Gay Street, southward view | |
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Location | Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City |
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Postal code | 10014 |
Coordinates | 40°44′01″N74°00′01″W / 40.73362°N 74.0004°W |
North end | Christopher Street |
South end | Waverly Place |
Gay Street is a short, angled street that marks off one block of Greenwich Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although the street is part of the Stonewall National Monument (a U.S. national monument dedicated to the LGBT-rights movement), its name is likely derived from a family named Gay who owned land or lived there in colonial times. A newspaper of May 11, 1775, contains a classified ad where an "R. Gay", living in the Bowery, offers a gelding for sale. [1] [2]
This street, originally a stable alley, was probably named for an early landowner, not for the sexuality of any denizens, who coincidentally reside in Greenwich Village, a predominantly homosexual community. Nor is it likely, as is sometimes claimed, [3] that its namesake was Sidney Howard Gay, editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard; [4] he would have been 19 when the street was christened in 1833. The mistaken association with an abolitionist is probably because the street's residents were mainly black, many of them servants of the wealthy white families on Washington Square. Later it became noted as an address for black musicians, giving the street a bohemian reputation. [5]
Since it was once too narrow to be a full-fledged street, the City of New York widened it in 1833. As a result, Federal houses of 1826-1833 line the west side of the street, while on the east side, following a hiatus caused by the Panic of 1837, the houses are from 1844 to 1860, with remnants of Greek Revival detailing in doorways and window surrounds. [6]
The street extends from Christopher Street one block south to Waverly Place, between and roughly parallel to Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It runs through the site of a brewery owned by Wouter van Twiller, who succeeded Peter Minuit as Governor of New Netherland in 1633. The name first appeared officially in the Common Council minutes for April 23, 1827, which record a health inspector's complaint against a privy belonging to one A. S. Pell of Gay Street.
The 1942 movie A Night to Remember portrays 13 Gay Street as the address of the building where most of the action, including a murder, occurs. The opening shots of Cyndi Lauper's video for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" were shot on Gay Street in September 1983. In 1996, Sheryl Crow made a video on Gay Street for the song "A Change Would Do You Good."
As part of the Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 celebration, which marked the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, ten ornamental street signs honoring the LGBT community were installed on Gay Street. The signs, carrying labels such as "Lesbian St" and "Bisexual Street", were arranged in the colors of a pride flag. [7] Several 19th-century houses on the west side of Gay Street were demolished starting in 2022. [8]
Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.
The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of protests by members of the LGBTQ community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, trans activists and unhoused LGBT individuals fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.
Stonewall or Stone wall may refer to:
A gay village, also known as a gayborhood, is a geographical area with generally recognized boundaries that is inhabited or frequented by many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBT) people. Gay villages often contain a number of gay-oriented establishments, such as gay bars and pubs, nightclubs, bathhouses, restaurants, boutiques, and bookstores.
The Stonewall Inn is a gay bar and recreational tavern at 53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It was the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, which led to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for LGBT rights in the United States. When the riots occurred, Stonewall was one of a relative few gay bars in New York City. The original gay bar occupied two structures at 51–53 Christopher Street, which were built as horse stables in the 1840s.
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
Marsha P. Johnson was an American gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen. Known as an outspoken advocate for gay rights, Johnson was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall uprising of 1969.
Heritage of Pride (HOP), doing business as NYC Pride, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that plans and produces the official New York City LGBTQIA+ Pride Week events each June. HOP began working on the events in 1984, taking on the work previously done by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee organizers of the first NYC Pride March in 1970. HOP also took over responsibility for the operations of NYC's Pride Festival and Pride Rally. It was that first march that brought national attention to 1969's Stonewall Riots. The late sixties saw numerous protests and riots across the United States on many social injustices and from general political unrest including the war in Vietnam.
The NYC Pride March is an annual event celebrating the LGBTQ community in New York City. The largest pride parade in North America and among the largest pride events in the world, the NYC Pride March attracts tens of thousands of participants and millions of sidewalk spectators each June. The parade route through Lower Manhattan traverses south on Fifth Avenue, through Greenwich Village, passing the Stonewall National Monument, site of the June 1969 riots that launched the modern movement for LGBTQ+ rights.
Cooper Square is a junction of streets in Lower Manhattan in New York City located at the confluence of the neighborhoods of Bowery to the south, NoHo to the west and southwest, Greenwich Village to the west and northwest, the East Village to the north and east, and the Lower East Side to the southeast.
LGBT pride is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to shame and social stigma, is the predominant outlook that bolsters most LGBT rights movements. Pride has lent its name to LGBT-themed organizations, institutes, foundations, book titles, periodicals, a cable TV channel, and the Pride Library.
Julius' is a tavern at 159 West 10th Street and Waverly Place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is often called the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York City. Its management, however, was actively unwilling to operate as such, and harassed gay customers until 1966. The April 1966 "Sip-In" at Julius, located a block northeast of the Stonewall Inn, established the right of gay people to be served in licensed premises in New York. This action helped clear the way for gay premises with state liquor licenses.
Village Preservation is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the architectural preservation and cultural preservation in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Founded in 1980, it has advocated for New York City designated landmark status for a variety of sites like the Stonewall Inn and Webster Hall. The organization and its Executive Director, Andrew Berman, have been described as influential in New York real estate, while some of its activities to prevent development and to support restrictive zoning have attracted criticism.
New York state, a state in the northeastern United States, has one of the largest and the most prominent LGBTQ populations in the world. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote that New York City has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful" LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rises, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT Americans in New York City constitute by significant margins the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern gay rights movement.
New York has a long history of LGBT community building, activism, and culture which extends to the early history of the city.
The Gay Liberation Monument is part of the Stonewall National Monument, which commemorates the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Created in 1980, the Gay Liberation sculpture by American artist George Segal was the first piece of public art dedicated to gay rights and solidarity for LGBT individuals, while simultaneously commemorating the ongoing struggles of the community. The monument was dedicated on June 23, 1992, as part of the dedication of the Stonewall National Monument as a whole.
New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest LGBTQ populations and the most prominent. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBT travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBT advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer."
Stonewall National Monument is a 7.7-acre (3.1 ha) U.S. national monument in the West Village neighborhood of Greenwich Village in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The designated area includes the Stonewall Inn, the 0.19-acre (0.077 ha) Christopher Park, and nearby streets including Christopher Street, the site of the Stonewall riots of June 28, 1969, widely regarded as the start of the modern LGBT rights movement in the United States.
The Queer Liberation March is an annual LGBT protest march in Manhattan, organized by the Reclaim Pride Coalition as an anti-corporate alternative to the NYC Pride March.
Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019 was a series of LGBTQ events and celebrations in June 2019, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots. It was also the first time WorldPride was held in the United States. Held primarily in the metropolitan New York City area, the theme for the celebrations and educational events was "Millions of moments of Pride." The celebration was the largest LGBTQ event in history, with an official estimate of five million attending Pride weekend in Manhattan alone, including an estimated four million in attendance at the parade. The twelve-hour parade included 150,000 pre-registered participants among 695 groups.
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