Stonewall is regarded by many as the single
most important event that led to the modern
LGBT civil rights movement. While a number
of groups in cities like New York, Philadelphia,
Washington, San Francisco, and Los Angeles
had been organizing and demonstrating for
equal rights in the 1950s and 60s, Stonewall
inspired LGBT people throughout the country
to assertively organize on a broader scale. As
historian Lillian Faderman wrote, “Stonewall was
the shot heard round the world...crucial because
it sounded the rally for the movement.”
In the early hours of Saturday, June 28, 1969,
police raided the “private” Mafia-run
Stonewall Inn.
The bar, one of the few that allowed
dancing, was popular with a younger, diverse
crowd. Instead of dispersing, the expected
result of a routine raid, a crowd consisting of
bar patrons, street youth, and neighborhood
residents became increasingly angry and began
chanting, throwing objects as the police made
arrests. Police called in reinforcements but were
barricaded inside the bar. For hours the police
tried to clear the neighboring streets while the
crowd fought back. The uprising lasted over the
course of six days — to July 3.
In the immediate aftermath of Stonewall, the
Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists
Alliance were formed in NYC in 1969. Marsha P.
Johnson and Sylvia Rivera founded STAR (Street
Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), an early
transgender group, in 1970. Within two years,
LGBT rights groups had been started in nearly
every major city in the U.S.
Stonewall has taken on shifting meanings.
When it was in operation in 1967-69, it was a
Mafia-run bar, and representative of the societal
harassment against the LGBT community. It has
evolved into a National Historic Landmark and
National Monument with worldwide symbolic
resonance. It is a shrine, symbol, rallying place
for civil rights and solidarity. It is a place for
mourning and remembrance. It was the site for
the rally after the Snake Pit arrests and the first
Pride March in 1970, the Anita Bryant protests in
1977, and demonstrations for LGBT civil rights in
the 1980s. More recently, people celebrated here
for the legalization of same-sex marriage in New
York State in 2011, the overturning of the federal
Defense of Marriage Act by the U.S. Supreme
Court in 2013, and after the Supreme Court
legalized same-sex marriage nationally in 2015.
People commemorated here the victims of the
2016 mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida.
Pulse nightclub shooting memorial in front of the Stonewall Inn,
a day after Stonewall’s National Monument designation.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Foundation
The LGBT community broadly encompasses all ages, races, ethnicities,
nationalities, class levels, and gender identifications in the five boroughs of
New York City. The events leading to Stonewall, the uprising itself, and the
political organizing afterward were due to a diverse range of participants and
activists. This tour represents a selection of sites associated with LGBT history
that are located within a very small geographic area surrounding the Stonewall
Inn. As such, it does not represent the entire long LGBT history of Greenwich
Village, nor does it entirely reflect the diversity of today’s LGBT community.
JANE ST
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BETHUNE ST
BANK ST
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West 4 Street –
Washington Square
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Astor Place
14 Street – Union Square
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1. WASHINGTON SQUARE PARK AND
ENVIRONS, 1890s TO 1960s
By the 1890s, Bleecker Street was known for its
various “dives” attracting men. The block of
MacDougal Street just south of Washington Square
emerged as the cultural and social center of
Greenwich Village’s bohemian set, with an openly
gay and lesbian presence in the 1910s. Through
the 1960s, the South Village was the location of
many LGBT bars and commercial establishments.
Numerous LGBT writers and artists made the
Village their home. Meetings at several area
churches in the 1960s fostered LGBT
rights activism.
129 MacDougal Street, c. 1939. Photo credit: NYC Dept. of Taxes,
Municipal Archives.
3. ST. VINCENT’S TRIANGLE AND ENVIRONS,
1920s TO PRESENT
Since the early 20th century, this neighborhood has been the
home of many LGBT people, establishments, and organizations.
