GAY
CULTURE 1950-1980
A sampling of gay life in NewYork City
LIFE IN THE MCCARTHY ERA
J
oseph McCarthy is most infamous for the Red Scare of the 1950s, a period of time where anyone suspected of communist behavior would be ostracized and blacklisted from jobs, organizations, and other communal groups. Arguably less known is the Lavender Scare that accompanied McCarthy’s hyper-conservative
1950’S
movement which targeted homosexuals claiming they were security risks and communist sympathizers. Nebraska Representative Arthur L.Miller presented his amendment Homosexuals in Government to the House proposing the removal of homosexuals in government. “Recently Mr. Peurifoy, of the State Department,
said he had allowed 91 individuals in Only three years after the McCarthy the State Department to resign because era began, President Dwight D. Eisenthey were homosexuals...You must know hower signed Executive Order 10450 setwhat a homosexual is. It is amazing that ting a hetersexual “secutriy” standard for in the Capital City of Washington we are federal employment. This caused thouplagued with such a large group of those sands of homosexuals to be outed and individuals... The sex crimes in the city fired from their jobs across the country. are many.” Miller said during his lengthy The influence of this executive order was presentation to the entire House of Repfelt by men and women across all branchresentatives. The rationalization for this es of government employment ranging removal of homosexuals from all forms of from military to private contractors. government was soley based on the idea Executive Order 10450 remained in effect that they were more prone to blackmail until President Bill Clinton replaced the and could be more-easily manipulated order with the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” polthan their heterosexual counterparts. icy in 1995.
MAT TA Mattachine is derived from the Italian “mattachino” the court jester who dared to tell the king the truth no one else would. The members of the Mattachine Society were primarily gay men who wanted to take a peaceful, yet gradual, approach to reforming anti-homosexual laws across the country. Through extensive lobbying ess than five years after Harry Hay and peaceful picket-sign demonstrations started the first Mattachine Society the Mattachine Society was able to make on the west coast, Tony Segura and Sam some amount of social progress for the Morford opened a New York affiliate LGBT community. Lead by Dick Leitsch group in 1955. The Mattachine Society from ‘64 to ‘72, the Society was able to of New York (MSNY) was a non-profit challenge the State Liquor Authority’s organization focusing on educating the homophobic serving laws and worked to general public on various aspects of stop police harassment. homosexuality, as well as helping LGBT Being completely dependent on members cope with personal difficulties donations, membership fees, and associated with homosexuality during volunteer staff, the MSNY faced extreme that time. Over the course of a decade hardships as many of the LGBT members numerous cities began their own societfelt they were too passive to make real ies and by 1961 the national organization progress after Stonewall. By January ceased to exist, leaving the affiliates to 1987, slightly over thirty years since its become fully independent. The name conception, the New York Mattachine
L
ACHINE Society was officially disbanded. The impacts of this group can still be felt today, and any older gay man will tell you how significant they were to the homosexual equality revolution. Julius, the oldest gay bar in New York City, still hosts a Mattachine night the last Thursday of each month. Hosted by Amber Martin, Angela Di Carlo, and John Cameron Mitchell, vintage disco music from the 60’s and 70’s is played all night encouraging patrons from all ages to dance on the bar’s tiny dance floor.
al., the appeal consisted of several cases consolidated into one. The appellants were challenging the constitutionality of a 1965 law, New York Penal Law § 130.38, which made it a misdemeanor to engage in “deviate sexual intercourse” (defined to include anal and oral but not vaginal sex) with another person.
