In the early hours of 28 June 1969, the New York police raided yet another gay bar in the Village. This time the customers did not scatter: they fought back, and the protests returned for several nights. Out of them came the first Pride march and the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. Twelve stops between the Washington Square arch, the Gothic courthouse turned library, the vanished women's prison, the poets' alley, the bookshop that invented the march, the street called Gay, the bar of the sip-in, the crooked streets of the West Village, the Stonewall Inn, the white statues of Christopher Park, the square of the riot nights and the pier where the movement lived on. Approximate audio duration: 23 minutes.
▸ Ver en español
Stonewall y Greenwich Village: la noche que cambió los derechos civiles
En la madrugada del 28 de junio de 1969, la policía de Nueva York hizo una redada más en un bar gay del Village. Esta vez los clientes no se dispersaron: resistieron, y las protestas se repitieron durante varias noches. De ahí salieron la primera marcha del Orgullo y el movimiento moderno por los derechos LGBTQ+. Doce paradas entre el arco de Washington Square, el juzgado gótico convertido en biblioteca, la cárcel de mujeres que ya no existe, el callejón de los poetas, la librería que inventó la marcha, la calle llamada Gay, el bar del sip-in, las calles torcidas del West Village, el Stonewall Inn, las estatuas blancas de Christopher Park, la plaza de las noches de disturbios y el muelle donde el movimiento siguió vivo. Duración aproximada de audio: 23 minutos.
Tour stops
12 stops · ~23 min of audio · 2.39 km on foot (~35 min walking) · about 1 h in total
You are standing in front of the white arch of Washington Square. Behind it, to the north, Fifth Avenue begins. Ahead of you are the fountain, the benches and, almost always, someone playing music.
The arch first went up in wood, in 1889, to celebrate a hundred years since George Washington took office as president. People liked it so much it was rebuilt in marble. Stanford White designed it, and it was finished in 1892.
Under the grass at your feet, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, lay a burial ground for the poor and for victims of yellow fever. Thousands of bodies ar…
2
The Courthouse That Became a Library
Look at that building of red brick and pale stone, with turrets, spires and a clock tower. It looks like a Victorian castle dropped onto Sixth Avenue. Today it is a public library.
It was built between 1874 and 1877 as a courthouse, the Third Judicial District Courthouse. It was designed by Frederick Clarke Withers and Calvert Vaux, the same Vaux who had laid out Central Park with Frederick Law Olmsted. The tower also served as a fire lookout.
Every day the neighbourhood's arrested passed through these rooms: drunks, prostitutes, thieves. And also men picked up in bars, bathhouses or parks f…
3
The Women's Prison That Shouted to the Street
You are in front of a fenced garden full of flowers and rose bushes. It is a quiet place. But here, until 1974, stood an eleven-storey block: the Women's House of Detention, Manhattan's women's jail.
It opened in 1932, in Art Deco style, right in the heart of the Village. Thousands of women held for prostitution, theft or drugs passed through its cells. So did famous prisoners: Ethel Rosenberg was held here before her execution, and Angela Davis in 1970.
Among the inmates were many lesbians, masculine women and trans people. For the police, wearing the clothes of the other sex could be reaso…
4
The Poets' Alley
Peer through that iron gate. Behind it is a dead-end alley with three-storey brick houses, trees and an old gas-style lamp. It is called Patchin Place and it has been there since the mid-nineteenth century.
These little houses were built around 1848 as rentals. In the early twentieth century they filled with writers and artists short of money, drawn by low rents and quiet.
At number 4 the poet E. E. Cummings lived from 1923 until his death in 1962. The man who wrote without capital letters and broke syntax apart spent almost forty years behind this gate.
At number 5 lived Djuna Barnes, from…
5
The Bookshop That Invented the March
You are on Christopher Street, one of the oldest streets in the Village. Its name comes from Charles Christopher Amos, heir to the land it was laid across. In front of you, on the corner with Gay Street at number 15, a very special bookshop operated for decades.
It was called the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. Craig Rodwell founded it in 1967 at another address in the neighbourhood, and in 1973 it moved to this corner. It was the first bookshop in the country devoted to gay and lesbian authors.
Rodwell refused to stock pornographic magazines, which were the only gay material many newsstands …
6
A Street Called Gay
You are on Gay Street, a short lane that bends in a gentle curve. On either side are brick houses from the early nineteenth century, with painted doors and stone steps. It is one of the most photographed streets in the Village.
The name has nothing to do with the movement. It was already called this by the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, long before the word gay had its current meaning. It probably comes from a family named Gay, though no one knows for sure.
