Julius (New York City)

Julius (New York City)

Julius, located at 159 West 10th Street at Waverly Place, is a tavern in the New York City Greenwich Village neighborhood. It is often called the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York; however, its management was actively unwilling to operate as such and harassed gay customers until 1966.

In fact, the distinction of being the longest continuously running gay bar in New York belongs to the Candle Bar (formerly the Candlelight Lounge) at 309 Amsterdam Avenue, which was openly operating as a gay bar with a gay staff before April 1966, while the Julius bar was enforcing its policy of harassing and ejecting gay men. The Candle Bar has continued operating as a gay establishment uninterruptedly to the present day.

An event at the Julius bar at 159 West 10th Street in 1966, which is a block northeast of the famous Stonewall Inn, established the right of homosexuals to be served in licensed premises in New York State. This cleared the way for the opening of many new gay premises with state liquor licenses.

Newspaper articles on the wall indicate it was the favorite bar of Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Rudolf Nureyev.

Read more about Julius (New York City):  History, In Fiction

Famous quotes containing the words julius and/or york:

    The die is cast.
    Julius Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar] (100–44 B.C.)

    As for your friend, my prospective reader, I hope he ignores Fort Sumter, and “Old Abe,” and all that; for that is just the most fatal, and, indeed, the only fatal weapon you can direct against evil ever; for, as long as you know of it, you are particeps criminis. What business have you, if you are an “angel of light,” to be pondering over the deeds of darkness, reading the New York Herald, and the like.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)