NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86)

OMBNo. 1024-0018

Page 1

STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

1. NAME OF PROPERTY

Historic Name:STONEWALL

Other Name/Site Number:
2. LOCATION

Street & Number:

51-53 Christopher St., Christopher Park, Christopher St.,
Grove St., Gay St., Waverly PI., Greenwich Ave., Sixth Ave.,and West 10th St. between Sixth Ave. and Seventh Ave. South.

City/Town: New York

Vicinity:_County: New YorkState: New YorkNot for publication:_

Code: 061

3. CLASSIFICATION

Ownership of Property
Private:x
Public-Local:x
Public-State: __Public-Federal:
Number of Resources within Property
Contributing
1100Category of Property
Building(s): _District:_
Site:x
Structure:_
Object:_Noncontributing
0 buildings
0 sites
0 structures
0 objects
0 Total

Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: 2Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: n/a

Zip Code: 10014

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

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United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATIONAs the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certifythat this _x_ nomination __ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards forregistering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional
requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property _x meets __ does not meet the
National Register Criteria.

Signature of Certifying Official

Date

State or Federal Agency and Bureau
In my opinion, the property __ meets __ does not meet the National Register criteria.

Signature of Commenting or Other Official

Date

State or Federal Agency and Bureau

5. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE CERTIFICATIONI hereby certify that this property is:Entered in the National Register
Determined eligible for the National Register
Determined not eligible for the National Register
Removed from the National Register
Other (explain):

Signature of Keeper

Date of ActionNATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNFS Form 10-900

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86)

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STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

6. FUNCTION OR USE
Historic:

COMMERCE
RECREATION
TRANSPORTATION

Sub: bar
Sub: park
Sub: street

Current:

COMMERCE
RECREATION
TRANSPORTATION

Sub: bar
Sub: park
Sub: street

7. DESCRIPTION

Architectural Classification: no style
Materials: [for 51-53 Christopher Street]Foundation:
Walls:
Roof:
Other:

stone
brick, stuccoasphalt

OMBNo. 1024-0018

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86)

OMB No. 1024-0018

STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

Describe Present and Historic Physical Appearance.
Stonewall is located in the center of the Greenwich Village Historic District (New York City
Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 1969, National Register listed 1979), aneighborhood on the lower west side of Manhattan. The nominated area is the site of a series of
events, collectively known as Stonewall, that occurred between June 28 and July 3, 1969. The
current nomination recognizes Stonewall for its significance in the area of gay rights, a theme notaddressed in the documentation for the Greenwich Village Historic District. Stonewall was
individually listed on the National Register for its association with gay rights in 1999.
The boundary of this nomination encompasses the full extent of the area in which the significant
events occurred. The site includes the former Stonewall Inn (51-53 Christopher Street) andportions of the adjacent public spaces, including Christopher Park and streets and sidewalks on
Christopher Street, Grove Street, Waverly Place, Gay Street, Greenwich Avenue, Sixth Avenue
and West 10th Street. The inn, park and adjacent streets retain substantive integrity to the period
in which the significant events occurred. The extent of the nominated area is outlined on theenclosed map, and the specific locations of the significant events are noted in section 8.
The Stonewall Inn is a two-story building constructed in cl 843-1846. The building was
originally constructed as two separate stables, a fact evident in the different heights of the east
and west sections and the structural wall that runs through the building where the two stables
would originally have had their party wall. In 1930, the buildings were combined for use as a
restaurant and a new facade was designed. The 1930 facade remains intact today.
The building has a brick-clad ground floor, with stucco on the second story. The brick is laid in arunning bond, with a soldier course at the top and bottom. The arched entrances have bricksurrounds and the windows are marked by shallow, projecting brick sills. From left to right, theground floor is articulated by a narrow round-arched entrance with new door and original
fanlight; a rectangular window; a wide segmental-arched doorway with wooden double doors
capped by an original fanlight (this was the main entrance to the Stonewall Inn); a second
rectangular window; and a segmental-arched entrance, somewhat narrower than that to the west,
with new door and original fanlight. At the far eastern end of the building, the facade is stucco,
cut by a narrow rectangular doorway with modern door. The entrance doors to the bar and theglass in the bar's windows were destroyed on June 28, 1969, as part of the Stonewall uprising.
The stuccoed second story of each section of the building is articulated by three rectangular
window openings, each containing casement sash. The windows on the lower section to the left
have rectangular, iron flower-box holders; each supported by two iron brackets. The threewindows on the eastern portion of the building have curved, iron flower-box holders, eachsupported by a single iron bracket.
At the time that the building was occupied by the Stonewall Inn, in the late 1960s, the interior
was divided into two rooms (reflecting its original configuration as two separate buildings) andthe decor was minimal. The dimly lit space was painted black and had two makeshift woodenbars. Most of the interior fittings of the bar were destroyed on the morning of June 28, 1969,
when the police raided the establishment. Today, there are two commercial enterprises in thebuilding. Although the interior finishes have changed, the open configuration of the two spaces

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

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STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

Page 5National Register of Historic Places Registration Formechoes the configuration of the Stonewall Inn. The western section houses a bar, which is called
the Stonewall in recognition of the historic Stonewall Inn.
Immediately across Christopher Street from the Stonewall Inn is Christopher Park, a triangular
open space bounded by Christopher Street on the north, Grove Street on the south, Waverly on
the east and West 4 Street on the west. The 1969 configuration of the park survives today. The
park is surrounded by a historic iron fence, with an elegant arched entrance facing West 4*
Street. The eastern portion of the park is heavily planted with trees, bushes and ivy. This sectionis also the site of a statue of Civil War general Philip Henry Sheridan, designed by Joseph P.
Pollia and installed in 1936. The western portion of the park has border planting beds and an
open area that was traditionally furnished with benches. In 1992, George Segal's sculpture Gay
Liberation was installed in this section in recognition of the site's significance. As part of thisinstallation, gay landscape designer Philip Winslow redesigned portions of the park, installing
new brick paving and new benches.

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STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

8. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Certifying official has considered the significance of this property in relation to other properties:
Nationally: J(_ Statewide:_ Locally:_
Applicable National
Register Criteria:

A X B_ C_ D_

Criteria Considerations(Exceptions):

A_ B_ C_ D_ E_ F_ G X_

NHL Criteria:

1

NHL Criteria Exception:

8

NHL Theme(s):n. Creating Social Institutions and Movements
2. Reform movements

Areas of Significance:social history

Period(s) of Significance:

June 28, 1969 -July 3, 1969

Significant Dates:

June 28, 1969, June 29, 1969, June 30, 1969,
July 2, 1969, July 3, 1969

Significant Person(s):n/aCultural Affiliation:n/aArchitect/Builder:n/aHistoric Contexts:

XXXI. Social and Humanitarian Movements
M. Civil Rights Movements

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86)

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STONEWALL
United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

Page 7National Register of Historic Places Registration Form

State Significance of Property, and Justify Criteria, Criteria Considerations, and Areas and Periods ofSignificance Noted Above.
Summary
Stonewall is nationally significant under NHL Criterion 1 because it is associated with events
that outstandingly represent the struggle for gay civil rights in America. The nominated site
encompasses a several block area in Greenwich Village that was the location of a series of
events, collectively known as Stonewall, that occurred between June 28 and July 3, 1969.
Stonewall is regarded by many as the single most important event that led to the modern gay andlesbian liberation movement and to the struggle for civil rights for gay and lesbian Americans.
The Stonewall uprising was, as historian Lillian Faderman has written, "the shot heard round theworld...crucial because it sounded the rally for the movement." 1
Although Stonewall occurred less than fifty years ago, the site meets the criteria for exceptionalsignificance because its importance was widely recognized by scholars and citizens almost
immediately, because it has been the subject of extensive scholarly research and interpretation,
because it represents an outstanding and clearly defined episode in the history of civil rights in
America, because its significance is recognized internationally, and because it has had ademonstrable effect on the lives of millions of Americans, as well as on American society ingeneral. In the judgement of historian Martin Duberman, "Stonewall is the emblematic event inmodern lesbian and gay history. As such," Duberman asserts, "Stonewall has become anempowering symbol of global proportions."2
The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar located at 51-53 Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village
neighborhood of New York City. As part of a pattern of raids and harassment of gay
establishments, the bar was raided by the New York City police at about 1:30 a.m. on themorning of Saturday, June 28, 1969. The reaction of the bar's patrons and of the crowd that
assembled in the street (which included a diverse segment of the gay community and otherGreenwich Village residents and visitors) was not typical of such events. Instead of dispersing,
the crowd became increasingly angry as the Stonewall's employees and patrons were arrested.
Soon participants began chanting, throwing pennies, beer cans and other objects, and the police
were forced back into the bar. Reinforcements were called in, and for several hours the police
tried to clear the streets while the crowd fought back. Over the next few evenings the uprisingcontinued. Two quiet nights followed before the final episode of street fighting occurred, late
Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning, July 2nd and 3rd. The street events occurred
outside the Stonewall Inn, in Christopher Park (across the street from the bar), along Christopher
Street between Seventh Avenue South and Greenwich Avenue, and along adjacent streets,
notably Waverly Place, Gay Street, Greenwich Avenue, Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street. At
its peak, the crowd included several thousand people.

Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twiliqht Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (NY:
Penguin, 1991) 195
2 Martin Duberman, Stonewall (NY: Dutton, 1993) xv.

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United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

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The struggle for gay rights did not begin that night, as groups had previously been organizing in
New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities to plead for the recognitionof gay and lesbian people and for an end to discrimination. However, Stonewall marked a majorchange, as gay men and lesbians began to demand their rights vocally and assertively. The eventsof Stonewall, as the uprising is most commonly referred to, became the major catalyst for change
in the self-awareness of gay men and lesbians, for the development of a gay rights movement,
and for the beginning of a change in the perception of gay men and lesbians by the heterosexual
world. The importance of the event was recognized almost immediately, both by many of those
who had participated or been onlookers, and by gay men and lesbians elsewhere in New Yorkand around the country. Franklin Kameny, one of the most prominent early gay activists,
remembered that:
By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year
later there was at least fifteen hundred. By two years later, to the extent that acount could be made, it was twenty-five hundred. And that was the impact ofStonewall.3
Shortly after the rebellion, groups organized to maintain the activism. These included, notably,
the Gay Liberation Front, followed soon by the Gay Activists Alliance. A few weeks after theraid, in commemoration of Stonewall, the first gay march took place, with participants paradingfrom Washington Square to the Stonewall site. A year later, in commemoration of Stonewall, thefirst Christopher Street Liberation Day march took place, with thousands of gay men and lesbians
marching from the Stonewall site to Central Park. Similar commemorative marches occurred in
Chicago and in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the marches were referred to as
Christopher Street West. Annual New York marches continue to pass in front of the Stonewall
and along the streets where the rebellion occurred.
Since 1969, the significance of Stonewall has been recognized internationally. Many historians
have discussed the significance of the event in books and articles published by major presses.
The uprising marks the emergence of cultural activity with specific and open gay and lesbian
themes, inspiring a large body of work in fine arts, poetry, literature, theater, and motion pictures.
Marches and parades, attracting tens of thousands of participants, have taken place incommemoration of the uprising in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Large numbers oforganizations, institutions, and commercial enterprises have been named for Stonewall andChristopher Street. In 1979, on the tenth anniversary of the uprising, New York City announced
that a commemorative statue by George Segal would be placed in Christopher Park. This work,
Gay Liberation, was installed twelve years later in 1992. Also as a tenth-anniversarycommemoration, the first national gay rights march was held in Washington, D.C. In 1989, in
honor of the twentieth anniversary of the uprising, a portion of Christopher Street in front of theStonewall Inn was renamed Stonewall Place; New York's Lesbian and Gay Community Services
Center commissioned a series of major art installations, including several specifically relating to
Stonewall; and the United States Post Office offered a special commemorative stamp
cancellation. On the twenty-fifth anniversary of Stonewall in 1994, upwards of one million
people came to celebrate in New York by participating in the Gay Games and Arts Festival and a
3 Franklin Kameny, interview for "Stonewall: Myth, Magic and Mobilization," Public Radio International, 1994.

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATIONNPS Form 10-900

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United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service

Page 9National Register of Historic Places Registration Formmassive march, and the New York Public Library organized a major exhibition entitledBecoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall. Significant art and architecture exhibitions andconferences were held in association with "Stonewall 25" celebrations. The Stonewall site, which
receives visitors from all over the world, continues to be recognized as a place where a major
event in the history of civil rights occurred in America.
Background
The Stonewall uprising has been widely recognized as an exceptionally significant event in thegay rights movement. Stonewall was not the first time members of the gay and lesbiancommunity had sought their rights. Rather, its significance lies in its role as a catalyst for the
decades of significant change that followed. In this sense, Stonewall has been compared to the
Boston Tea Party and to Rosa Parks sitting in the front section of a bus. The Boston Tea Party
was not the first act of civil disobedience in the Revolutionary period, but it was a significant
turning point; Rosa Parks' act of civil disobedience was not the first step in the black civil rights
movement, but her actions were a catalyst for change. In the same way, the events of Stonewall
galvanized gay men and lesbians and led to the development of the modern gay rights movement.
In the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, gay and lesbian life in New York City andelsewhere in America had gone through phases of relative openness and strong repression. In
1960, few people would have publicly acknowledged that they were homosexual, sincehomosexual relationships were illegal in most states. In New York, people were often fired fromjobs or evicted from apartments if their sexual orientation became known; same-sex dancing or
kissing was illegal, as was the wearing of clothing traditionally worn by the opposite gender.
Because it was illegal for a bar to sell a drink to someone who was known to be gay, there were
few legitimate places where gay men and lesbians could meet in an open manner. The police
frequently raided and closed bars with gay clientele and harassed or entrapped gay men.
The 1960s were, of course, a period of tremendous social change in the United States. Sexualliberation, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the black civil rights movement, and the women's
rights movement, all of which had many gay and lesbian participants, changed the character ofAmerican society. All of these trends influenced the drive for gay rights. In the 1950s, what were
known as "homophile" activists and "homophile" groups merely sought to have their right toexist recognized. The two major homophile organizations of this period were the Mattachine
4 Paul Ramirez, reporter for the San Francisco Examiner, wrote in his article "The Night That Gave Birth to a
Movement," June 4, 1989: 6, that Stonewall "is now recognized as a gay Boston Tea Party of sorts." Gay rights activist Renee
Vera Cafiero noted in an interview with Fred Wasserman, March 9, 1994, that "Stonewall was a spark. It was Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks was not the beginning of the black civil rights movement but somehow she was unifying"; quoted in Molly
McGarry and Fred Wasserman, Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History ofLesbian and Gay Life in Twentieth-Century
America (NY: New York Public Library, 1998) 23.
5 Gay life in New York in the first four decades of the twentieth century is discussed in detail in George Chauncey,
Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940 (NY: Basic Books, 1994); seealso McGarry and Wasserman, Becoming Visible.
6 For the political history of the gay rights struggle in the 1950s and 1960s and the homophile organizations, seeJohn D'Emilio, "It Didn't Start With Stonewall," Gay Community News June 23, 1979: 20; John D'Emilio, Sexual Politics,
Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States 1940-1970 (Chicago: U of Chicago P,

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Society, established by five gay men in Los Angeles in 1950, with a New York branch organizedin 1955, and the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), a women's group organized in San Francisco in
1955, with a New York branch established three years later. These groups had small, primarily
urban memberships. Most members were middle-class white men and women who sought,
through peaceful protest and political lobbying, to have the public and the government recognize
the rights of homosexuals to live their lives in peace. These groups and similar smallerorganizations sponsored conferences, published newsletters, and organized protests. The latterincluded the series of July 4th demonstrations held between 1965 and 1969 in front of
Independence Hall in Philadelphia. At these protests, well-dressed men and women carried signs
with such slogans as "Homosexuals ask for redress of grievances" and "Homosexuals are
American citizens also." In New York, members of the Mattachine Society forced the State
Liquor Authority to license gay bars. They also forced a change in the drinking code by staging a"sip-in," in which men went up to a bartender and stated that they were homosexuals and wanted
a drink (in which case, it was illegal to serve them). These groups had very small membershiprolls and did not galvanize younger gay men and lesbians or more radical members of thecommunity. By 1969, the time was ripe for a more assertive form of activism. The events thattook place on June 28th-July 3rd in the Stonewall Inn and on the nearby streets were the sparkthat led to the development of this new movement.
The Stonewall and Its Environs7
The building at 51-53 Christopher Street that housed the Stonewall Inn in 1969 was originally
two separate two-story horse stables. No. 51 was erected in 1843 for A. Voorhis and No. 53 in
1846 for Mark Spencer, who owned a large estate nearby. In 1898, No. 51 was enlarged to threestories, but its third floor was removed in 1930 when the two buildings were combined into one
structure. As part of the 1930s renovations, the facade was redesigned as well, featuring a brickclad ground floor and stuccoed second story with small projecting iron flower-box holders. The
newly redesigned building was used as a restaurant. 8 By the 1950s, the establishment was known
as the Stonewall Inn Restaurant. The restaurant closed in c!966 and the space was converted into
the Stonewall Inn, a bar with a dance floor that was established to cater to gay men. As
documented by Martin Duberman, the new inn, which opened in February 1967, was operated by
the Mafia. As Duberman states, "In 1966 [the Stonewall] was taken over by three Mafia figures
who had grown up together on Mulberry Street in Little Italy."9
It was common for the Mafia to be involved with gay establishments. Since it was difficult to geta legitimate liquor license for a gay bar, organized crime figures either obtained illegal licenses
1983); and McGarry and Wasserman, Becoming Visible 139-157.
7 Information on the physical and social characteristics of the Stonewall Inn compiled from many sources, including
The Homosexual Handbook_(l969) 130-131; Craig Rodwell, "Mafia On the Spot," Hymnal February 1968; David C. Scott,"Autobiography," unpublished paper (1983); Tina Crosby, "The Stonewall Riot Remembered," unpublished paper (1974);
interview with Dawn Hampton (coatroom attendant, c!994).
8 Information on the early history of the building from New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission,
Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report, vol. 1 (NY: LPC, 1969) 117.
9 Duberman, Stonewall 183-184.