1960’S
NY PENAL LAW§ 130.38
S
odomy laws in the United States, which outlawed a variety of sexual acts, were inherited from British criminal laws with roots in the Christian religion of Late antiquity. While they often targeted sexual acts between persons of the same sex, many statutes employed definitions broad enough to outlaw certain sexual acts between persons of different sexes as well, sometimes even acts between married persons. Prior to 1962, sodomy was a felony in every state, punished by a lengthy term of imprisonment or death. In that year, the Model Penal Code (MPC) — developed by the American Law Institute to promote uniformity among the states as they modernized their statutes struck a compromise that removed consensual sodomy from its criminal code while making it a crime to solicit for sodomy. In People v. Ronald Onofre, et
MAFIA RUN BARS
A
s the gay community blossomed in New York City in the 1960s, they had few places to gather publicly. Shunned and criminalized by the broader culture, LGBT people were eager for any spot where they could safely come together. But going to a bar could be a dangerous proposition. At the time, it was still illegal to serve gay patrons alcohol, to display homosexuality in public or for two gay people to dance together. Under the guise of New York State’s liquor laws that barred “disorderly” premises, the State Liquor Authority and the New York Police Department regularly raided bars that catered to gay patrons. Since the days of Prohibition, when alcohol was outlawed, the mob controlled much of New York City’s nightclub business—with special expertise in its shadowy, illegal fringes. The Genovese family, one of the so-called “five families” that dominated organized crime in New York City, reigned over Manhattan’s West Side bar scene, including the Village where the LGBT community was taking root. To operate its gay bars, the Mafia
greased the palms of the NYPD. “Fat Tony,” for one, paid New York’s 6th Precinct approximately $1,200 a week, in exchange for the police agreeing to turn a blind eye to the “indecent conduct” occurring behind closed doors. Not that the police didn’t still raid the LGBT establishments. But first they would tip off the owners, who told them the best time to come by. Raids often occurred in the early afternoon, when few customers were present, so businesses had enough time to resume normal operations by night. To get around laws that prohibited serving alcohol to LGBT patrons, many gay bars—including the Stonewall— operated ostensibly as “bottle bars,” private clubs where members would bring their own alcohol. In reality, the mob provided the liquor, leaving most bottles outside in cars or in hidden closets where they could be easily stashed during raids.
P
olice raids on gay bars were frequent—occurring on average once a month for each bar. Many bars kept extra liquor in a secret panel behind the bar, or in a car down the block, to facilitate resuming business as quickly as possible if alcohol was seized. Bar management usually knew about raids beforehand due to police tip-offs, and raids occurred early enough in the evening that business could commence after the police had finished. During a typical raid, the lights were turned on, and customers were lined up and their identification cards checked. Those without identification or dressed in full drag were arrested; others were allowed to leave. Some of the men, including those in drag, used their draft cards as identification. Women were required to wear three pieces of feminine clothing, and would be arrested if found not wearing them. Employees and management of the bars were also typically arrested.
POLICE RAIDS
“disorderly.” Bartenders would often evict known homosexuals or order them not to face other customers in order to avoid cruising. Despite this, gay men continued to be a large part of the clientele into the early 1960s, and the management of Julius, steadfastly unwilling for it to become a gay bar, continued to harass them. On April 21, 1966 members of the New York Chapter of the Mattachine Society staged a “Sip-In” at the bar which was to change the legal landscape. Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, the society’s president and vice president respectively, and another society activist, John Timmons, planned to draw attention to the practice by identifying themselves as homosexuals before ordering a drink in order to bring court scrutiny to the regulation. The three were going to read from Mattachine stationary “We are homosexuals. We are orderly, we intend to remain orderly, and we are asking for service.” The three first targeted the UkrainianAmerican Village Restaurant at St. Mark’s Place and Third Avenue in the East Village, Manhattan which had a ulius, located at 159 West 10th Street at sign, “If you are gay, please go away.” The Waverly Place, is a tavern in Manhatthree showed up after a New York Times tan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood in reporter had asked a manager about the New York City. It is often called the oldest protest and the manager had already continuously operating gay bar in New closed the restaurant for the day. They York City; however, its management was then targeted a Howard Johnson’s and a actively unwilling to operate as such and bar called Waikiki where they were served harassed gay customers until 1966. in spite of the note with a bartender By the late 1950s it was attracting gay saying later, “How do I know they’re patrons. At the time the New York State homosexual? They ain’t doing nothing Liquor Authority had a rule that ordered homosexual.” bars not to serve liquor to the disorderly, Frustrated, they then went to Julius, and homosexuals per se were considered where a clergyman had been arrested
JULIUS SIP IN
J
1966 a few days earlier for soliciting sex. A sign in the window read, “This is a raided premises.” The bartender initially started preparing them a drink but then put his hand over the glass which was photographed. The New York Times ran a headline the next day “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” The Mattachines then challenged the liquor rule in court and the courts ruled that gays had a right to peacefully assemble, which undercut the previous SLA contention that the presence of gay clientele automatically was grounds for charges of operating a “disorderly” premise. With this right established a new era of licensed, legally operating gay bars began. The bar now holds a monthly party hosted by members of the Mattachine society.
