LGBTQ culture in New York City
The legal drinking age was 18, and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"[20]), visitors would have to be known by the doorman, or look gay.
[22] The age of the clientele ranged between the upper teens and early thirties, and the racial mix was evenly distributed among white, Black, and Hispanic patrons.
[29][31] At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police!
Historian David Carter presents information[34] indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked in Lower Manhattan's Financial District.
Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.
[41] On June 20, 2023, the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North in the West Village was officially renamed Edie Windsor and Thea Speyer Way at the state level by New York Governor Kathy Hochul, in honor of the Greenwich Village plaintiffs who prevailed at the United States Supreme Court in 2013, in finding the Defense of Marriage Act, which had limited the definition of marriage as being valid strictly between one man and one woman, to be unconstitutional.
[47] New York City has been estimated to have become home to over 270,000 self-identifying gay and bisexual individuals,[48] higher than San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.
[50] The Manhattan neighborhoods of Greenwich Village and Harlem were home to a sizable homosexual population after World War I, when men and women who had served in the military took advantage of the opportunity to settle in larger cities.
The enclaves of gays and lesbians, described by a newspaper story as "short-haired women and long-haired men", developed a distinct subculture through the following two decades.
New York City passed laws against homosexuality in public and private businesses, but because alcohol was in high demand, speakeasies and impromptu drinking establishments were so numerous and temporary that authorities were unable to police them all.
While no laws prohibited serving homosexuals, courts allowed the SLA discretion in approving and revoking liquor licenses for businesses that might become "disorderly".
[61] Despite the high population of gays and lesbians who called Greenwich Village home, very few places existed, other than bars, where they were able to congregate openly without being harassed or arrested.
In 1966, the New York Mattachine Society held a "sip-in" at a Greenwich Village bar named Julius, which was frequented by gay men, to illustrate the discrimination homosexuals faced.
[16] Greenwich Village contained the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, founded in 1967 but permanently closed in 2009 citing the recession and the rise of online booksellers.
In 2006, the Village was the scene of an assault involving seven lesbians and a straight man that sparked appreciable media attention, with strong statements both defending and attacking the parties.
[63] In February 2017, thousands protested at the Stonewall National Monument against the proposed policies of the administration of U.S. president Donald J. Trump affecting both LGBTQ individuals and international immigrants, including those holding the intersection of these identities.
While New York was a latecomer to the leather and kink fetish movement, this subculture is now burgeoning in the city, originating in Chelsea and eventually expanding to Brooklyn and Queens.
Van Bramer was one of seven openly LGBT members of the New York City Council as of 2017[update], alongside Rosie Mendez, Corey Johnson, Ritchie Torres, James Vacca, Daniel Dromm and Carlos Menchaca.
[91] Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE) is the country's largest and oldest organization dedicated to improving the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Co-founded in 1998 by Arthur Aviles, dancer and choreographer who performed with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and Charles Rice-Gonzales, a writer, LGBT activist, and publicist.
On November 2, 1969, Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, and Linda Rhodes proposed the first pride march to be held in New York City by way of a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) meeting in Philadelphia.
[109] That the Annual Reminder, to be more relevant, reach a greater number of people, and encompass the ideas and ideals of the larger struggle in which we are engaged-that of our fundamental human rights-be moved both in time and location.
[110] Members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) attended the meeting and were seated as guests of Rodwell's group, Homophile Youth Movement in Neighborhoods (HYMN).
Craig Rodwell and his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy, Michael Brown, Marty Nixon, and Foster Gunnison Jr. of The Mattachine Society made up the core group of the CSLD Umbrella Committee (CSLDUC).
[127] Organized to coincide ahead of the NYC Pride March, both demonstrations commemorate the 1969 riots at the Stonewall Inn, widely considered the pivotal event sparking the gay liberation movement,[128][129][130][131] and the modern fight for LGBT rights.
[134] The event starts in Tompkins Square Park and ends in front of the Stonewall Inn; it is purposefully non-corporate, punk, inclusive, and largely leaderless.
The parade was founded by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez to raise the visibility of the LGBTQ community in Queens and memorialize Jackson Heights resident Julio Rivera.
[148][149] The film Paris is Burning documents the cultural contributions of gay, bisexual and trans New Yorkers mostly from Harlem; especially those of color coming from mostly Black or Latino backgrounds.
The following is a list of some of these galas featuring the presence of celebrities: The New York City Department of Education operates Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan; it caters to but is not limited to LGBT students.
The progressive Jewish congregation Kolot Chayeinu (Voices of our Lives) was founded by social justice activists Rabbi Ellen Lippmann and Cantor Lisa Segal.
