THE 10 BEST New York Cy Gay Clubs & Bars (Updated 2023)

Contents:

• DISVERG NEW YORK'S 'GAY BARS THAT ARE GONE'
• YOU COULD BE A GAY BAR RIGHT NOW AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT
• THE 12 BT GAY BARS IN NYC
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF ATTACKS AT GAY AND LBIAN BARS
• ‘MY FIRST GAY BAR’: RACHEL MADDOW, ANDY COHEN AND OTHERS SHARE THEIR COMG-OUT STORI
• BT GAY BARS IN NEW YORK CY
• ONE OF NEW YORK CY’S OLST GAY BARS IS NOW A HISTORIC LANDMARK
• HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY
• THE 10 BEST NEW YORK CY GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS NEW YORK CY
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

DISVERG NEW YORK'S 'GAY BARS THAT ARE GONE'

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.

I wanted to hear more of are a few rmative books that aim to document the changg social landsp of New York's gay nightlife spots and the effect the spac had on both civil rights Ameri and mastream arts and culture. Gee Chncey's Gay New York and Charl Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis e to md, but for the most part, histori of LGBT nightlife are relegated to somethg like the ments sectn of a DataLounge thread. We weren't sure how many people would show up for a two hour journey of closed gay bars, but by the time the walk started over 80 people of all ag and reasons for g were signg their nam to a sign- sheet adhered to a Bt Ltle Whorehoe Texas rerd ver actg as a clipboard and wag for the walk to got everyone's attentn.

YOU COULD BE A GAY BAR RIGHT NOW AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT

Absolutely no one on the New York Cy Landmarks Commissn had given the thory, but armed wh a stencil that read "GAY BAR WAS HERE" a member of the walkg crowd marked the siwalk wh the bright chalk at each stop. We heard about the plac where dis was born, where Barbra Streisand ma her nightclub but, where gay New Yorkers protted prejudice long before Stonewall, and talked about the toll the AIDS crisis took on the cy. Apparent too was the lack of opportuni for gays across generatns (and ironilly, outsi of a bar settg) to learn om each other and pass down memori like so many of our straight neighbors have historilly done wh much for opportuny and a lol bs New York Cy is hard enough now, pecially nsirg wh the cy's risg rents and creasg penchant for natnal retailers.

Owners of gay bars are battlg even more onts: the creasg e of mobile apps for means of nnectn stead of a barstool and, credibly, the growg polil acceptance of the LGBT muny. The importance of LGBT spac has only been heightened by the tragedy Orlando, where 49 people were killed si Pulse, a gay we celebrate LGBT historic prervatn ws like Print Obama namg Stonewall a Natnal Monument and Juli' -- se of the Mattache Society's "sip-" prott -- beg nomated for landmark stat, 's important to keep the prsure on elected officials to protect more LGBT historic s formally.

In the meantime, whether be as historilly signifint as say Stonewall, culturally inic as someplace like Stud 54 or simply a rner dive bar that shows RuPl's Drag Race on Mondays, support your lol gay bar! MICHAEL RYAN is a former cy anizer for Jane's Walk NYC -- named for urban planner Jane Jabs -- and one of the creators of the "Gay Bars That Are Gone" walkg tour.

THE 12 BT GAY BARS IN NYC

Vogel — a lanky, 34-year-old attorney and poet wh a mandg voice who serv as the executive director of The New York Prervatn Archive Project — spun tal of this fotten nightspot, a young man a pk tank top and navy shorts stenciled the words “Gay Bar Was Here” wh blue chalk on the siwalk. Lombard for The New York TimThis guerilla-landmarked se was one of ne stops on Gay Bars That Are Gone, a ee tour offered as part of Jane’s Walk, which celebrat urban activist Jane Jabs each May.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ATTACKS AT GAY AND LBIAN BARS

” Lombard for The New York TimWh his cursy piqued, he pored over books cludg “Gay New York” by Gee Chncey and “The Gay Metropolis” by Charl Kaiser that documented New York’s fotten gay landmarks and illumated a lost gay subculture. He anized the first gay bar walk 2015, startg at the Roxy (515 Wt 18th Street), a dance club the 1990s, then headg east to the Limelight (47 Wt 20th Street), a former church that was the epicenter of the ’90s club kid universe, before headg south to the Anvil (500 Wt 14th Street), an after-hours sex club om the 1970s. ) Lombard for The New York TimTo make up for his relative youth, he joed forc wh Kyle Supley, 37, a fellow gay history buff and performer, to -host the walk 2016.