STONE RIO
The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take customers dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which any men dressed as women would be arrested. Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers. Men in line began to refuse to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, hen police raided Stonewall Inn on after separating those cross-dressing in a the morning of June 28, it came as room in the back of the bar. a surprise—the bar wasn’t tipped off this The police were to transport the bar’s time. alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight Two undercover police women and two cases of beer and nineteen bottles of undercover policemen had entered the hard liquor were seized, but the patrol bar earlier that evening to gather visual wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons evidence, as the Public Morals Squad were required to wait in line for about 15 waited outside for the signal. Once inside, minutes. Those who were not arrested they called for backup from the Sixth were released from the front door, but Precinct using the bar’s pay telephone. they did not leave The music was turned off and the main quickly as usual. lights were turned on. Approximately 205 Instead, they stopped people were in the bar that night. outside and a crowd
W
19
EWALL OTS began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside. When the first patrol wagon arrived the police started escorting Mafia members into it, to the cheers of
the bystanders. A bystander shouted, “Gay power!”, someone began singing “We Shall Overcome”, and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with “growing and intensive hostility”. An officer shoved a transvestite, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse as the crowd began to boo. Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten. A scuffle broke out when a woman in
69
handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as “a typical New York butch” and “a dyke–stone butch”, she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight. Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, “Why don’t you guys do something?” After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon, the crowd became a mob and went “berserk”: “It was at that moment that the scene became explosive.” The police tried to restrain some of the crowd, and knocked a few people down, which incited bystanders even
parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn When demonstrators broke through the windows—which had been covered by plywood by the bar owners to deter the police from raiding the bar—the police inside unholstered their pistols. The doors flew open and officers pointed their weapons at the angry crowd, threatening to shoot. The Village Voice writer Howard Smith watched someone squirt lighter fluid into the bar; as it was lit and the police took aim, sirens were heard and fire trucks arrived. The onslaught lasted 45 minutes. more. The commotion attracted more people who learned what was happening. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar had been raided because “they didn’t pay off the cops”, to which someone else yelled “Let’s pay them off!” Coins sailed through the air towards the police as the crowd shouted “Pigs!” and “Faggot cops!” Beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd who found a construction site nearby with stacks of bricks Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that “flame queens”, hustlers, and gay “street kids”—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a
DAY TWO
T
he next night, rioting again surrounded Christopher Street; participants remember differently which night was more frantic or violent. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening—hustlers, street youths, and “queens”—but they were joined by “police provocateurs”, curious bystanders, and even tourists. Remarkable to many was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness: “From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were in the streets.” Thousands of people had gathered in front of the Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street until the crowd spilled into adjoining blocks. The throng surrounded buses and cars, harassing the occupants unless they either admitted they were gay or indicated their support for the demonstrators. Sylvia
Rivera saw a friend of hers jump on a nearby car trying to drive through; the crowd rocked the car back and forth, terrifying its occupants. Another of Rivera’s friends, Marsha P. Johnson, an African-American street queen,climbed a lamppost and dropped a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield. As on the previous evening, fires were started in garbage cans throughout the neighborhood. More than a hundred police were present from the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Precincts, but after 2:00 a.m. the TPF arrived again. Kick lines and police chases waxed and waned; when police captured demonstrators, whom the majority of witnesses described as “sissies” or “swishes”, the crowd surged to recapture them. Street battling ensued again until 4:00 a.m.
