Stonewall Inn
Stonewall Inn, gay bar on Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, where in June 1969 a significant uprising against police oppression ignited a great expansion and crescendo of the fight for LGBTQ civil rights. Its unspectacular facade masks the importance of its place within LGBTQ history.
The Stonewall Inn began its life as a speakeasy that moved to its present location, which was originally built as a stable and later housed a bakery, after the end of Prohibition. After a fire in 1964, it reopened as a gay bar in 1966. Like other gay bars in the area, it was run by organized crime and operated as a private club to avoid the need for a liquor license. The Stonewall Inn was especially popular because it featured two dance floors, a rarity at the time. Homosexuality was then broadly illegal, and there were also ordinances against cross-dressing. Despite Mafia payoffs, police raids on gay bars were commonplace and brutal.
Typically, raids on gay bars took place in the early evening. Patrons were lined up and either dismissed or arrested, and liquor was confiscated. Indeed, such a raid occurred at the Stonewall Inn on June 27, 1969. However, on June 28 at 1:20 AM, without warning, the police again raided the Stonewall Inn, with several officers descending on the bar. It was an unusually late raid, and excessive force was used. This time, bar patrons were not cooperative. Those who were dismissed waited outside the bar. People in the surrounding area were attracted by the commotion, swelling the crowd, which was quickly out of the control of the police. By some accounts, the aggressive arrest of a woman in masculine attire triggered a more violent response from the crowd. Rioting broke out within the bar and the surrounding area, and the police at first retreated but later returned in force. The uprising continued at the scene each night until July 3, and by the end of the month the Gay Liberation Front had been formed. One year after the raid, the first Gay Pride marches took place in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The Stonewall Inn at the time of the raid had a black-painted interior, and the window was also painted black and covered with plywood. None of the furnishings survived the riots and fires. The Stonewall Inn did not reopen as a gay bar until the early 1990s, and it was restored and enlarged in the late 1990s. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2000, was closed in 2006 and reopened after further renovations in 2007, and became the center of the Stonewall National Monument in 2016.