Iconic West Village Gay Bar Begins Road To Landmark Status – Patch.com

WEST VILLAGE, NY — New York City’s oldest continuously running gay bar in the West Village began its journey to landmark status on Tuesday.

The Landmark Preservation Commission officially calendared the Julius’ Bar building at 159 W. 10th St. as an individual landmark. Calendaring is the first formal step of the designation process.

“The building housing Julius’ Bar is one of the city’s most significant LGBTQ+ history sites for the role it played in advancing the rights of gay and lesbian New Yorkers,” Landmarks Preservation Commission said in a news release.

On April 21, 1966, Julius’ Bar was the site of a “Sip-in” that challenged regulations banning serving LGBTQ people in New York City.

On the historic day, activists from The Mattachine Society — inspired by the Civil Rights nonviolent activism in the south — invited press along for their act of protest.

The bar refused to serve them, and the story appeared in most major New York City newspapers the next day.

The “Sip-In” took place three years before the nearby Stonewall Riots, which is generally considered to be the beginning of a new wave of LGBTQ activism.

A plaque presented by the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project was unveiled in April 2022 outside Julius’ Bar to pay homage to the event.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission will now hold a public hearing on the proposed designation, followed by a public meeting during which a vote will take place.

“This is a tremendously important step toward conferring much-needed recognition and protection upon this site, which played such an enormously important role in the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement,” said Andrew Berman, Executive Director of Village Preservation, said in a news release.” “We’re optimistic that it will soon join the ranks of other officially designated LGBTQ+ landmarks in our neighborhood which we fought for, including the Stonewall Inn, LGBT Community Services Center, and Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse.”

Patch will follow along with the landmark process.