Historic s, popular neighborhoods, and LGBTQ+-owned bars and rtrants Philalphia's Gayborhood and beyond.
Contents:
1920S AND 30S: GAY BARS SURFACE
In the send half of the twentieth century, the Center Cy Gayborhood formed the vicy of Loct and Thirteenth Streets. * gay history philadelphia *
Was a Prohibn-era speakeasy and “gentleman’s club” lled Maxe’s, where lol gay men, soldiers, and sailors would nverge.
A lot of socializg among the cy’s queer rints durg the ’40s and ’50s happened at hoe parti anized by Quaker-affiliated groups, acrdg to thor Marc Ste, who vered the era his book “Cy of Sisterly and Brotherly Lov: Lbian and Gay Philalphia.
“Saturday night is the gayt night of the week, ” read a story on the Rtenhoe queer scene Greater Philalphia Magaze. Unr Mayor Frank Rizzo, the cy put up signage around the Square to disurage gay people om cisg. In 1962, the Jan Society was found Philalphia, makg one of the first rerd and publicly known “homophile” anizatns the cy.
THE HISTORY OF PHILALPHIA’S GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Dewey’s Rtenhoe lotn, on the other hand, would ny service, discrimatg agast “homosexuals, ” “mascule women, ” “feme men” and “persons wearg non-nformist clothg.
GAYBORHOOD
In 1968, then-Police Commissner Frank Rizzo orred raids on gay bars (and on anybody he emed “unsirable”), leadg many to be verbally and physilly abed by officers.
The neighborhood that would eventually be monikered “the Gayborhood” by Cy Paper’s David Warner flourished immensely. The first and olst LGBTQ bookstore the Uned Stat, Gvanni’s Room, would open a year after the events at the Gay Pri Celebratn.
Enomic growth, betifitn of the area and a cle the crime-rate were propelled by Philalphia’s first LGBT muny center openg 1976 (William Way) and the tablishment of s first publicly-distributed newspaper (Philalphia Gay News), s first gay bs group openg 1977 (Communy Alliance of Philalphia) and s first LGBT health and wellbeg center 1979 (the Mazzoni Center). To discs the creepg rise of “Kaposi’s Sara and Opportunistic Infectns” afflictg gay men, a disease that would later be termed Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. LGBTQ movements, spac, anizatns and efforts the cy, up until then, had maly been domated by and tered to the needs of whe homosexual men.