Many of the sites documented by the LGBT Historic Sites Project are no longer extant the buildings remain but the inhabitants and businesses that gave them their character have since moved on. There weren’t really alternative places where people could congregate and meet each other.” “At a time when it was very difficult for gay people to find each other, bars served that purpose. “Bars have long been a key social aspect of gay life,” said Andrew Dolkart, cofounder of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, a group that documents significant buildings from New York’s queer history. As the jewel in New York’s queer history crown, the Stonewall Inn shows how the visibility of LGBTQ venues has changed over the past fifty years.
Now the bar is dressed in dozens of rainbow flags and sponsorship banners from Brooklyn Lager and Sky Blue, and in 2016, it became the first LGBTQ site to be designated a National Monument. In the late 1960s-before the Stonewall Riots of 1969 made the site historic-the windows would’ve been blacked out, the doors kept closed, the inside kept dark and smoky until bright lights flashed on as a warning for an impending police raid. This year, New York’s Pride celebrations revolved around a single bar: The Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street.
