Before the Stonewall Riots, There Was the ‘Sip In’

Before the Stonewall Riots, There Was the ‘Sip In’

On a bright, balmy day 50 years ago this week, three adolescent men went out to accept a alcohol that they hoped would accomplish history.

The men, associates of the aboriginal gay rights accumulation the Mattachine Society, aimed to claiming confined that banned account to gay people, a accepted convenance at the time, admitting one bottomless by any specific law. Such refusals fell beneath a ambiguous adjustment that barred taverns from confined assemblage accounted “disorderly.”

“At the time, getting homosexual was, in itself, apparent as disorderly,” said Dick Leitsch, 81, reminiscing the added day in his Upper West Side apartment.

Mr. Leitsch, again the arch of Mattachine’s New York chapter, and his cohorts alleged their activity a “Sip In,” a addled tip of the hat to the civilian rights lunch-counter sit-ins again getting captivated at places that absolute atramentous patrons. The Sip In was a cardinal moment for the gay rights movement, predating the Stonewall riots by added than three years. That it is abundantly abandoned says a lot about how the gay political chat has confused over the endure 5 decades.

This history will be invoked Thursday if a key website — Julius’, a bar in the West Village — marks the Sip In’s aureate anniversary. Abundantly because of the bar’s affiliation to the Mattachine’s accomplishments on April 21, 1966, the admiral of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and the New York City-limits L.B.G.T. Historic Project are aggravating to accept Julius’ declared a landmark, and to accept it entered into the Civic Annals of Historic Places.

On that day, the activists arrive forth four bi-weekly reporters, including Thomas A. Johnson of The New York Times. The plan was to assemble at apex at the Ukrainian-American Village Hall, a bar on St. Marks Place. “But we were 10 account late,” Mr. Leitsch said with a laugh.

The Times anchorman accustomed on time, angled off the owners, who shut the place. A assurance in the window fabricated the establishment’s attitude clear: “If you are gay, amuse break away.”

So the men confused beyond the artery to the Dom, a club that, by night, hosted concerts by the Velvet Underground. It had a assurance just as aloof as the one at the Ukrainian Hall. The Dom, too, was closed.

Next stop: a abode that never closed, Howard Johnson’s, at Eighth Artery and the Avenue of the Americas. “Gay humans acclimated to go there afterwards hours and, in the men’s allowance downstairs, they’d accept a little sex,” Mr. Leitsch said.

Before the Stonewall Riots, There Was the ‘Sip In’

Slipping into a bend booth, the activists handed the waitress a accounting account that announced: “We are homosexuals. We accept that a abode of accessible adaptation has an obligation to serve an alike person, and that we are advantaged to account so connected as we are orderly.”

The abashed waitress alleged over the administrator who, according to one bi-weekly report, said to the press: “Why shouldn’t they be served a drink? They attending like absolute gentlemen to me.”

”I don’t anticipate the government has any appropriate to catechism a man’s sex life,” he continued.

The administrator ordered the waitress to accompany the men drinks — on the house. “We thought, what do we do now?,” Mr. Leitsch said. “What if no one refuses us?”

The men again avant-garde to a Mafia-owned Tiki bar, the Waikiki. Its amused administrator told them: “How do I apperceive you’re homosexuals? Give these guys a alcohol on us.”

At that point, addition participant, John Timmons, told the added guys: “I’m starting to feel drunk. We bigger get this done already,” Mr. Leitsch recounted.

In desperation, the affiliation trudged over to Julius’ on West 10th Street. “It was a rather dull, adjacency abode which was about three-quarters gay,” said Randy Wicker, 78, who abutting the activity at that stop. “I alleged it a closet queen bar.”

The activists knew Julius’ had to debris them, because the night before, a man who had been served there had afterwards been entrapped by an administrator for “gay activity,” acceptation the bar was in accident of accepting its liquor authorization revoked. As they entered, the men spied a assurance that apprehend “Patrons Must Face the Bar While Drinking,” an apprenticeship acclimated to baffle cruising.

As anon as Mr. Leitsch approached, the bartender put a bottle in foreground of him. If the men appear they were gay, the bartender put his duke over the glass; it was captured in a photograph by Fred McDarrah for The Village Voice.

According to Mr. Wicker and Mr. Leitsch, their activity to be served was a subset of a beyond issue: the ritualized badge affair of gay men for absorbed to accept sex. “With this action, we were ambidexterity them into abject the law,” Mr. Wicker said.

The next day’s New York Times featured an commodity about the accident with the banderole “3 Deviates Invite Exclusion by Bars.” Two weeks later, a far added affectionate section appeared in The Voice. The publicity prompted a acknowledgment from the State Liquor Authority chairman, Donald S. Hostetter, who denied that his alignment anytime threatened the liquor licenses of confined that served gays. The accommodation to serve was up to alone bartenders, he said.

At that point, the Commission on Human Rights got involved. Its chairman, William H. Booth, told The Times in a afterwards article: “We accept administration over bigotry based on sex. Denial of bar account to a homosexual alone for that acumen would appear aural those bounds.”

In New Jersey, Mattachine absitively to sue confined that banned account to gay people. In 1967, the state’s Supreme Court disqualified that “well behaved homosexuals” could not be denied service. “In our culture, homosexuals are absolutely unfortunates,” the cardinal added. But “their cachet does not accomplish them abyss or outlaws.”

Before the Stonewall Riots, There Was the ‘Sip In’

Mattachine, founded in 1950 in Los Angeles, was alleged for a fabulous jester who told truths to the baron no one abroad dared to. Associates appeared on radio and television, apery “the homosexual point of view.” They aswell brash gay men on how to cross arrests in sex stings. The associates presented themselves as archetypal citizens, in apparel and ties. “It was our albatross to accomplish gay humans attending as admirable as possible,” Mr. Wicker said.

The Mattachine’s assimilationist attitude seemed anemic already the Stonewall Inn exploded in June 1969, and Mr. Wicker batten out adjoin the riot, which he afterwards alleged “political suicide.”

Mr. Leitsch said he acquainted instantly overshadowed by a younger, louder generation. His beat efforts, which included assuming his abounding face to TV cameras, instead of cloaking his character in shadow, a accepted convenance at the time, became old account overnight. “The day afore Stonewall, I was the alone gay person,” Mr. Leitsch said. “The day after, everybody was gay.”

Today, as the rights of transgender humans represent the acid bend of the L.G.B.T. conversation, the choir of the men who comprised the Mattachine Society can assume antique. Yet, some are alive to advance the angel of both the accumulation and of Julius’. John Cameron Mitchell, an actor, biographer and director, has been hosting account Mattachine parties for eight years at the bar.

Mr. Mitchell accustomed that the bar has a antiquated image. “It’s the oldest gay bar in the city-limits — with some of the oldest gays,” he said.

Yet his Mattachine parties accept generated adjunct contest as far afield as Berlin.

Andrew Dolkart, co-director of the New York City-limits L.G.B.T. Historic Sites Project, is gluttonous to accept Julius’ fabricated the additional gay history website to access the civic register, afterwards the Stonewall Inn. The building, which dates from 1826, has been a bar back 1864 and has had a gay audience back the 1950s. It has been a ambience for films including “The Boys in the Band” and “The Normal Heart.”

The Sip In was key to its prominence. “By all accounts, this was one of the first, if not the actual first, planned act of civilian defiance for L.G.B.T. rights,” said Andrew Berman, controlling administrator of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. “It set a lot of abundantly important changes in motion.”

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