By the 1980s, Greenwich Village was the epicenter of the AIDS
epidemic. Since 1983, New York’s LGBT Community Center
(208 West 13th Street) has served hundreds of thousands
of people – this is where ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Power) and other groups were organized and met. The former
St. Vincent’s Hospital had the first and largest AIDS ward on the
East Coast. In 2017, this history and loss was recognized in the
New York City AIDS Memorial at St. Vincent’s Triangle.
The NYC AIDS Memorial. Photo credit: Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/Alamy Live
News.
2. HUDSON RIVER WATERFRONT AND
PIERS, 1890s TO PRESENT
For over a century, the Greenwich Village waterfront
along the Hudson River, including the Christopher
Street Pier at West 10th and West Streets, has been
a destination for the LGBT community. It evolved
from a place of maritime commerce and waterfront
saloons, to a popular locale for cruising and sex for
gay men by the 1960s, to an important refuge for
marginalized queer youth of color today.
The Grace Line pier located at Christopher Street in an undated
photo. Photo credit: Milstein Division, New York Public Library.
STONEWALL UPRISING
As early as the 1850s, gay men
congregated in Greenwich
Village. Pfaff’s, 647 Broadway at
Bleecker Street, was a hangout for
“bohemians” such as Walt Whitman
and for men seeking men. Bleecker
Street in the 1890s had a number of
“fairy” bars, often subject to raids,
where cross-dressing young men
solicited male customers.
The picturesque Village prior to
World War I became popular for the
artistic and socially and politically
progressive. Middle-class gay men
and lesbians appropriated their own
spaces despite some opposition
from fellow Villagers.
The Village emerged as the first
neighborhood with a significant
LGBT population in New York City
and one of the first nationally.
Through the 1960s, the area
south of Washington Square was
the location of many bars and
clubs that welcomed or merely
tolerated LGBT patrons. Gay bars
were crucial to creating a sense of
community and cultivating political
action in an era of discrimination.
Washington Square Arch c. 1900.
Photo Credit: Milstein Division, New York
Public Library.
Participants of the Stonewall
Uprising in front of the bar, June
29, 1969. Photo credit: Fred W.
McDarrah, Premium Archive
Collection, Getty Images
STONEWALL
CRUCIAL BECAUSE IT SOUNDED
THE RALLY FOR THE MOVEMENT.
—Lillian Faderman, historian, The Gay Revolution
GREENWICH VILLAGE AND
PRE-STONEWALL LGBT LIFE
RELEVANCE OF
STONEWALL TODAY
THREE LGBT HISTORIC AREAS OF INTEREST
LGBT DISCRIMINATION
AND ACTIVISM
DIVERSITY OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY
LGBT HISTORY TOUR
GREENWICH VILLAGE, NYC
www.npca.org
Since its founding in 1919, the National Parks
Conservation Association has been the independent,
nonpartisan voice working to strengthen and protect
America’s favorite places.
The LGBT community suffered
harassment, discrimination, and
oppression from their families, organized
religion, psychiatric professionals, and
government. After Prohibition the New
York State Liquor Authority (SLA) in
1934 was granted the power to revoke
the license of bar owners who “permit
[their] premises to become disorderly”
and the mere presence of gay people
was considered disorderly. LGBT people
could not touch, dance together, make
direct eye contact, or wear clothes of
the opposite gender without fearing
arrest. For women, people of color,
youth, and those who were
gender nonconforming it
was even more challenging.
The Mafia opened bars as
members-only “bottle clubs.”
No license was needed
and a vicious cycle began
of Mafia-police payoffs.
Police harassment of gay
bars and entrapment were
top concerns of the LGBT
community in the 1960s.
The Mattachine Society and
Daughters of Bilitis were
two of the nation’s first gay
rights groups whose early
political activism help lead to
the Stonewall Uprising and
changes immediately after.
MANHATTAN
NJ
BROOKLYN
www.nyclgbtsites.org
Founded in 2015, the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project is
making an invisible history visible by documenting historic
and cultural sites associated with the LGBT community
throughout New York City.