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Formor opened bars without licenses and paid off the police. Like others of its type, the Stonewall did
not have a liquor license. Rather, it was considered to be a "private club," since clubs did nothave to be licensed by the State Liquor Authority. Because it was a club, all patrons were
supposed to be members and no money was supposed to change hands for drinks. Since the saleof liquor was forbidden, there was never a cash register at the Stonewall, and all money was kept
in cigar boxes. Even with payoffs, bars like the Stonewall could be extremely profitable. Martin
Duberman reports that on Friday night profits could be $5,000, while on Saturday the take could
be $6,500. 10
Since the Stonewall was run as a club and not a typical bar, patrons had to knock and werechecked by a doorman looking through a peephole. Admission might be denied to those who
were unknown or who were not accompanied by a companion who could vouch for them, since
there was constant fear of permitting entry to plainclothes police officers. Patrons, or clubmembers, paid an admission fee of three or four dollars and were given tickets for two drinks.
Patrons were also supposed to sign in before entering. (Not all customers used their given names- Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland were frequent visitors!)
Since even Mafia-run bars were subject to periodic police raids (although the bar owners were
frequently notified in advance), most did not exist for long and little money was spent on decor.
The Stonewall was typical. The interior was divided into two major spaces. Upon entering,
patrons walked into a small vestibule, with an office to the left and a coat check straight ahead.
To enter the main room, a patron turned right. This large, dimly lit room was furnished with amakeshift bar that ran along the east wall and a dance floor to the rear. A door from the main
room led into a large space known as the "back room," which was actually in the west section of
the building. This room was an open space, used for dancing or socializing, with a small service
bar at the rear. There was no decorative detail and the interior was painted entirely in black,
including the windows, which were also covered with plywood. A description printed in The
Homosexual Handbook in 1969, noted that "There's a certain hastiness about the look of theplace. It seems to have only recently been converted from a garage into a cabaret; in about eight
hours and at a cost of under fifty dollars."
The Stonewall opened at a time when the center of gay life in Greenwich village was beginningto move west, from the Washington Square area and Greenwich Avenue, down Christopher
Street. Thus, the Stonewall, on Christopher Street between Waverly Place and Seventh Avenue
South, was in the heart of a new gay area. For several years, the Stonewall catered to a broad mixof young, mostly white patrons. (Patrons were not carded and it was not uncommon for thoseunder eighteen, then the legal drinking age in New York State, to be admitted). A 1968 guide to
New York City's gay scene described the Stonewall as "one of the most active spots in town
currently. Very crowded on weekends." By 1969 the patronage had changed, including a larger
number of black and Puerto Rican men, as well as men in drag and street kids.
10 Duberman, Stonewall 185.
McGarry and Wasserman, Becoming Visible 4.
12 The Homosexual Handbook (NY: Ophelia Press, 1969) 130.

13 New York City Gay Scene Quarterly 1 (Spring 1968).

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Christopher Park, a favorite hangout for young, often homeless, gay street kids, is locatedimmediately across Christopher Street from the Stonewall Inn. This small triangular piece of land
is one of several odd parcels created by the fact that the streets in the western portion ofGreenwich Village are not laid out on a grid plan. Christopher Park is created by the juncture of
Christopher Street, Grove Street, and West 4th Street at Seventh Avenue South.
The street pattern in this neighborhood is significant because it is one of the elements that
contributed to the events of late June and early July 1969 and helps to explain why this police
raid sparked a riot while other raids did not. Christopher Street runs east-west between Sixth
Avenue and Seventh Avenue South; however, this short stretch of the street is interrupted byseveral cross streets. One arm of Waverly Place runs to the north and Greenwich Avenue extends
to the northwest; Grove Street runs southwest from Christopher Street from a point just east of
the Stonewall Inn; another arm of Waverly Place extends southeast from the point where
Christopher and Grove merge; and Gay Street extends south connecting Christopher Street andWaverly Place. Thus, there are many streets leading directly into and out of the site of theStonewall Inn.
The Stonewall Uprising
The following description of the Stonewall uprising is drawn from extensive research materials.
Essentially, however, documentation of these events rests primarily on numerous consistenteyewitness accounts, media reports and police records.
The Stonewall uprising began in the early hours of June 28, 1969, when the police raided theStonewall Inn. Apparently, the raid was a surprise to the bar's owners, especially because it had
been raided by the police only a few days before. There has been speculation that the June 28th
raid, occurring so soon on the heels of a previous raid, took place because June 1969 was the
14 McGarry and Wasserman, Becoming Visible 4; Duberman, Stonewall 188-190; Interview, Kevin B. with Michael
Scherker, June 5, 1990.
15 Much of the specific information about events at Stonewall is taken from extensive research material collected byDavid Carter for his forthcoming book on the Stonewall uprising, to be published by St. Martin's Press. Primary sources forthe events of June and July 1969 include Dennis Eskow, "3 Cops Hurt as Bar Raid Riles Crowd," New York Daily News June
29,1969: 30; Dick Leitsch, "Gay Riots in the Village" Mattachine Society of_New York Newsletter August 1969: 1-3; Dick
Leitsch, "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World," Mattachine Society ofNew York Newsletter July 1969: 21-23; Dick
Leitsch, "Police Raid onN.Y. Club Sets Off First Gay Riot," Los_Angeles Advocate September 1969: 3, 11; Jay Levin, "TheGay Anger Behind the Riots," New York Post July 8, 1969: 3; "No Place for Gaity," New York_Post July 27, 1969; "Police
Again Rout 'Village' Youths," New York Times June 30, 1969; Steven A. Rosen, "Police Harassment of Homosexual Womenand Men in New York City 1960-1980," Columbia Human Rights Law Review 12 (1980-1981) 159-190; Howard Smith,"Full Moon Over the Stonewall," Village Fbz'cejuly 3,1969: 1, 25; Lucian Truscott IV, "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan
Square," Village Voice July 3, 1969: 1,18; "Village Raid Stirs Melee," New York Post June 28, 1969. The best synopsis of
events at Stonewall can be found in McGarry and Wasserman, Becoming Visible 3-23. See also D'Emilio, Sexual Politics,
Sexual Communities 231-233; Mark Thompson, ed., Long Roadjo Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian
Movement (NY: St. Martin's Press, 1994) 17-29; John Loughery, The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities:
A Twentieth-Century History (NY: Henry Holt & Co., 1998) 314-320; Donn Teal, The Gay Militants (NY: Stein and Day,1971) 17-23.

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beginning of a mayoral election campaign season and, traditionally, there had been crackdowns
on gay and lesbian bars during campaigns. Dick Leitsch, then head of the New York Mattachine
Society, noted at the time that "It's time for the local elections and, as usual at that time in the
Village, homosexuals are being harassed on the streets by the cops, [and] the clubs are being
raided." One Stonewall patron told the New York Post that "there's a feeling that it's just
1V
[Mayor] Lindsay trying to out law-and-order" the other two mayoral candidates. Others
speculated that the raids on the Stonewall and other Greenwich Village gay bars on previous
nights resulted from the appointment of a new police captain to Greenwich Village's Sixth
Precinct. Among those who attributed the raid to the new police captain were future novelist
Edmund White and activist Craig Rodwell, both of whom observed the events of Stonewall. 18
The events of the Stonewall uprising began in the early morning hours of Saturday, June 28,
1969. At approximately 1:15 a.m., eight plainclothes police officers, six men and two women,
led by police inspectors Smyth and Pine, raided the Stonewall Inn. Apparently, the raid occurred
after an undercover detective had observed the illegal sale of alcohol and issued a warrant. Since
the bar had been active for several years, the sale of liquor on the premises could not have been asurprise to anyone. As was typical of such raids, the police checked the identities of theapproximately two hundred bar patrons. Those with identification were allowed to leave, one byone, while those without identification, as well as bar employees and those in drag (crossdressing was illegal), were held. Generally, as patrons were released from a bar raid, they left thescene as rapidly as possible. However, this raid was different.
As the patrons of the Stonewall left, a large crowd gathered on Christopher Street outside of thebar. The crowd included those who had been released and streets kids who were hanging out inChristopher Park. 19 Reportedly, there were approximately four hundred young men in the crowd.
The size of the crowd increased as Village residents, weekend visitors and tourists happened by
the event. Dick Leitsch recalled that "The patrons gathered on the street outside, and were joined
9ft ...
by other homosexuals and Village residents and visitors to the area." The New York Post
reported that people were shouting "Gay Power" and "We Want Freedom."Upon exiting, patrons were surprised to find a cheering crowd, and many struck campy poses as
the crowd applauded. Thus, initially, the mood on Christopher Street outside the Stonewall wascelebratory. This changed when one or more police paddy wagons arrived. When the police tried
to escort those who were arrested into the van[s], the crowd began booing and yelling, crowding
in on the arresting officers. The police log report written after the event noted that, while
16 Letter from Dick Leitsch to Village Voice July 10, 1969: 49.
17 Levin, "The Gay Anger Behind the Riots."
1 Q

Letter from Edmund White to Ann and Alfred Corn, July 8, 1969; Craig Rodwell, "Get the Mafia and the Cops
Out of Gay Bars," leaflet written
c.June 28, 1969.
19 "Police Again Rout 'Village' Youths."
20 Leitsch, "Hairpin Drop" 21.
21 "Village Raid Stirs Melee."

