Stonewall

In doing the last post, which happened in '72, it brought to mind the Stonewall riots, which had happened three years earlier.

My partner was reading The Times, and asked me, "Ever been to the Stonewall?"

"What's the Stonewall"

"A bar on Christopher St."

"No, why?"

"The cops were shutting the place down and a bunch of queens got in a snit and started throwing things. Thirteen arrested and four cops hurt."

"Let me see that."

"Two hundred queens in a bar? They're lucky the cops didn't just bomb the place."

At the time, there were no gay bars in New York City. The city had laws against "homosexuality in public and private businesses." The way it worked, gays could go into bars, but when the number of gays in a place started outnumbering the straights, the cops would move in and shut it down, usually on some liquor violation charge. The effect was that bar owners didn't want you in their place because they could lose their business. But there was the occasional bar owner who felt more kindly toward us, or was just more greedy than prudent, and word would spread that such and such a place was 'okay'. When that happened, we policed ourselves, because we didn't want such a place closed either. When you went in you'd eyeball the place and do a rough estimation, and if you thought there were too many gays in the place you'd turn around and leave. And you always went into such places alone, never with someone, or, God forbid, in a group, because if the bartender, using his gaydar?, thought you were gay he would tell you not even to sit down.

Even in these places, there was no "Well, hello, darling, how've you been? Haven't seen you in ages!" The primary purpose in being there was to pick up someone, and you played it straight.

The bad old days, the bad old days, nobody misses the bad old days. There's a very good article on Stonewall in Wikipedia.

The Stonewall Inn before the riots.


The chalkboard in the window of the Stonewall the morning after the first melee.


The piece my partner saw in The Times. The old gray lady called it a rampage.


The gay press were the first to call them riots. Note the sign in the picture, "Jon Voight in "Midnight Cowboy".


Christopher Park, where many of the demonstrators met after the first night of rioting to talk about what had happened, now features a sculpture of four white figures by George Segal that commemorates the milestone.