) There are enough dis balls, glter and rabows to choke a herd of unirns, which keeps the atmosphere light and is loted at 8 Christopher Street between Greenwich Avenue and Gay Street the Wt Village (212-929-9291). AdvertisementSKIP Thornell/Associated PrsJune 13, 2016The lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr muny is no stranger to the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn New York Cy that set off rts and helped touch off the morn gay-rights movement to the 1998 murr of Matthew Shepard to near-epimic levels of vlence agast transgenr women, the muny has been marked by flash of the massacre at a gay club Orlando, Fla., that left 49 ad and 53 others jured, Richard Kim, the executive edor of The Natn, wrote on Sunday that gay bars and clubs have often been sanctuari.

‘MY FIRST GAY BAR’: RACHEL MADDOW, ANDY COHEN AND OTHERS SHARE THEIR COMG-OUT STORI

And sometim those sanctuari have e unr are a few signifint Orleans, 1973Thirty-two people died when a fire swept through the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar the French Quarter, on June 24, 1973. ViotranscripttranscriptA Day of Mourng for the Gay CommunyIn support of the victims of the massacre at a gay nightclub Orlando, Fla., hundreds gathered outsi the Stonewall Inn New York, where a rt 1969 helped lnch the gay rights support of the victims of the massacre at a gay nightclub Orlando, Fla., hundreds gathered outsi the Stonewall Inn New York, where a rt 1969 helped lnch the gay rights movement. ”The New Orleans Tim-Piyune wrote 2013 that the lounge was “not jt any bar, but as a gay muny hangout where lols uld gather whout fear of social persecutn” at a time of tense anti-gay stigma.

More than 700 people were the club at the time, cludg much of the cy’s gay and transgenr learship, but no one was Masmari plead guilty to arson and was sentenced to 10 years prison July 2014.

Stonewall Inn, 2010 and 2016The Stonewall Inn played a central role the morn gay rights movement, but has also seen antigay and anti-transgenr vlence recent men attacked another man the rtroom 2010 after he rmed them that they were a gay bar. “The realy is, if people are lookg to perpetrate anti-gay bias and vlence, there are very few plac this world that are safe once that tent has formed, ” Sharon Stapel, the former executive director of the New York Cy Anti-Vlence Project, said at the time of the March this year, a transgenr woman said she was sexually asslted the unisex rtroom. Christian Hansen for The New York TimJune 22, 2016For generatns of gays and lbians, pecially those for whom walkg to the sometime secret and darkened doorway of one was often the first step the g-out procs, gay bars have long held a signifint place their personal was never more apparent than the days followg the mass shootgs at Pulse, the gay nightclub Orlando, Fla., which 49 patrons lost their liv, and which prompted many to rell the nights they had spent siar settgs, and the sense of muny they found there.

BT GAY BARS IN NEW YORK CY

Charl Syk/Invisn, via Associated PrsAndy Cohen Televisn host and producerI ed to sneak away om my straight iends at Boston Universy and go to Chaps (gay bars often have hypermascule nam) Boston’s Back Bay. They were an pe om the (often uniendly) outsi world, packed every night of the week, and everyone si was a Heisler/The New York TimLarry Kramer Playwright, thor and activistIn 1953, gay bars were sry. It would still be a bunch of years before gay bars would start beg ls sry, and a lot of Beck/Agence France-Prse — Getty ImagJane Lynch ActrsThe first gay bar I ever went to was the Cubbyhole when was on Hudson Street the Wt Village.

Brendan Hoffman/Getty ImagRachel Maddow Host of MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” The first time I went to a gay bar was 1990, thanks to a fairly terrible fake ID that I bought for $25. Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Tim Honey DijonPerformerRialto Tap Chigo was the first black gay bar I went to, and what I really remember was the cracked tile dance floor. From that day on, “bakery” was our word for gay Hawthorne/Getty ImagKeh BoykBroadster and thorOn a Sunday night July 1991, at a sprawlg plex lled Tracks the District of Columbia, I found thoands of young black gay men and lbians.

For the first time my life, I felt not only siro of others but sirable to them as Counts/Getty ImagAlison BechlCartoonist, thor of the graphic memoir “Fun Home” My first gay bar was Satan’s, Akron, Oh. But that night, the large mixed crowd (there weren’t enough gay people to support a separate club for women), I experienced the profound existential relief, for once, of not beg the only queer.

ONE OF NEW YORK CY’S OLST GAY BARS IS NOW A HISTORIC LANDMARK

” I remember the closeted aterny boys, who had jt dropped their dat at the sorory hoe — and the girls who loved to sp and gyrate on the dance floor, earng the attentn of adorg gay boys. Christopher Gregory for The New York TimPl RudnickAuthor and playwrightWhen I was a teenage apprentice summer stock, I went to my first gay bar suburban Connecticut.