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who attempted to stop them from removing prisoners."
As more people were escorted out of the bar, the crowd became angrier. People in the crowd
started throwing pennies at the police, followed by beer cans and bottles and street paving blocks
or bricks. As the officers' anger increased, there were a number of conflicts between police andmembers of the crowd. Among those beaten and arrested was folk singer Dave Van Ronk, who,
ironically, had been drinking at a straight bar down the street and had come out to see what was22
happening. The eight officers were forced back into the Stonewall (dragging Van Ronk alongwith them) and locked the door in order to keep the angry crowd out. Once the police hadbarricaded themselves inside the Stonewall inn, the intensity of the crowd's reaction increased.
Bricks and bottles shattered the windows of the bar and a parking meter was uprooted and used
as a battering ram to beat down the door. According to Village Voice reporter Howard Smith,
who was locked in the bar with the police, the officers became increasingly uneasy. Police
Inspector Smyth told Newsweek that he "was still shaking an hour later...[and that he'd] neverseen anything like it."'^'3

After several tries, the door to the Stonewall was smashed open and additional objects werethrown into the bar. With the door open and the plywood panels forced off of the broken
windows, the police who were trapped inside were afraid that the crowd would surge in. They
opened a fire hose, but it sent out only a weak stream of water. Following this, police drew theirguns. As Howard Smith recounted, "a kind of tribal adrenaline rush bolsters
all of us; they [the"7S
police] take out and check pistols....They aim unwavering at the door." Meanwhile, a small fire
erupted in the bar, as lighter fluid was sprayed in through the windows. Finally, at about 3:00
a.m., fire trucks and members of the police force's Tactical Patrol Force (TPF) arrived at thescene. The latter was a trained riot-control force, established to deal with anti-Vietnam War
protests. These officers wore helmets and visors and were armed with billy clubs and otherweapons. After several confrontations on the street, the crowd, by then numbering an estimatedfour hundred to one thousand people, began to disperse.
Ultimately, thirteen people were arrested on the morning of June 28, 1969, "on charges ranging
from Van Ronk's felonious assault of a police officer to the [bar] owner's illegal sale and storageof alcoholic beverages without a license." The Stonewall itself had been seriously damaged.
The windows and door had been destroyed; the jukebox, cigarette machine, telephone, and cash

22 Smith, "Full Moon Over the Stonewall" 25; Truscott, "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square" 18; "Village Raid
Stirs Melee."23

Smith, "Full Moon Over the Stonewall" 24.

24 "Policing the Third Sex," Newsweek October 27, 1969.
25 Smith, "Full Moon Over the Stonewall" 25.
26 Truscott, "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square" 18.

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27boxes looted; and mirrors, toilets, and other fixtures had been smashed. The entire series of
events, from the beginning of the raid until the TPF cleared the streets, lasted about two hours.
Despite the short duration of the event, it proved to be of enormous significance. News spread
rapidly by word of mouth, radio and television reports, and a short article written in the Saturday
edition of the New York Post. On Saturday, repairs began on the Stonewall. The windows wereboarded up and the boards became broadsides for protest messages, including. "Support Gay
Power," "Legalize Gay Bars," "TO FIGHT FOR OUR COUNTRY THEY INVADED OUR
RIGHTS," and "GAY PROHIBITION CORUPT$ [sic] COP$ FEEDS MAFIA."29 Fliers
proclaiming "Gay Power" were also distributed throughout the Village later on Saturday.
<^o

On Saturday night, thousands of demonstrators gathered outside of the Stonewall to protest theevents of the previous evening. One participant remembered that:
The amazing part of Stonewall is how many people started coming down there as
word spread. People came from every borough, people who never came to theVillage were there. And if you were there, you were part of it.
According to Dick Leitsch, who witnessed the events, the crowd was orderly at first, with people
shouting slogans such as "Gay Power" and "Equality for Homosexuals," and then later,"Christopher Street belongs to the queens!" and "Liberate Christopher Street."31 Initially, thecrowd was almost entirely gay men, but as weekend visitors to the Village arrived, they joined
the crowd; this group included many heterosexuals. In what was a revolutionary statement for thetime; gay men were seen being affectionate in public, holding hands and kissing. The Stonewall
Inn reopened, serving only soft drinks, but the commercial aspects of the bar soon became
peripheral to the protest activities taking place just outside.
As the crowd grew in the early hours of Sunday morning, June 29th, it filled up Christopher
Street and Christopher Park. Leitsch reported that:
Christopher Street, from Greenwich to Seventh Avenues, had become an almost
solid mass of people ~ most of them gay. No traffic could pass, and even walking
the few blocks on foot was next to impossible.
•3^

The crowd prevented an empty city bus from traveling down Christopher Street and blocked
traffic so that only one car could drive through at a time. At about 2:15 a.m., squad cars with
about one hundred police officers from several precincts converged on the site. With the arrival
27 Smith, "Full Moon Over the Stonewall."28 "Village Raid Stirs Melee."
9Q"Police Again Rout 'Village' Youths"; photograph taken on June 29, 1969 by Fred McDarrah.
30 Interview with Candice Boyer, quoted in McGarry and Wasserman 10 and David Deitcher, ed., The Question of
Equality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America Since Stonewall (NY: Scribner, 1995) 77.
31 Leitsch, "Hairpin Drop" 21.
32 Leitsch, "Hairpin Drop" 22.

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Formof the police, the tenor of the jovial crowd changed, and suddenly garbage cans and other debris
started flying. The TDF was called in, arriving in city buses at the corner of Greenwich Avenue
and Christopher Street. The TDF decided to clear the area, first rushing crowds that had
overflowed from Christopher Street onto Greenwich Avenue. People on Greenwich Avenue wereforced to move either west on West 10th Street or south onto Sixth Avenue; but, due to theirregular street pattern, they were able to double back up either arm of Waverly Place and onto
Christopher Street. The TDF then pushed westward from Greenwich down Christopher Street,proceeding as far as Waverly Place. Again, people doubled back around on side streets, running
down Waverly Place and Gay Street and reappearing on the east end of Christopher Street,behind the TDF phalanx. In one of the most famous protest moments, a group of gay men,
including street youths, formed a taunting chorus line in front of the TDF police officers
andoobegan dancing and singing "We are the Stonewall girls, We wear our hair in curls...." The TDF
soon scattered the group. By about 4:00 a.m., the TDF had regained control of the street.
On Sunday night/Monday morning, June 29th-30th, the Stonewall was open again. Ironically,
according to Dick Leitsch, "the citizenry was treated to the sight of the cops begging
homosexuals to go inside the bar that they had chased everyone out of a few nights before."
People again returned to the streets, but in smaller numbers than on the previous evening. The
next two nights, Monday June 30th and Tuesday July 1st, were quiet, apparently due to inclement
weather. But on Wednesday night, July 2nd, and Thursday morning, July 3rd, protests erupted
again, perhaps inspired by the front page coverage of the weekend's events in the Village Voice,which reached the news stands on Tuesday evening. The crowd of between five hundred and one
thousand protestors gathered in front of the Stonewall, setting fires in nearby trash baskets. The
TPF arrived and again scattered the crowd. After a protestor was beaten, a melee erupted.
Eventually, the police dispersed the crowds, thus ending the Stonewall uprising.
The Impact and Importance of Stonewall
For some gay and lesbian Americans, the impact of the events at and near the Stonewall Inn was
immediate. Craig Rodwell was already a prominent gay activist, having opened the Oscar Wilde
Memorial Book Shop, the world's first gay and lesbian bookstore, in 1967. Rodwell watched theevents of Saturday morning and prepared a flyer that was handed out later that day. He hailed theevents as historic, stating prophetically that:
They will go down in history as the first time that thousands of Homosexual men
and women went into the streets to protest the intolerable situation which has
existed in New York City for many years.35
Early Monday morning, after 1 a.m., gay Beat poet Alien Ginsberg visited the Stonewall and was
moved to tell Village Voice reporter Lucian Truscott:33 Quoted in McGarry and Wasserman 11 and elsewhere.
34 Leitsch, "Hairpin Drop" 23.
35

Craig Rodwell, "Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars."

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Gay power! Isn't that great! We're one of the largest minorities in the country
per cent, you know. It's about time we did something to assert ourselves.