1970’S
T
he Mineshaft was a members-only hardcore BDSM gay bar and sex club located at 835 Washington Street, at Little West 12th Street, in Manhattan, New York City, in the Meatpacking District. Among those who frequented the Mineshaft were Jack Fritscher, who was present at its opening night and attended hundreds of times. Fritscher’s lover Robert Mapplethorpe, who took many pictures of the Mineshaft and was at one point its official photographer. Manager Wally Wallace said that he once turned away Mick Jagger because he failed to abide by the dress code. There was no sign on the entrance; the exterior has been described as “grimy.” The location had previously been used by a gay bar, Zodiac. The entrance to the club was up a flight of stairs, on the second floor. The door was manned by someone who rejected anyone wearing preppy clothes or cologne. Originally the Mineshaft was on one floor, with a
scat room which was soon abandoned being deemed too extreme for a public club. It soon expanded to the first floor beneath, using back stairs to access a recreation of a jail cell, the back of a truck, dungeons, and a room containing spotlighted bathtubs in which men could let other men urinate on them. The bar had a roof deck, clothes check, dungeons, slings, a wall of glory holes, and cans of Crisco, at the time popular among gay men as a sexual lubricant. Nudity or minimal clothing was encouraged. According to the Mineshaft Newsletter, Fist Fuckers of America held meetings there. The Mineshaft operated from October 8, 1976 until it was closed by the New York City Department of Health on November 7, 1985, although tax problems played a significant role in its closing. After it closed, six men, associated with both the Mineshaft and an affiliated heterosexual club, the Hellfire, were charged with a variety of crimes. Four pleaded guilty, former New York City police officer Richard Bell was convicted, and the sixth fled the country to escape prosecution.
THE OLD
T
ROXY
he Roxy was a popular nightclub located at 515 West 18th Street in New York City. Located in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, it began as a roller skating rink and roller disco in 1978, founded by Steve Bauman, Richard Newhouse and Steve Greenberg. The Roxy shut down permanently in March 2007. Beginning in the early 1980s, the owners began hosting dance nights. Referred to by many as the “Studio 54 of roller rinks,” these parties thrived for several years. Then, as the popularity of skating began to fade, the space was revamped into a dance club in June 1982. The Roxy hosted one of New York City’s largest weekly gay dance nights, Roxy Saturdays, promoted by John Blair Promotions. Artists such as Madonna, Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Bertte Midler, Whitney Houston, Donna Summer, Cyndi Lauper, Yoko Ono,The Beastie Boys and Yello performed there.
T
CRISCO DISCO
he Crisco Disco was a New York City discotheque notable in the history of modern dance, LGBT and nightclub cultures. The venue was an important gay club located at 15th Street and 10th Avenue in the Meatpacking district. It operated from the 1970s to the 1980s during the disco era, and it has been compared in importance to other NYC clubs such as Paradise Garage. In 2015, Michael Musto listed Crisco Disco as one of the eight “...edgiest [NYC venues] that shall never be
recaptured.” The club had a large DJ booth where DJs would mix records for the dancers. For the DJ booth, the club constructed a mock, giant vintage can of Crisco shortening. According to Drew Sawyer, in the 1970s, cans of Crisco were “...so synonymous with gay sex [(it was used as a lubricant by gay men who engaged in fisting)] that discos and bars around the world took on the name, such as Crisco Disco in New York City, one of the premiere clubs during the 1970s and early 1980s.”
