis New York at this time the mographic of the Village to shift om predomantly whe gay men to black and hispanic. Shops shutter, crime rat rise, and the once throbbg heartbeat of gay New York is slowed down to a thready Stonewall Inn the day after the mass shootg Orlando. Perhaps 's bee of pure enomics—as artists n no longer afford to live there, or maybe LGBTQ people feel safe livg all over the cy now, but Christopher Street and s Village is more gay spir now than actual makp.

Sourc: Greenwich Village and how got that way, Terry Miller; Gay Metropolis, Charl Kaiser; The Village: 400 years of beats and bohemians, radils and rogu, John Strsbgh; Love, Christopher Street: Reflectns of New York Cy, Thomas Keh. The June 1969 rebelln agast police harassment by the patrons of the Stonewall Inn, at the eastern end of Christopher Street, helped to lnch a natnal gay rights movement and make Christopher Street the social and cultural center of New York’s lbian and gay muny.

Today, almost all of the attentn to the historic gay scene is foced on the east end of Christopher Street, but there is another important area of Christopher Street that serv attentn: the wt end.

” The area wh long-tablished wateront taverns, losg the rough seamen and longshoreman patrons by the 1960’s, had bee a nucls for bars terg to a gay clientele (those bars that rema still draw nice crowds).

One of New York’s first gay bars to open after the Stone Wall Rt of 1969, Ty’s has been gay owned and operated sce openg 1972, and ’s always been a “man’s” bar. In Namg New York, Sanna Feirste claims was named for Sidney Howard Gay (1814-1888), edor of the Chigo and New York Tribun and a proment abolnist, but  The Street Book, Henry Mosw says the name ‘Gay Street’ appears the Common Council mut of 4/12/1827 — when Sidney Howard Gay was thirteen.

Authors Ruth McKenny (“My Sister Eileen” New Yorker stori) and Mary McCarthy (“The Group“) lived on Gay Street, as well as radil lawyer William Kunstler and Howdy Doody creator Frank Parris. In the buildgs on the right are the Stonewall Inn, where the morn gay rights fight began, and a uple of doors down, the former Ln’s Head, a mid-century gl terg to the ‘k-staed wretch’ the newspaper bs, pecially lumnists and thors like Pete Hal, Jimmy Brl and Norman Mailer. Jt a few blocks om the cha rtrants dottg Tim Square, The Spot is one of Manhattan’s newt gay bars, recently opened by the owners of Hell’s Kchen mastay Rise Bar.