10

Truscott went on to note that:
Ginsberg expressed a desire to visit the Stonewall...and ambled on down thestreet, flashing peace signs and helloing the TPF. It was a relief and a kind of joy
to see him on the street. He lent an extra umbrella of serenity to the scene with his
laughter and quiet commentary on consciousness, "gay power: as a new
movement, and the various implications of what had happened...."
After visiting the Stonewall Inn, Ginsberg described how things had changed in
the last day: "The guys there were so beautiful ~ they've lost that wounded lookthat fags all had 10 years ago."
Truscott noted that this was the first time that he had heard the crowd described as beautiful.
By July, Dick Leitsch, writing in the Mattachine Society's Newsletter,_referred to Stonewall as"The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World." ('Hairpin drop' was gay slang for dropping hintsof one's homosexuality.) The New York Post quoted one young man who saw that his life hadchanged: "All my life, the cops have sneered and pointed at me and my friends....Well, the 'gay
riot' means we're not going to take it any more." Joan Nestle, who became one of the leading
historians of the movement and founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives (the first and largest
lesbian archive), was in the crowd on Sunday morning, holding the hand of her girlfriend in the
middle of the street, "feeling like the world, really, had been turned upside down." The Lesbian
Herstory Archives was founded a little over four years after Stonewall and, according to Nestle, it
owes "its creation to that night and the courage that found its voice in the streets." She also
reflected that:
O O"

I don't think that I really took in, at that moment, what it all meant, that our
relationship with the police would, from that day on, be a different kind of
relationship. But I knew that, being a gay person, in some sense a big shift had
happened.
Indeed, Nestle's view of the changed relationship of the gay and lesbian community with thepolice was also perceived by the police themselves. Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, one of the

36 Truscott, "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square" 18; Ginsburg's comments also quoted in "Police Raid on N.Y.
Club Sets Off First Gay Riot," Los Angeles Advocate September 1969: 1.
37 Leitsch, "Hairpin Drop."
38 38. Levin, "The Gay Anger Behind the Riots."
39 Joan Nestle, in Kate Brandt, "It Wasn't Just One More Raid...Stories From '69," Deneuve, May/June, 1994: 20,
and David Isay, "Remembering Stonewall," Pacifica Radio, 1989.

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officers involved in the uprising, later observed that "after the Stonewall incident things werecompletely changed...They [homosexuals] were not submissive any more."
Over the next months and years, others commented on the personal impact of the events at
Stonewall. Activist Bob Kohler noted in 1970 that "I don't know if the Stonewall riots will everbe recorded in history books but I do know that my world ~ my safe, smug, little world has notbeen the same since." Virginia Apuzzo, who would later become one of the leading figures in
the gay and lesbian movement and a respected advisor to President Bill Clinton, heard about theuprising on the radio while she was in a convent. She recalled that Stonewall:
hit me like a bolt of lightning. It was as if I had an incredible release of my own
outrage at having to sequester so much of my life....It was only a matter of weeks
before I left the convent and started a new life.
Apuzzo noted further that "Stonewall meant I wasn't alone, I wasn't isolated." Henry Baird,
then a soldier in Vietnam, recounts how he heard about Stonewall and what it meant:In 1969,1 was in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. I was having lunch in the army messreading the Armed Forces news summary of the day, and there was a shortparagraph describing a riot led by homosexuals in Greenwich Village against thepolice, and my heart was filled with joy. I thought about what I read frequently
but had no one to discuss it with, and secretly within myself I decided that when I
came back stateside, if I should survive to come back stateside, I would come out
as a gay person, and I did.
Aside from the immediate impact on gay and lesbian activists in New York, Stonewall also had
an immediate impact on young gay men and lesbians from all parts of society. Many of those
who became involved in the gay rights movement had previously taken part in the anti-war
movement, the movement for black civil rights, and the early days of the women's liberation
movement. These gay men and lesbians were increasingly unwilling to live their lives in secret
and were determined to gain their own civil rights. Evidence of the changes taking place in thegay and lesbian community occurred as early as July 4th, 1969, the day after the uprising ended.
For several years previous, a small group of well-dressed protestors had marched in front of
Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4th. In 1969, the tenor of this demonstration (the lastof its type) changed dramatically, as more demonstrators appeared, many of whom refused todress in the conservative style that had been deemed appropriate. Lilli Vincenz recalled that:
Normally a small, conservatively dressed and rather sedate group, the marchers about twice the usual number - now were boisterous, wearing jeans and T-shirts
40 Seymour Pine, in Isay, "Remembering Stonewall" 23.
41 Bob Kohler, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone," Come Out! January 10, 1974: 14, quoted in McGarry and
Wasserman, Becoming Visible 22.
42 Isay, "Remembering"Re
Stonewall," and interview with Fred Wasserman, April 1994, in McGarry and Wasserman,
Becoming Visible 22.
43 Ibid. 23.

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Formand brimming with excitement about the previous week's events. It was clear thatthings were changing. People who had felt oppressed now felt empowered. They
were ready to insist on their rights rather than just ask for them.
In New York, on July 27, 1969, several weeks after the events at Stonewall, a group of activists
staged the first gay and lesbian march, proceeding from Washington Square Park to theStonewall. By the end of July, activists had established a new organization, the Gay Liberation
Front (GLF). The GLF was, as John D'Emilio has written, "a self-proclaimed revolutionaryorganization in the style of the New Left."46 The group sought to ally itself with other radicalgroups, such as the Black Panthers, in order to change American society. Within a few months,
less revolutionary members left the GLF to establish the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), a groupdedicated specifically to seeking gay rights.47 Information about the Stonewall spread throughout
the country and "within a year gay liberation groups had sprung into existence on college
campuses and in cities around the nation."48 Franklin Kameny, a major figure in the preStonewall generation of gay activists, reported that:
By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country. A year
later there was at least 1,500. By two years later, to the extent that a count could
be made, it was 2,500. And that was the impact of Stonewall.49
On the first anniversary of Stonewall, the magazine Gay asked:
Where do you send the congratulatory telegram, the Happy Birthday greeting incommemoration of a year of astounding and unprecedented progress toward
equality under the law and universal dignity for homosexuals in America?50
The question was answered in the anniversary celebrations that took place in New York and inother cities. The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee sponsored Gay Pride Week eventsand a Gay Pride March. The New York march was the result of a decision made by a group of
homophile organizations meeting in Philadelphia in November 1969. These groups resolved that:
A demonstration be held annually on the last Saturday in June in New York City
to commemorate the 1969 spontaneous demonstration on Christopher Street andthat this demonstration be called CHRISTOPHER STREET LIBERATION

44 Kimberly Scott, "Stonewall's Aftermath Spurred D.C. Successes," Washington Blade May 25, 1994.
45 Fred and Timothy McDarrah, Gay Pride 9.

D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities 233.
47 For the GLF and the GAA, see Loughery, The Other Side of Silence 323-333, and Toby Marotta, The Politics of
Homosexuality (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).
D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities 233.
Isay, "Remembering Stonewall."

50 Teal, The Gay Militants 321.

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DAY....[H]omophile organizations across the nation [should] be urged to holdparallel demonstrations on the same day.51
It was clear to the homophile movement leaders that conditions in the gay and lesbiancommunity had changed dramatically and that the Independence Hall demonstrations were nolonger appropriate. The Village Voice reported that the events, including workshops, dances, art
shows, conferences, and a culminating "mass march" were "in celebration of the out-front
resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago."52 The tone of this
Voice article was also significant, since it reflected the impact of picketing at the newspaper's
offices protesting the homophobic attitude of much of its reporting on gay and lesbian issues.
The first Gay Pride March attracted several thousand people who walked from the site of theStonewall uprising to Central Park. Similar marches were held on the same weekend in Chicago,
San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the marches were called Christopher Street West, aspecific reference to the Stonewall.
On the second anniversary of Stonewall, the commemorative marches had increased in size andspread to other cities. Craig Rodwell estimated that in New York alone ten thousand people
marched in observance of Christopher Street Liberation Day, with similar marches not only in
California and Chicago, but also in Boston, London, Paris, and Stockholm, and smaller events(referred to as "Gay-Ins") in other cities. The purpose of these events, according to Rodwell, was"to commemorate and reaffirm the new spirit of pride and determination among Gay people
which emerged after the now historic 'Christopher Street/Stonewall Riots.'"53
In 1972, only three years after the actual events at Stonewall, Milton Lounsberry, executive
director of New York's Church of the Blessed Disciple, commented that "in the eyes and heartsof many gay activists, that once relatively insignificant gay bar has become a sacred symbol of all
they live and breathe for."54 Kay Tobin, a founder of the Daughters of Bilitis, wrote that same
year about how influential Stonewall had already been:
Up to 1969, this movement was generally called the homosexual or homophile
movement, and these terms are still frequently used. After a dramatic event in1969, younger activists began calling it the gay or gay liberation
movement...What was the dramatic event? ...in June 1969, New York police
raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar on Greenwich Village's Christopher Street that was
popular with male homosexuals. The bar's clientele took umbrage, and for the first
51 In The Gay Militants 300. Donn Teal notes that the resolution to hold a march in New York was made by Craig
Rodwell, representing the Homophile Youth Movement, and Ellen Broidy of NYU's Student Homophile League. Although
the resolution called for a march on the last Saturday in June, marches have actually been held on the last Sunday of themonth.
52"A Week of Gay Pride," Village Voice June 25, 1970.

53 Craig Rodwell, "Gay and Free" QQ Magazine, November/December
1971:22.
54 Milton Lounsberry, "Remembering the Stonewall," The Advocate July 5, 1972: 2.