Front Cover: (top) GAA members in the first NYC Pride March at 6th Ave. at
West 12th St., 1970. Photo credit: Kay Tobin Lahusen, Manuscripts and Archives
Division, New York Public Library. (middle left) The Stonewall Inn, circa 2016.
Photo credit: Glynnis Jones/Shutterstock.com. (middle right) “Gay Liberation”
Monument, sculpture by George Segal, Greenwich Village, New York City
Photo Credit: dbimages / Alamy Stock Photo (bottom left) Marsha P. Johnson
(left) and Sylvia Rivera (right) participating at the Pride March, June 1973.
Photo credit: Leonard Fink. Courtesy LGBT Community Center National History
Archive. (bottom right) Empire State Building. Photo credit:
anaglic/ Shutterstock.com.
Back Cover: (top) Obama Administration Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett
speaking at the Stonewall National Monument designation, June 2016.
Photo credit: NPCA. (bottom) Stewart’s Cafeteria, May 1933. Photo credit:
Percy L. Sperr, Milstein Division, New York Public Library.
1. CHRISTOPHER PARK
The park remains an important gathering place for LGBT people
since the Stonewall Uprising. George Segal’s sculpture “Gay
Liberation” (1980) was not placed here until 1992, due to opposition
from Village residents and lack of official city support. In the 1980s,
landscape architect Philip Winslow, who later died of AIDS, created
the current park design. The Stonewall National Monument was
designated in 2016 by President Obama.
2. CHRISTOPHER STREET
For decades, gay men had gone to the west end of Christopher
Street at the Hudson River. Christopher Street became one of the
best-identified LGBT streets in the world after 1969. Its popularity
was sustained into the 1980s by many LGBT-owned and -friendly bars
and businesses. Today, the Christopher Street pier and waterfront has
become an important area for LGBT and queer youth of color.
3. STONEWALL
(51-53 Christopher Street, currently a nail
salon at No. 51, and Stonewall Inn at No. 53)
The Stonewall Inn, at the time of the 1969
uprising, consisted of two former horse
stable buildings that were combined in 1930
with one façade, now mostly intact from its
1969 appearance. The bar closed immediately
after the Stonewall Uprising and was replaced
by a number of eating establishments. In 1987-89, a bar named
Stonewall operated out of No. 51. The current Stonewall bar
opened in 1993 and has operated under the current management
since 2006. It is open to the public.
Stonewall Inn, 1969. Photo credit: Diana Davies, 1969. Manuscript and Archives Division, New
York Public Library.
4. MATTACHINE SOCIETY
(59 Christopher Street, currently Kettle of Fish)
Founded in Los Angeles in 1950, with a New York chapter in 1955,
the Mattachine Society was a leading American “homophile”
(gay and lesbian) group. At the time it was considered radical.
Mattachine challenged the State Liquor Authority’s ban on
serving gay people at the famous “Sip-In” at Julius’ Bar in 1966,
and worked to stop police entrapment of gay men. This was
Mattachine’s last offices, from 1972 until it dissolved in 1976.
This location is poignant, as Mattachine was replaced in influence
by younger and more radical activist LGBT groups after Stonewall.
Mattachine Society button, c. 1960s.
5. THE DUCHESS
(101 7th Avenue South, corner building to the right of Starbucks)
The Duchess was a popular late 1970s/early 80s lesbian bar, closed
when the city revoked its liquor license under Mayor Edward Koch.
6. RIDICULOUS THEATRICAL CO.
(1 Sheridan Square, currently the Axis Theatre Company)
The basement Café Society (1938-48) was New York City’s first
racially integrated club, with bookings by legendary jazz producer
John Hammond. It opened with a relatively unknown Billie Holiday,
who debuted the song Strange Fruit here. Charles Ludlam’s
Ridiculous Theatrical Co., founded in 1967 and moved here
in 1978, was one of New York’s most innovative and influential
Off-Off-Broadway theater troupes. Ludlam died of AIDS in 1987.
Charles Ludlum, founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, with the cast of his play “The
Ventriloquist’s Wife” in 1977. Photo credit: Jack Mitchell, Archive Photos Collection,
Getty Images.