THE ANVIL
O
pened in the fall The Anvil was located at 500 W. 14th Street and is of the most notorious gay nightspots in New York City from the 1970’s and 1980’s. The bouncers were brutally selective and as wonderfully sleazy as The Anvil itself. While (some) drag queens were welcome, women were not. The Anvil was one of the hottest, sleaziest, and most glorious places to be for gay men of that period. Male dancers would perform on the bar as bartenders poured drinks around them. On the smallish stage on the dance-floor drag performers such as Candy Stevens that would perform bizarre acts with a five foot snake while fire-eating. Other drag performers were “The Famous Yuba”. Between shows the disco music pumped away at an earsplitting volume as shirtless and sweaty men danced to the beat packed together side by side. Poppers were passed freely from man to man and from time to time
you could feel the floor bounce and shake beneath your feet. Downstairs was the coat-check and another small bar and large screen playing gay male porn . Behind the screen was a dark cavernous backroom (Rumour has it that there were tunnels beneath that ran directly to the piers.) Because of the era involved there are no interior photographs of the Anvil available to publish. But it was not the inside of The Anvil that made it what it was, it was the patrons. The Anvil was closed in 1986 another victim of the AIDS epidemic and the clean-up ou “sex establishments” in NYC. And while The Anvil is long gone, the Liberty Inn lives on as a hotsheet rent-by-the hour hotel.
1970 O
SNAKEPIT RIOTS
nly eight months after the Stonewall rebellion, in the early morning of March 8, 1970, police raided the Snake Pit, an illegal after-hours bar in the basement of a Greenwich Village apartment building. The raid was led by Seymour Pine, who had also led the ill-fated raid on the Stonewall. Fearing similar rioting when a crowd of patrons “Any way you look started at it – that boy was forming, PUSHED. We are the police arrested over ALL being pushed.” 160 people, -Gay Activists Alliance, 1970 Flyer who were taken to the 6th Police Precinct Station House at 135 Charles Street. Argentinian student Diego Vinales apparently panicked over the possibility of deportation, tried to escape from the second story of the jail, and was impaled on the iron fence below. He was cut loose from the fence, taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and survived, but word spread that he was dead or dying. The Gay Activists Alliance and Gay
Liberation Front organized a quick response – an angry protest by a crowd numbering around 500 people, who marched from Christopher Park to the police station. A candlelight vigil was also held at St. Vincent’s. This incident, which received much media coverage, is credited with greatly inspiring more LGBT people to become politically active, including many who had not following Stonewall, such as future film historian Vito Russo. It also demonstrated the strength of the recently formed gay rights movement organizations.
C
ruising for sex, or cruising, is walking or driving about a locality in search of a sex partner, usually of the anonymous, casual, one-time variety. The term is also used when technology is used to find casual sex, such as using an Internet site or a telephone service In a specifically sexual context, the term “cruising” originally emerged as an argot “code word” in gay slang, by which those “in the know” would understand the speaker’s unstated sexual intent, whereas most heterosexuals, on hearing the same word in the same context, would normally misread the speaker’s intended meaning in the word’s more common (and presumably less threatening) nonsexual sense. This served (and in some contexts, still serves) as a protective sociolinguistic mechanism for gay men to recognize each other, and avoid being recognized by those who may wish to do them harm in broader societies noted for their homophobia. In the latter half of the twentieth century, decriminalization of homosexual
behaviour increasingly became the norm in English-speaking countries. The protective barrier once provided by the term “cruising” as a “code word” has therefore largely broken down and, arguably, become increasingly irrelevant. Thus the specifically sexual meaning of the term has passed into common usage to include the sexual behavior of heterosexual persons, as well. Public health officials have noted that cruising locations are frequented by men who have sex with men, but do not identify with being homosexual or bisexual, who are closeted, married, or in relationships with women, do not date men or frequent gay bars, clubs or websites, or have otherwise no other way of meeting men for sex.