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Formtime in history homosexuals fought back. The police were stunned....Word spreadof the spontaneous rebellion and immediately the movement acquired a grassroots appeal and began to burgeon. Many new activists consider the Stonewall
uprising the birth of the gay liberation movement. Certainly it was the birth of gay
pride on a massive scale.55
Morty Manford, an early activist at the GAA, wrote:
The spirit of the Stonewall resulted concretely in the birth of the Gay Liberation
Movement. The time was right. Prior to the Christopher Street riot there wereperhaps 20 organizations in the United States. In the two years following the riot
about 600 new groups formed.56
Alan Young, co-author of a compilation of material on the growth of the gay liberation
movement, also written in 1972, commented that:
On a June evening in 1969 police began what seemed like a routine raid on the
Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village's most popular gay men's bar. The raid didn't go
off as planned. We fought back. The gay liberation movement was born.57
One year later, in 1973, the Gay Activists Alliance voted to seek landmark designation for the
Stonewall Inn, which, by then, had gone out of business.58 By the tenth anniversary of Stonewall,in 1979, commemorative marches had become an annual event in New York and in many other
cities and towns in the United States and abroad. New York City declared June to be Lesbian and
Gay Pride and History Month, a designation that has been repeated in New York and in otherlocations every year since. New York City announced that a sculpture by George Segal, entitled
Gay Liberation, would be installed in Christopher Park. (The work, showing two women sitting
on a bench and a pair of men standing nearby, was not actually installed until 1992.)59 The tenthanniversary of Stonewall was also celebrated with the first national march on Washington for
lesbian and gay rights, attended by several hundred thousand people; this was the largest marchthat had ever taken place in Washington up to that time.
In 1989, in recognition of the twentieth anniversary of Stonewall, New York's City Council voted
to rename the portion of Christopher Street in front of the Stonewall as Stonewall Place, andMayor Ed Koch participated in the formal ceremony on April 19, 1979.60 Street signs were
55 Kay Tobin, The Gay Crusaders (NY: Paperback Library, 1972) 8-9.
56 Morty Manford, "A Comparative Study of Gay Liberationists and Columbia Homosexuals, unpublished paper,
1972.
57 Carla Jay and Alan Young, eds. Out of the Closets: Voices of Gayliberation (NY: Douglas, 1972) 6.
CO"Stonewall 'Historic'?" The Advocate August 15, 1973.

The story of the Segal sculpture and the arguments over its installation are detailed in James M. Saslow, "A
Sculpture Without a Country," Christopher Street February 1981: 23-32. See also Carol Vogel, "Art Market: George Segal
Sculpture," New York Times June 19, 1992: sec. C, 16.
60 William Murphy, "'Stonewall Place' To Honor Gay Uprising 20 Years Ago," New York Newsday April 13, 1989:

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1969. The U.S. Post Office also recognized the significance of Stonewall and offered a special
stamp cancellation on Sunday June 25th, during the annual Lesbian and Gay Pride Parade; thiswas the first stamp cancellation for a specific lesbian and gay event. In recognition of the tenthanniversary, New York City's Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center commissioned
several significant art installations, including a mural by Keith Hating.
The importance of the Stonewall events was summarized from the perspective of 1989 by
Mattachine Society founder Harry Hay and by the San Francisco Chronicle. Hay, who came to
New York for the twentieth anniversary celebration, spoke of the "magnificent Stonewall
Rebellion [which] erupted here in New York City...revealing in a flash our next new
concept...gay - as a socially viable collective identity." In a lengthy article on the "gayrevolution" in the San Francisco Chronicle, the author stated:
The riot that ensued on the cobblestone streets of Greenwich Village started a
revolution, forever changing the way most Americans view homosexuals andhomosexuality....On that night, the gay liberation movement was born.61
On June 22-24, 1990, the Empire State Building was lit up for the first time in lavender light(lavender is the color associated with the lesbian and gay movement) in recognition of theimportance of Stonewall; the commemorative lavender lighting has been repeated every year
since then.
The commemorative events that celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of Stonewall in 1994
were the most significant. A decision had been made by the Association of Lesbian/Gay Pride
Coordinators, a group composed of those who organize lesbian and gay pride events throughout
the country, that in 1994 all local gay pride celebrations should be scheduled so as not to conflictwith a major march that would occur in New York. Thus, on the last Sunday in June, 1994, anenormous march took place in New York, with a route that took marchers in front of the United
Nations and then into Central Park.62 Organizers of the march estimated that the crowd was 1.1
million people. There was also an alternative march, led by Mattachine founder Harry Hay and agroup of Stonewall veterans, that began at the Stonewall Inn site and proceeded up Fifth Avenue.
In addition to these marches, many other events commemorated "Stonewall 25," a selection ofwhich are noted here.
~ New York was host to the Gay Games IV, an international sporting event that brought lesbian
and gay athletes from all over the world to New York, with events held throughout the city, atsites that included Yankee Stadium.
A cultural festival was held in conjunction with Gay Games IV.
29; "Koch Designates 'Stonewall Place,'" New York Native May 1, 1989: p.9.
61 Harry Hay, "The Gift to Be Gay: Remarks for the Stonewall Rebellion's 20th Anniversary," New York Native
July 10, 1989: 18-19, and Mark Z. Barabak, "How a Bar Riot in N.Y. Began the Gay Revolution," San Francisco Chronicle
March 13, 1989: sec. A, 1.
62 "Gay Marchers Press Ahead in 25-Year Battle," New York Times
June 27, 1994: sec. A, 1.

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In recognition of the importance of Stonewall, the New York Public Library organizedBecoming Visible: The Legacy of Stonewall, an exhibition exploring New York's lesbian and gay
communities; this was the first exhibition on the subject of gay and lesbian history ever held at amajor American cultural institution.
The New York Public Library's Performing Arts Division held two related exhibitions: theTheater Collection's Out In Public: Post-Stonewall_Performance and Protest and the Dance
Collection's After Stonewall
The Queens Public Library also put together a Stonewall exhibition, entitled Remembering
Stonewall.
Columbia University's Butler Library sponsored an exhibition entitled Stonewall and Beyond:Lesbian and Gay Culture, which the university described as a celebration of the "astonishingflowering of gay culture that has changed this country and beyond, forever."
The Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center sponsored an exhibition entitled Windows on
Gay Life, with installations on lesbian and gay history installed in shop windows along
Christopher and nearby streets.
-OLGAD, the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Architects and Designers, held a symposium,"Design Pride '94: The First International Design Conference for Lesbian & Gay Architects andDesigners," and organized a major exhibition in conjunction with DIFFA, the Design Industries
Foundation Fighting AIDS, entitled Design Legacies: A Tribute to Architects and Designers Who
Have Died ofAIDS; OLGAD also published^ Guide to Lesbian & Gay New York HistoricalLandmarks. 63
The Storefront for Art and Architecture sponsored a project called Queer Spaces by Repo
History, an artists' collective that specializes in public art projects; this was a plaque program thatanalyzed and commemorated important sites in local gay history.
En Garde Arts, a group that does site-specific theater, produced Tina Landau's Stonewall, Night
Variations.
Other theater events commemorating Stonewall 25, were Sir lan McKellen's one-man show,
The Knight Out; Outrageous Comedy 1994, hosted by Sandra Bernhard; and Charles Busch's
Dressing Up!, with Busch, Charles Nelson Reilly, and a guest appearance by Milton Berle.
The twenty-fifth anniversary was also celebrated by the U.S. Post Office, which issued
commemorative cancellations for Stonewall and for Gay Games IV and Cultural Festival.

See Design Legacies: A Tribute to Architects and Designers Who Have Died ofAIDS (1994), exhibition
catalogue, and A Guide to Lesbian & Gay New_York Historical Landmarks (1994), map and guide. For an analysis of gay andlesbian design issues, see Herbert Muschamp, "Designing a Framework for Diversity," New York Times June 19, 1994: sec.
2,34.

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It has been said of the impact of Stonewall, that:
Prior to that summer there was little public expression of the lives and experiencesof gays and lesbians. The Stonewall Riots marked the beginning of the gay
liberation movement that has transformed the oppression of gays and lesbians into
calls for pride and action. In the past twenty-five years we have all been witness toan astonishing flowering of gay culture that has changed this country and beyond,forever.64
That culture has manifested itself in an increasingly large body of art, including fine arts, poetry,photography, theater, music, dance, film, history, and literature. While there have been, ofcourse, countless significant American gay and lesbian artists, writers, etc., over the course ofthis nation's history, these individuals did not always have the societal freedom to be open about
their personal experiences or to embrace openly gay and lesbian themes in their work. One of themost important and enduring effects of Stonewall, however, has been that gay and lesbian artists
have been freed to explore their personal narratives and to create gay and lesbian themes,
whether intended solely for a lesbian and/or gay audience, or for a wider public.65
The recognition of Stonewall's significance is quite far ranging. The word "Stonewall" hasbecome synonymous with gay rights and with the lesbian and gay community. Manyorganizations, institutions, and commercial enterprises have been named for Stonewall or
Christopher Street. In New York City, for example, there is a Stonewall Democratic Club (a gay
political organization), a Stonewall Community Foundation (a grant-making organization), a
Stonewall Chorale (a singing group), and a Stonewall Business Association (a business support
group). The significance of Stonewall has been recognized nationally and internationally. Cities
and towns across America celebrate Gay Pride Day annually on the last Sunday in June inrecognition of Stonewall, and similar events take place at about this time in London, Vienna andBerlin (both referred to as Christopher Street Day), Rome, Stockholm, Sao Paolo, Brazil, andelsewhere. Sydney, Australia held its first Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on June 24, 1978, but
because June is winter in Australia, the date has since been changed. A few examples oforganizations outside of New York City that use the Stonewall name are the National Stonewall
Democratic Federation, a national gay and lesbian democratic political club; the Utah Stonewall
Center, a statewide community support group; Stonewall Columbus, Ohio's oldest and largest
gay rights advocacy organization; Stonewall Youth, Olympia, Washington, a support group forgay and lesbian youth; the Stonewall Immigration Group, a United Kingdom organization that
deals with lesbian and gay immigration problems; and Stonewall, the professional lobbyinggroup working for lesbian and gay equality in the United Kingdom.
The importance of Stonewall has been widely discussed in the scholarly and popular press. Thesebooks have been published by major presses, including the Stonewall Inn Editions imprint of St.
Martin's Press. Most widely recognized is Martin Duberman's Stonewall, which tells the story of
the events of Stonewall by focusing on the experiences of six individuals. The first line of the
64 Synopsis of Butler Library exhibit Stonewall and Beyond: Lesbian andjGay Culture.
65 General works on lesbian and gay culture include Richard Dyer, Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay
Film (NY: Routledge, 1990); John M. Klum, Acting Gay: Homosexuality in Modern Drama (NY: Columbia UP, 1994); Vito
Russo, The Celluloid Closet (NY: Harper & Row, 1987).

