A walk through Manchter's Gay Village and First Street

Contents:

• A QUICK WALK ROUND THE NORTHERN QUARTER AND THE GAY VILLAGE
• GREENWICH VILLAGE, STORIED HOME OF BOHEMIA AND GAY HISTORY
• GAY VILLAGE
• GAY VILLAGE
• GAY VILLAGE HISTORY WALK … PRI ON THE RANGE … THE CEL SISTER
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

A QUICK WALK ROUND THE NORTHERN QUARTER AND THE GAY VILLAGE

Today I had the pleasure of a quick walk round the Northern quarter and the gay village my home cy of Manchter.

Its entanglements of wdg streets, fyg the cy grid, clu remnants of w paths and property l om when the area was a sprawl of Dutch, then English, Village as a historilly gay neighborhood has long been a source of lol pri, but seemed mostly unremarkable to me and to my childhood iends who were native Villagers bee was simply another fact of daily life. By the 1970s, the neighborhood’s gay epicenter had shifted toward Christopher Street, the olst street the Village, s irregular route tracg the borr of what had been the Brish admiral Peter Warren’s Colonial-era long ago I asked Andrew Dolkart, an archectural historian at Columbia Universy, to nstct an L.

GREENWICH VILLAGE, STORIED HOME OF BOHEMIA AND GAY HISTORY

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN Andrew, durg the summer of 1969, police raid a bar at 51-53 Christopher Street lled the Stonewall DOLKART In the 1960s, the Stonewall Inn was a Mafia-ntrolled bar, as were almost all gay and lbian bars, bee the State Liquor Authory creed that the mere prence of a homosexual a bar nstuted disorrly nduct.

GAY VILLAGE

That’s why the Natnal Register listg clus the Stonewall buildg, Christopher Park, and all of the streets around , as far east as Sixth register a sense nods to the Village at large as a gay gay history go back at least to the early 20th century, when Greenwich Village was beg a bohemian pal. Shortly after, the gay bar that took over adopted the old name and kept the exterr signage.

When we advoted for the cy to signate Stonewall a landmark, I remember a guy speakg up at a public hearg, sayg he was favor of signatn, but that we should not fet that Stonewall was fact a dreary as Lillian Farman, a historian of lbian history, has put , Stonewall “sound the rally for the movement, ” leadg to the foundg of anizatns like the Gay Liberatn Front, the Gay Activists Alliance, and the Radilbians.

GAY VILLAGE

The Christopher Street Liberatn Day march, on the one-year anniversary of Stonewall, beme the annual Pri Para, which now happens dozens of wt of Stonewall, I also want to pot out 59 Christopher Street, a buildg that hoed the last headquarters of the New York Cy chapter of the Mattache Society, an early natnal gay rights anizatn — at the time the phrase was “homophile anizatn” — found Los Angel 1950.

GAY VILLAGE HISTORY WALK … PRI ON THE RANGE … THE CEL SISTER

Then Rodwell moved to Christopher to make more nspicuo and central to the gay muny. It beme a send home for many gay people. Alison Bechl said that she me to the shop as a young lbian, not sure what she wanted to do wh her life, and saw all the gay and lbian ic books, and that spired her to bee a graphic novelist.

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

ImageJuli’, at the rner of Waverly and Wt 10th Street, is one of the olst gay bars the DeZonOne of the olst gay bars New the mid-60s the Mattache Society cid to challenge the New York State Liquor Authory policy that a bar uld be closed down if knowgly served a homosexual.

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Dick Lesch, the Mattache Society print; Rodwell, the bookstore owner, who was s vice print; and John Timmons, another society member, cid to go to bars along wh newspaper reporters, announce they were gay, ask for a drk, and wa to be nied. Marks Place that had a sign: “If you are gay, please go away. I remember that Howard Johnson’ sat down, asked to see the manager, said “We’re homosexuals, ” and then orred drks.

ImageIn 1966, a bartenr at Juli’ bar refg to serve members of the Mattache Society, a gay rights W. Stewart’s was a popular cha of the era and this branch beme a famo hnt for a flamboyantly gay and lbian crowd, performg for tourists who would sometim stand three or four people ep, starg through the wdows. ImageThe narrowt hoe the Village, 75 1/2 Bedford, center, is jt about ne feet DeZonAnd around the rner om 75½ Bedford is the Cherry Lane Theater, a former brewery on Commerce Street, which over the years beme closely associated wh gay playwrights like Edward Albee.