7. SITE OF THE START
OF NEW YORK’S FIRST
PRIDE MARCH
At the one-year anniversary of
Stonewall Uprising, in June 1970, a
group led by Craig Rodwell, owner of
the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop,
planned what became the first annual
Pride March (then known as the
Christopher Street Liberation Day
March). To the organizers’ surprise, this
incredibly brave public march attracted thousands of participants.
According to surviving film footage, the marchers first gathered on
Washington Place west of Sixth Avenue. From Greenwich Village
they followed a route up Sixth Avenue to Central Park.
Official poster from New York’s first Pride March, June 28, 1970. Photo credit: Craig Rodwell
Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.
8. MARIE’S CRISIS
(59 Grove Street)
First opened in the 1920s as a speakeasy, and as café Marie’s Crisis
in 1935, it became a piano bar with a primarily gay clientele in 1972.
The lesbian novelist Patricia Highsmith was a
regular here. It is open to the public.
9. STEWART’S CAFETERIA
(7th Avenue South & Christopher Street,
currently Bank of America)
Opened in 1933, Stewart’s Cafeteria became
a popular bohemian and gay and lesbian
haunt. The large windows put gay life on full
display to the late-night crowds who frequented
this busy intersection at the Christopher Street subway stop. In 1935
the manager was convicted of “openly outraging public decency”
here. Stewart’s was raucously depicted by famous gay artist Paul
Cadmus in his painting
Greenwich Village Cafeteria
(1934).
Greenwich Village Cafeteria, Paul Cadmus, 1934. The Museum of Modern Art.
10. FEDORA’S
(239 West 4th Street, currently Fedora’s operated by new owners)
Henry and Fedora Dorato opened the restaurant Fedora’s in
1952, where his father had opened a speakeasy in 1919 and then
a restaurant in 1933. A well-known male model sent hundreds of
postcards to friends praising Fedora’s, leading to its popularity.
It was considered the oldest continually operating restaurant with
a large gay clientele until it closed in 2010.
11. SNAKE PIT
(211 West 10th Street)
In March 1970, less than a year after
Stonewall, police raided the after-
hours basement bar the Snake Pit.
Fearing another crowd confrontation,
they detained over 160 people at the
local police station at 135 Charles
Street, west of the bar. Immigrant
Diego Vinales, apparently fearing
deportation, attempted to escape
by jumping out of a window. He was
impaled on an iron fence below.
Appalled at his possible death
(he actually survived), the recently formed Gay Liberation Front
and Gay Activists Alliance quickly assembled a protest march from
Christopher Park to the police station, as well as a candlelight vigil
at St. Vincent’s Hospital where he was taken. Flyers read
“Any way you look at it – that boy was PUSHED. We are ALL
being pushed.” This protest, which received positive media
coverage, demonstrated the strength of the two organizations.
It inspired many more people to become politically active.
Photo: Gay Activists Alliance Flyer for the Snake Pit raid protest, March 1970. Private collection.
12. JULIUS’ BAR
(159 West 10th Street)
A bar has continuously operated here since the mid-19th century,
known as Julius’ by around 1930. It started to attract a gay clientele
by the 1960s. On April 21, 1966, an event later known as the “Sip-In”
was organized by members of the Mattachine Society. Inspired by
civil rights sit-ins in the South, they set out to challenge the State
Liquor Authority’s discriminatory policy of revoking the licenses
of bars that served gay men and lesbians. The refusal of service
to those who intentionally revealed they were “homosexuals”
was publicized and photographed. It was one of the earliest
pre-Stonewall public actions for LGBT rights, and a big step
forward in legitimizing LGBT bars in New York.
Mattachine Society members (left to right) John Timmons, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, and
Randy Wicker being refused service by the bartender at Julius’, April 21, 1966.Photo credit: Fred
W.McDarrah, Premium Archive Collection, Getty Images
13. ELMER EPHRAIM
ELLSWORTH FLAGPOLE
At the eastern tip of Christopher Park is a
flagpole dedicated in 1936 to Union Army
Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth (1837-1861).
