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The Mattachine Society never successfully filed a discrimination suit based on the Sip-In, though in a related case the following year, a state court ruled that bars could not be shut down for the presence of homosexuality alone.
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A Village Voice photographer, Fred McDarrah, captured the moment in an iconic photograph that still hangs at Julius’ today.
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The bartender quickly covered a glass with his hand, indicating his refusal to serve them. The activists ordered their drinks, then stated they were gay. Thank You! We've received your email address, and soon you will start getting exclusive offers and news from Wine Enthusiast. When the business inevitably declined to serve them, they would file a complaint with the State Liquor Authority, forcing the state to recognize that refusing to serve gay patrons was a violation of their civil rights. They would visit a bar, announce they were gay, and request a drink. Mattachine, led by president Dick Leitsch, was out to solve a problem: though the State Liquor Authority had no regulation against serving gay people in bars, it did prohibit establishments from serving “disorderly” patrons-and all gay people were considered, by interpretation, disorderly. The Sip-In was the brainchild of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group. And in April 1966, three years before the famed riots at nearby Stonewall that many historians mark as the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement, Julius’ was the site of a very different rebellion: a “Sip-In.” Not the iconic Stonewall Inn, but Julius’.Īt the corner of Waverly Place and West 10th Street, Julius’ is the oldest gay bar in New York City. Once, about a half a century ago, it found itself at the epicenter of an unprecedented protest asserting gay people’s right to gather in public spaces without police harassment. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember.In the heart of the West Village, steps from the Christopher Street train station, stands a historic gay bar. The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity-a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out-and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today’s fluid queer spaces through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. In Gay Bar, the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? Strobing lights and dark rooms throbbing house and drag queens on counters first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression-whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. "Atherton Lin has a five-octave, Mariah Carey-esque range for discussing gay sex.” – New York Times Book ReviewĪs gay bars continue to close at an alarming rate, a writer looks back to find out what’s being lost in this intimate, stylish, and indispensible celebration of queer history. “ Gay Bar is an absolute tour de force.” –Maggie Nelson NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: The New York Times * NPR * Vogue * Gay Times * Artforum *
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National Book Critics Circle Award Winner