The Village was already home to a heady mix of artists, freethinkers and bohemians - attracted by low-rent roominghouses, cheap restaurants and one another - and of gays who correctly surmised that all of the above might spell tolerance. In the '20s, the place to go was MacDougal Street.
"But in the popular mind, historically, overwhelmingly, it's been Greenwich Village." "There are other historic enclaves in other cities, areas that were pockets of gay culture," says historian Martin Duberman, whose book "Stonewall" was published last year. Others have signed up for guided walking tours.Įn route, they will learn how much of gay history is rooted and reflected in these 1.5 square miles. Some will be consulting "Lesbian and Gay New York Historical Landmarks," a new map laboriously researched by the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Architects and Designers that pinpoints dozens of significant city locations. But this week will also find small clusters of people making their way through the Village, noting the homes of prominent lesbians, visiting the site of a long-ago gay "sip-in" that protested discrimination and seeking the now-fabled Stonewall itself. Much of what's planned for the Stonewall 25 observance this weekend is of grand scale: a march on the United Nations, a rally in Central Park. "And that's what got replicated in real life." "They were tales of impossible living situations in small towns, and the characters would flee to Greenwich Village," she remembers. Nestle grew up reading 1950s pulp fiction, with titles like "Warped Desire," about forbidden lesbian romances. "It's a mythic place," says Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. What the Village offered, among its 19th-century brownstones and along its narrow streets, was a handful of places where gay people could reveal themselves: a cafeteria here, a bar there, a park, a bookstore, eventually a community center. A kind of Ellis Island for generations of gay men and lesbians, a crucible of gay history since before the Jazz Age, it is America's most celebrated gay enclave. The neighborhood surrounding the old saloon, a hangout-turned-landmark, will become an international mecca, a symbol of gay liberation.īut that's what Greenwich Village has always been. Because a police raid turned into a riot there 25 years ago, because the patrons of a gay bar did not go gently into a paddy wagon, hundreds of thousands of people will descend on New York for a weekend of commemoration. NEW YORK - There will be a constant stream of pilgrims coming to gaze at the brick-and-stucco facade of the Stonewall over the next few days.