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National Register of Historic Places Registration Formbook states the significance of Stonewall clearly and succinctly: "'Stonewall' is the emblematic
event in modern lesbian and gay history." Duberman continues:"Stonewall" has become synonymous over the years with gay resistance tooppression. Today the word resonates with images of insurgency and selfrealization and occupies a central place in the iconography of lesbian and gay
awareness. The 1969 riots are now generally taken to mark the birth of the modern
gay and lesbian political movement - that moment in time when gays and lesbians
recognized all at once their mistreatment and their solidarity. As such,"Stonewall" has become an empowering symbol of global proportions.66
Professor George Chauncey of the University of Chicago, who has studied pre-Stonewall gay
life, has acknowledged that Stonewall "launched the modern lesbian and gay liberation
movement, an event now commemorated every June throughout the Western world by gay pridemarches drawing hundreds of thousand of participants."67 John D'Emilio, professor of history anddirector of graduate studies in history at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, who has
also studied pre-Stonewall gay life, wrote in 1979 that:
The Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village in June 1969 are a milestone in gay
history and are rightly celebrated each year by lesbians and gay men throughout
the United States. The riots initiated the gay liberation phase of the struggle of gay
women and men for freedom.68
In 1983, in his book Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities, D'Emilio discussed how "theStonewall riot was able to spark a nationwide grassroots 'liberation' effort among gay men andwomen."69 Similarly, in his pioneering gay history of America, Gay American History, publishedin 1976, Jonathan Katz writes that "the Stonewall Rebellion of June 1969, when Lesbians andGay men actively fought police harassment...mark[s] the birth of the recent Gay liberation
movement."70 In The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996, author Charles Kaiser suggests that:
No other civil rights movement in America ever had such an improbableunveiling....This 1960s version of the Boston Tea Party would do more than any
other event to transform gay life in America.71

66 Duberman, Stonewall xv.
67 George Chauncey, "Long-Haired Men and Short-Haired Women: Building a Gay World in the Heart ofBohemia," in Rick Beard and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, eds., Greenwich Village: Culture and Counter Culture (New
Brunswick: RutgersUP, 1993) 151.
68 D'Emilio, "It Didn't Start With Stonewall," Gay Community News
June 23, 1979: 20.
69 D'Emilio, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities 233.
70 Jonathan Katz, Gay American History (NY: Crowell, 1976) 337.
71

Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996 (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1997) 205.

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In her introduction to Gay Pride, Fred W. and Timothy S. McDarrah's photographic history of
the gay and lesbian movement, Jill Johnston, an author, journalist, and lesbian theoretician,strongly states the importance of Stonewall:
The uprising of lesbians and gay men in late June-early July 1969 on the streetsoutside the Stonewall bar in Greenwich Village marks a great watershed momentin both cultural history and the lives of many citizens.... It was the event thatcatalyzed the modern gay and lesbian political movement. It changed the way
thousands, ultimately millions, of men and women thought of themselves. It
designated the beginning of the possibility of integrated lives for those who had
lived divided against themselves - split between who they really were and what
they knew they were supposed to be....It represents the birth of an identity
unprecedented in society.72
The site of the Stonewall has become a tourist site, visited by many gay and lesbian visitors to
New York City, as well as others seeking the roots of the modern lesbian and gay movement.
Several guide books include a discussion of Stonewall, including Paula Martinac's The Queerest
Places: A National Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites,, which notes that:
The term "Stonewall" has become the international symbol of gay resistance andliberation, and the anniversary of the riots is an annual celebration around theworld. Gay history is now commonly marked as being before and after
Stonewall.73
The Stonewall is the first entry in Daniel Hurewitz's Stepping Out: Nine Tours Through New
York City's Gay and Lesbian Past; Hurewitz equates the Stonewall with such legendary
European landmarks as the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Big Ben in London.74 Historian Joyce Goldincludes the Stonewall in her From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich
Village History, where she notes that "this incident is considered the official beginning of the
Gay Liberation Movement."75 The Stonewall is also cited in popular tourist guidebooks, such as
the New York Handbook, which discusses the events at Stonewall and George Segal'scommemorative sculpture and Inside New York 1999, which refers to Stonewall as "the climactic
event that launched the gay rights movement in the United States."76 The New York City Parks

72 Jill Johnston, "Firestorm on Christopher Street," in Fred McDarrah and Timothy S. McDarrah, Gay Pride:
Photographs from Stonewall to Today_(NY: A Capella Books, 1994) ix.
Paula Martinac, The Queerest Places: A National Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites (NY: Henry Holt,
1997) 120.
74 Daniel Hurewitz, Stepping Out: Nine Tours Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past. (NY: Henry Holt,
1997) 4-8.
75 Joyce Gold, From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich Village (NY: Old Warren Road
Press, 1988) 82.
76 Christine Bird, New York Handbook (Chico, California: Moon Publications, 1997) 135, and Inside New York1999 (NY: Inside New York, 1999) 30. Other general guidebooks that discuss Stonewall include Carol von Pressentin
Wright, Blue Guide to New York (London: A. & C. Black, 1991); Rachel Abi Farbiarz, ed., Let's Go New York City (NY: St.

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Department has sponsored a video guided tour of Greenwich Village that features the Stonewall
in a section narrated by Harvey Fierstein. The most recent edition of the New York City
Landmark Preservation Commission's Guide to New York City Landmarks_mcludes an entry on
the Stonewall Inn in its discussion of the Greenwich Village Historic District:
At about 1:00 A.M. on June 28, 1969, the gay bar known as the Stonewall Inn was
raided by the police, setting off events that resulted in the birth of the modern gay
and lesbian rights movement. Although the raid itself was not an unusual event,the fact that bar patrons fought back, forcing the police to retreat, galvanized thecommunity. The anniversary of the riot is celebrated annually around the world
with parades and other gay pride events.77
The place where the significant events of the Stonewall uprising took place, including thebuilding on Christopher Street that housed the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, and adjacentstreets, is a significant site in the history of America, generally accepted as the location of theevents that inaugurated the modern lesbian and gay rights movement. These were events thatchanged American history and they continue to resonate in the struggle to bring equality to all
Americans.

Martin's Press, 1999); Robert Heide and John Oilman, Greenwich Village (NY: St. Martin's Griffen, 1995); Knopf Guides
New York (NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994); Francois Remillard, New York City: A Ulysses Travel Publication (Old Saybrook:
Globe Pequot Press, 1998); Kate Sekules, CitypackNew York City: The Ultimate Key to the City (NY: Fodor's, 1997); TimeOut Guide New York (NY: Penguin Books, 1998); Martha E. Zenfell, ed., Insight Guides New York City
(Singapore: APA Publications, 1998).
77 Andrew S. Dolkart, Guide to New York City Landmarks (NY: John Wiley and Sons, 1997) 42.

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9. MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES"A Guide to Lesbian and Gay New York Historical Landmarks." 1994.
Barabak, Mark Z. "How a Bar Riot in N.Y. Began the Gay Revolution." San Francisco Chronicle
13 March 1989.
Beard, Rick, and Leslie Cohn Berlowitz, eds. Greenwich Village: Culture and Counter Culture.
New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993.
Bird, Christine. New York Handbook. Chico: Moon Publications, 1997.
Brandt, Kate. "It Wasn't Just One More Raid...Stories From '69." Deneuve (May/June 1994):
19-21.
Chauncey, George. "Long-Haired Men and Short-Haired Women: Building a Gay World in theHeart of Bohemia." Rick Beard and Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, eds., Greenwich Village: Culture
and Counter Culture. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1993.
Crosby, Tina. "The Stonewall Riot Remembered." 1974.
Deitcher, David. The Question ofEquality: Lesbian and Gay Politics in America Since
Stonewall. New York: Scribner, 1995.
D'Emilio, John. "It Didn't Start With Stonewall." Gay Community News 23 June 1979.
D'Emilio, John. Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: The Making of a Homosexual Minority
in the United States. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1983.
Design Legacies: A Tribute to Architects and Designers Who Have Died ofAids. Exhibit
Catalogue. 1994.
Dolkart, Andrew. Guide to New York City Landmarks. New York: John Wiley, 1997.
Duberman, Martin. About Time: Exploring the Gay Past. New York: Meridian, 1991.
Duberman, Martin. Stonewall. New York: Dutton, 1993.
Dyer, Richard. Now You See It: Studies on Lesbian and Gay Film. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Eskow, Dennis. "3 Cops Hurt as Bar Raid Riles Crowd." New York Daily News
29 June 1969: 30.
Faderman, Lillian. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History ofLesbian Life in TwentiethCentury America. New York: Penguin, 1991.