Born in New York State, he was the leader
of the first American Zouave unit when he
met and went to work for Abraham Lincoln
in 1860. C.A. Tripp, in The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln
(2005), posited that Lincoln became personally attached to the
young man. Ellsworth accompanied him to Washington and was
the first officer killed in the Civil War, while removing a Confederate
flag from atop a Virginia hotel that Lincoln could see from the
White House. The plaque on the flagpole base has the incorrect
order of his name.
Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth, c. 1861. Photo credit: Mathew B. Brady & Studio, Harvard Art
Museums/Fogg Museum, Imaging Department, Fellows of Harvard College.
14. OSCAR WILDE BOOKSHOP
(15 Christopher Street, currently the
Greenwich Letterpress)
Gay rights activist Craig Rodwell established
America’s first gay and lesbian bookstore
in a storefront of an apartment building at
8th and Mercer Streets in 1967. He named it
after the most prominent gay person he could
think of, Oscar Wilde, the playwright. Rodwell
had been a participant in the Julius’ “Sip-In” in 1966. In 1973, Rodwell
moved the shop to this location. He sold it in 1993, just before his
death, and the store remained in business until 2009.
Craig Rodwell, n.d. Photo credit: Kay Tobin Lahusen Manuscripts and Archives Division, New
York Public Library.
15. GREENWICH AVENUE
In the 1960s, pre-dating the Stonewall Rebellion, the stretch of
Greenwich Avenue from Christopher Street to Seventh Avenue,
was called “the cruisiest street in the Village.” Anything farther
west of here was what novelist Felice Picano called “homosexual
no-man’s-land.”
16. WOMEN’S HOUSE OF
DETENTION
(Sixth and Greenwich Avenues)
From 1931 to 1974, the large prison on this
site housed countless poor, working-class,
and lesbian women. It became infamous in
the Village for shouted exchanges between
women inside and on the street, many of
them lovers. This was one factor that resulted in
a campaign to demolish the building and replace it with the scenic
garden that is there now.
Women’s House of Detention, 1945. Photo credit: Museum of the City of New York.
17. MURRAY HALL APARTMENT
(457 Sixth Avenue)
This was the last residence of Murray Hall (died 1901), a Tammany
Hall politician who lived as a man for decades, but was revealed
after death to have been a woman, creating an international press
furor. Married several times, Hall remained close to the nearby
Jefferson Market Courthouse as a bail bondsman.
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ABOUT YOUR VISIT
The sites on this map are located within and outside the Stonewall
National Monument boundary. The numbering of the sites follows a
suggested route that roughly follows a loop. After visiting site 17 you
can circle back to your starting point at Christopher Park. Many of the
sites featured in this brochure are privately owned and not open to the
public. Please respect people’s privacy and do not trespass.
DIRECTIONS TO CHRISTOPHER PARK
Christopher Park is located in Greenwich Village at 7th Avenue
South and Christopher Street. By subway: train to Christopher
Street – Sheridan Square or the or train to West
4th Street – Washington Square. By bus, take the M8 or M20 via
7th Avenue South to Christopher Street.
45 MINUTE
WALKING TOUR
LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY
Language and terminology for sexual orientation and gender
identification have continually evolved since the late 19th century.
For example, “lesbian” and “gay” became more commonly used in
the post-World War II era, whereas “bisexual” and “transgender”
were not as frequent until the 1980s. The text uses “LGBT”
although that usage did not exist in earlier time periods.
MORE INFORMATION
Please visit the National Parks
Conservation Association’s website
at www.npca.org and the NYC
LGBT Historic Sites Project’s
website at www.nyclgbtsites.org.
First Printing, September 2017
Text by Jay Shockley and Ken Lustbader
for the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project.
For any use of text or information, the
citation is: LGBT History Walking Tour
Brochure, First Printing, NYC LGBT
Historic Sites Project and National Parks
Conservation Association, September 2017.
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