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. In the heart of the West Village, steps from the Christopher Street train station, stands a historic gay bar.