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Farbiarz, Rachel Abi, ed. Let's Go New York City. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999.
"4 Policemen Hurt in 'Village' Raid." New York Times 29 June 1969.
"Gay Marchers Press Ahead in 25-Year Battle." New York Times 27 June 1994.
Gaylord, R. Bruce. The Picture Book of Greenwich Village. New York: Citadel, 1985.
Gold, Joyce. From Trout Stream to Bohemia: A Walking Guide to Greenwich Village.
New York: Old Warren Road Press, 1988.
Hampton, Dawn. Interview. c!994.
Hay, Harry. "The Gift to Be Gay: Remarks for the Stonewall Rebellion's 20th Anniversary."
New York Native 10 July 1989.
Heide, Robert, and John Gilman. Greenwich Village. New York: St. Martin's Griffen, 1995.
Hurewitz, Daniel. Stepping Out: Nine Tours Through New York City's Gay and Lesbian Past.
New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Inside New York 1999. New York: Inside New York, 1999.
Jay, Carla, and Alan Young, eds. Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation. New York:
Douglas, 1972.
Kaiser, Charles. The Gay Metropolis 1940-1996. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1997.
Kameny, Franklin. Interview. "Stonewall: Myth, Magic and Mobilization." Public RadioInternational. 1994.
Katz, Jonathan. Gay American History. New York: Crowell, 1976.
"Koch Designates 'Stonewall Place'." New York Native 1 May 1989.
Klum, John M. Acting Gay: Homosexuality in Modern Drama. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.
Kohler, Bob. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." Come Out! 10 January 1974.
Knopf Guides New York. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994.
Leitsch, Dick. "Gay Riots in the Village." Mattachine Society ofNew York Newsletter
August 1969: 1-3.
Leitsch, Dick. "The Hairpin Drop Heard Around the World. Mattachine Society ofNew York
Newsletter July 1969: 21-23.

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Leitsch, Dick. Letter to the editor. Village Voice 10 July 1969.
Leitsch, Dick. "Police Raid on N.Y. Sets Off First Gay Riot." Los Angeles Advocate
September 1969: 3, 11.
Levin, Jay. "The Gay Anger Behind the Riots." New York Post 8 July 1969.
Loughery, John. The Other Side of Silence: Men's Lives and Gay Identities: A TwentiethCentury History. New York: Henry Holt, 1998.
Lounsberry, Milton. "Remembering the Stonewall." The Advocate 5 July 1972.
McDarrah, Fred W., and Timothy S. McDarrah. Gay Pride: Photographs from Stonewall to
Today. Introductions by Alien Ginsberg and Jill Johnston. New York: A Capella Book, 1994.
McGarry, Molly, and Fred Wasserman. Becoming Visible: An Illustrated History of TwentiethCentury Gay Life in America. New York: New York Public Library, 1998.
Martinac, Paula. The Queerest Places: A National Guide to Gay and Lesbian Historic Sites.
New York: Henry Holt, 1997.
Miller, Neil. Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present. New York:
Vintage Books, 1995.
Miller, Terry. Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way. New York: Crown, 1990.
Manford, Morty. "A Comparative Study of Gay Liberationists and Columbia Homosexuals."
1972.
Marotta, Toby. The Politics ofHomosexuality. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981.
Murphy, William. '"Stonewall Place' to Honor Gay Uprising 20 Years Ago." New YorkNewsday
13 April 1989.
Muschamp, Herbert. "Designing a Framework for Diversity." New York Times 19 June 1994.
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. Greenwich Village Historic District
Designation Report, vol.1. New York: New York City LPC, 1969.
"No Place for Gaity." New York Post 27 July 1969.
"Police Again Rout 'Village' Youths." New York Times 30 June 1969.
"Policing the Third Sex." Newsweek 27 October 1969.

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Ramirez, Paul. "The Night That Gave Birth to a Movement." San Francisco Examiner
4 June 1989.
Remillard, Francois. New York City: A Ulysses Travel Publication. Old Saybrook: Globe
Pequot, 1998.
Rodwell, Craig. "Gay and Free." QQ Magazine November/December 1971.
Rodwell, Craig. "Mafia on the Spot." Hymnal February 1968.
Rosen, Steven A. "Police Harassment of Homosexual Women and Men in New York City
1960-1980." Columbia Human Rights Law Review 12 (1980-1981): 159-190.
Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

Rutledge, Leigh W. The Gay Decades: From Stonewall to the Present, The People and Events
That Shaped Gay Lives. New York: Plume, 1992.
Saslow, James M. "A Sculpture Without a Country." Christopher Street February 1981.

Sekules, Kate. CitypackNew York City: The Ultimate Key to the City. New York:
Fodor's, 1997.
Scott, David C. "Autobiography." 1983.
Scott, Kimberly. "StonewalPs Aftermath Spurred D.C. Successes." Washington Blade
25 May 1994.
Smith, Howard. "Full Moon Over the Stonewall." Village Voice 3 July 1969: 1, 25.
Stonewall and Beyond: Lesbian and Gay Culture. Butler Library Exhibit Synopsis.
"Stonewall 'Historic'?" The Advocate 15 August 1973.
Teal, Bonn. Gay Militants. New York: Stein and Day, 1971.

Thompson, Mark, ed. Long Road to Freedom: The Advocate History of the Gay and Lesbian
Movement. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
Time Out Guide New York. New York: Penguin 1998.
Tobin, Kay. The Gay Crusaders. New York: Paperback Library, 1972.
Truscott, Lucian IV. "Gay Power Comes to Sheridan Square." Village Voice 3 July 1969:
1,18.
"Village Raid Stirs Melee." New York Post 28 June 1969.

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Vogel, Carol. "Art Market: George Segal Sculpture." New York Times 19 June 1992.
Wasserman, Fred. Interview. 9 March 1994.
"A Week of Gay Pride." Village Voice 25 June 1970.
White, Edmund. Letter to Ann and Alfred Corn. 8 July 1969.
Wright, Carol von Pressentin. Blue Guide to New York. London: A&C Black, 1991.
Zenfell, Martha, ed. Insight Guide to New York City. Singapore: APA Publications, 1998.
Previous documentation on file (NPS):_ Preliminary Determination of Individual Listing (36 CFR 67) has been requested.
jc Previously Listed in the National Register.
_ Previously Determined Eligible by the National Register.
_ Designated a National Historic Landmark.
_ Recorded by Historic American Buildings Survey: #__ Recorded by Historic American Engineering Record: #Primary Location of Additional Data:
jc_State Historic Preservation Office_ Other State Agency_ Federal Agency_ Local Government_ University_ Other (Specify Repository):

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10. GEOGRAPHICAL DATA

Acreage of Property: less than one acre
UTM References:

Zone Easting

Northing

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

18
18
18
18
18

4509563450946245093644509455
4509538

584404584452584398584244584286

Verbal Boundary Description:
The nomination boundary is indicated by a heavy line on the enclosed map with scale. The boundary includes
the building at 51-53 Christopher Street, Christopher Park and portions of surrounding streets and sidewalks, asdelineated on the map. Except for the building noted above, the boundary excludes all buildings adjacent to thenominated area.
Boundary Justification:
The boundary was drawn to include the documented locations of the series of events that occurred between June
28, 1969 and July 3, 1969. These events, collectively known as Stonewall, took place in the Stonewall Inn, in
Christopher Park, and on portions of immediately adjacent public spaces, including streets and sidewalks on
Christopher Street, Grove Street, Waverly Place, Gay Street, Greenwich Avenue, Sixth Avenue and West 10*
Street. The boundary was established based on extensive documentation of the significant events obtained fromeyewitness accounts, media reports and police records. A complete description of the significant events andtheir locations within the nominated area is provided in the significance statement. The boundary encompasses
the full extent of the area in which the significant events occurred.

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11. FORM PREPARED BY

Name/Title:

David Carter, Andrew Scott Dolkart, Gale Harris and Jay Shockly

CONTACT:
Address:

Andrew Dolkart
116 Pinehurst Avenue
New York, New York 10033

Telephone:212-568-2480

Date:January 1999

Edited by:

Kathleen LaFrankNew York State Historic Preservation Office
Peebles Island State ParkBox 189
Waterford, New York 12188
518-237-8643, ext. 3261

And byNational Park Service
National Historic Landmarks Survey
1849CSt.,N.W.
RoomNC-400
Washington, DC 20240

Telephone:(202)343-8175

NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS SURVEY