In the mid-nineteenth century, much of the Village's Black community lived on and around this street. Later, during Prohib…
7
The Bar Where They Asked for a Drink
Look at that bar on the corner, with its old facade and sign. It is called Julius' and it is one of the oldest bars in the Village. Here, three years before Stonewall, a much quieter act of protest took place.
In the sixties, the New York State Liquor Authority could revoke a bar's licence for serving homosexuals, whom it treated as disorderly customers. So many bars refused to serve them, or threw them out at the first suspicion.
On 21 April 1966, three members of the Mattachine Society, Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell and John Timmons, walked into Julius'. They went up to the bar, said they we…
8
Where 4th Street Crosses 10th
Look at the street signs on this corner. You are where West 4th Street crosses West 10th Street. Anywhere else in Manhattan that would be impossible: the numbered streets run parallel.
The West Village is older than the grid. When the city drew its plan of straight, numbered streets in 1811, Greenwich was already a village with its own roads. The streets here followed the lines of old farms, streams and paths.
Greenwich grew suddenly when the yellow fever epidemics of the late eighteenth century and of 1822 drove thousands of New Yorkers to flee the southern tip of the island. The air here w…
9
The Stonewall Inn: the Raid of 28 June
You are in front of the Stonewall Inn, at 53 Christopher Street. Look at the brick facade and the sign. In 1969 the bar took up numbers 51 and 53, and it was very different from what you see now.
It was run by people tied to the Mafia. It had no liquor licence, served watered-down drinks and paid off the police to stay open. It was dirty and expensive. But it had something rare for the time: you could dance.
Its crowd included very young people, many of them homeless, drag queens, butch lesbians and gay men of every class. For many, it was the only place they could be themselves.
In the ear…
10
Christopher Park: the Night They Did Not Leave
You are in Christopher Park, the green triangle opposite the Stonewall Inn. Look at the four white figures: two men standing, two women sitting on a bench. They are Gay Liberation, by the sculptor George Segal.
The work was commissioned in 1979, but the controversy was such that it was installed here only in 1992. The figures are bronze painted white, like everyday ghosts. Many people sit on the bench beside them.
On that early morning in 1969, the crowd filled this park and the street. When police began loading prisoners into the wagon, someone fought back. Many witnesses remember a woman s…
11
Sheridan Square: Gay Power Comes to the Square
You are in Sheridan Square, the little planted triangle where West 4th Street, Washington Place and Barrow Street meet. Seventh Avenue runs behind it. On those nights in 1969, this whole junction was packed with people.
The first night ended close to dawn. But by the next day the news had spread. On Saturday night thousands came back, and so did the riot police. Graffiti reading Gay Power appeared on the walls.
During the siege of the first night, a Village Voice reporter, Howard Smith, had been trapped inside the bar with the police. Another, Lucian Truscott, covered it from outside. His pi…
12
The Pier Where the Movement Lived On
You are on the Christopher Street Pier, Pier 45, reaching out into the Hudson River. Across the water is New Jersey. Today it is a park with lawns, benches and sunbathers, but for decades it was something else.
In the seventies and eighties the old cargo piers were abandoned and half in ruins. They became a meeting place for the LGBTQ+ community, and above all for young people, many of them Black and Latino, many thrown out of their homes.
Among them moved two figures who had been on the street during those Stonewall nights: Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera. In 1970 they founded STAR, a g…
How long does the "Stonewall and Greenwich Village: the Night That Changed Civil Rights" audio tour take?
It has about 23 minutes of audio across 12 stops and a 2.39 km walking route (~35 min on foot). Plan roughly 1 h in total, or split it up: you can pause and resume anytime.
Where does the tour start?
At stop 1, "The Arch Where the Village Begins" (coordinates 40.73112, -73.99707). The app guides you from stop to stop with a map.
Is it free?
Trevurs is a free app for iOS and Android. There is also an optional Premium version, from USD 1.99, with unlimited offline downloads, access to every tour and no ads. It also helps keep an independent app alive.
Why use an audio tour instead of a guided group tour?
No group to keep up with and no guide to wait for. Start at any time of day, on your own schedule. Go at your own pace: pause, rewind or skip any stop. No need to commit 2 or 3 hours to a single tour: do one stop or the whole route. Works offline once downloaded.
What languages is this audio guide available in?
This tour is available in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French, Italian. Switch languages anytime from inside the app.
Do I need wifi to listen to this tour?
No. Download the tour over wifi before you go, then listen without any data connection.
How do I access this tour?
Download Trevurs on iPhone (App Store) or Android (Google Play), then open New York and pick "Stonewall and Greenwich Village: the Night That Changed Civil Rights". No account required to start.