But ntrary to so many narrativ of relief at fdg a gay ntext, my ial experience was primarily of anxiety, bee to be where the least acceptable aspect of myself was the explic topic ma me feel more naked than the go-go boys. Ease and digny, however, had seemed patible wh my gayns until my sweaty June bar vis set me on a new path, one that much later led me to marryg my hband, havg our children, and beg an activist for L. There, so we would go, and this time was me and my six iends — tryg to play ol as much as we Counts/Getty ImagJon Rob BazPlaywright and producerIt was the Roosterfish, a dgy ntil gay bar Venice Beach Los Angel.

HOW GAY BARS HAVE BEEN A BUILDG BLOCK OF THE LGBTQ COMMUNY

Provcetown was a ee and open space, lots of great performers, people out to have fun, and this is exactly what was to Bac/Getty ImagJoseph AltuzarraCreative director, AltuzarraThe first gay club I went to was Le Queen Paris when I was high school. Wilson/Getty ImagJohn AmaechiPsychologist and former Natnal Basketball Associatn playerI’m om Manchter, England, so we have a very vibrant gay muny that is very well tegrated. Juli’, now the olst gay bar New York Cy (and also one of the olst bars the cy ntuo operatn), is a bar and rtrant that dat back to the neteenth century, wh s current sign probably datg om the late neteenth or early twentieth century.

By the 1960s, some four s after Greenwich Village had bee the center of New York Cy’s LGBT muny, the bar was attractg a signifint number of gay men, although was not exclively a gay bar. ” Their tent was to challenge New York State Liquor Authory regulatns that were promulgated so that bars uld not serve drks to known or spected gay men or lbians, sce their prence was nsired facto disorrly. The sip- was part of a larger mpaign by more radil members of the Mattache Society to clarify laws and l that hibed the nng of gay bars as legimate, non-mob, tablishments and to stop the harassment of gay bar patrons.

When Dick Lesch, Craig Rodwell, John Timmons, and Randy Wicker announced that they were homosexuals and asked to be served a drk, the bartenr at Juli’ refed their requt. This refal received a great al of publicy, cludg articl the New York Tim and the Village Voice, at a time when issu volvg discrimatn agast gay people were not generally discsed the prs. The reactn by the State Liquor Authory and the newly empowered New York Cy Commissn on Human Rights rulted a change policy and the birth of a more open gay bar culture.

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

Scholars of gay history nsir the sip- at Juli’ as a key event leadg to the growth of legimate gay bars and the velopment of the bar as the central social space for urban gay men and lbians. It would figure that Williamsburg's premiere gay bar would have only a MySpace page as s webse—ah, the ironic retro ter—and this award-wng gay and lbian oriented bar is one of the most popular the borough, even moro durg the warm weather months due to s am...

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

The Boiler Room is as far removed thematilly as is geographilly om the Hell's Kchen and Chelsea gay scen—what New York lovgly lls a "post-gay gay bar"—where orientatn isn't a good enough basis for nversatn and beg the most over-the-top bottom won't w yo... Multi-level gay bar wh three differently themed rooms, om a banquette-stuffed lounge for dg and mglg, a simple but elegant bar, and a third for dancg and cisg. They lled a “sip-, ” and the three men, members of the Mattache Society, an early gay-rights group, were hopg to challenge the New York State Liquor Authory’s ban on servg LGBTQ patrons.

One of the cy’s olst gay bars, Juli’ had already been add to the Natnal Register of Historic Plac 2016—along wh nearby Stonewall Inn, the se of the famo 1969 protts that helped spark the Amerin LGBTQ rights movement. The first bar on their planned circu, the Ukraian-Amerin Village Rtrant, knew of the prott and closed early; had a sign the wdow that read, “If you are gay, please go away, ” as the New York Tim’ Thomas A. At the time, Juli’ “was a rather dull neighborhood place which was about three-quarters gay, ” Randy Wicker, who joed the other three later that day, told the Tim’ Jim Farber 2016.

Dpe the massive stris the lbian, gay, transgenr, bisexual, and queer muni have ma the last few s, the shockg horror of the weekend’s shootgs ma clear the ntued relevance and importance of the bars and nightclubs. While the protts and march at The Stonewall Inn turned the bar to a symbolic headquarters for the Gay Pri movement, gay nightlife has always served as val space for muny buildg and pg societal persecutn. The people behd the plac have sparked polil activism (Joe Scialo, the late former owner of The Monster, supported employe the ‘80s fightg AIDS and even traveled to Mexi to brg back life-savg dgs) and have fostered mic and creative exprsn for s (gay clubs such as the Warehoe Chigo and Paradise Garage New York gave birth to hoe and var stras of electronic mic).