Tree

Gay Rights Advocate

Stonewall Bartender

Wild Child

Photographed by Paula Andrea / @soft_when_ripe

“Over the years, I’ve gone to jail 10, 12, 14 times, for being in gay bars. When the police raided a bar, they simply took us to jail. No fingerprints. No pictures. Then we went before a judge, and a judge would either say, ‘You’re wasting my time, get out of here,’ and we’d go home, or they would call us perverts and fine us $20.”

“ I was born in 1939 in Brooklyn. I don’t eat anything healthy. I don’t eat vegetables. I don’t eat fish. I love shrimp. I eat fruit once in a while. I party sometimes. When I go out bar hopping, I come back to Stonewall at three in the morning all by myself. No one else can keep up. I walk past a gym twice a day, which is exhausting… (laughs)… My doctor says it’s my Russian genes. He’s shocked that I eat butter like it’s candy, and my cholesterol is perfect.”

“In the 50s I belonged to a gang. In Brooklyn in the 50s, if you didn’t belong to a gang in high school you got beat up by everybody. I would rather go up and rub against a guy than fight with him, though. My friends couldn’t figure that out. We didn’t even use the word ‘gay’ back when I was young.”

“I used to go to the movies, and I knew every men’s room in every theater I ever went to. Sometimes, there were 20 people in the theater, and 30 people in the men’s room. And everybody’s having orgies. The train stations were wild, too, in the 50s and 60s. It was a nickel to go to the men’s room, and everybody was fooling around. Some of the cops were nice. They would come and bang the door with their keys before they opened it. They threw us out, but as soon as the cops left, everybody ran back into the bathroom. I had a friend who would buy a roll of nickels on his way to work, and wouldn’t come home until he spent all of them in different men’s rooms. He would tell me what bathroom I should go to, and I loved him to death.”

“One day, I came into The Village with a friend. We saw a couple of people, who we knew were gay, and we followed them. In those days, if you didn’t know where there was a gay bar, you couldn’t find them. Remember, it was against the law to serve known homosexuals alcohol in New York City. All the windows and doors were painted black, so you couldn’t look in to see what was going on, because two men dancing was considered disgusting. The guys we were following went into a restaurant called Mamas Chic N Ribs, and what do you know, it was a gay bar.”

“We only came to Stonewall to dance. Today, you can dance by yourself. Fifty years ago, you had to have a partner. Cha-cha, mambo, all this stuff. At Stonewall back in the days, everybody knew each other. The Stonewall riots took place in the early hours of June 28, 1969. I had no idea that this was going to be the event that triggered the gay rights movement. I just figured it was another raid. The day of the riot, the police came in full of aggression. They threw drugs on the floor, they pushed people. It was chaotic. We got out, my friends and I, but the police held inside the lesbians, who were dressed like men, and the drag queens. They were seen as the most distasteful of us back then.”

“We started the pushback. Some say a high heel smashed the windows at Stonewall, but it was definitely a rock. I even saw two people pull a parking meter out of the ground and use it to smash windows and knock the doors in. People lit garbage cans and threw them through the open, broken windows. Not me, I’m lazy. I don’t like lifting. But I did break the lock on the back of a paddy wagon, and the door opened. Everybody that the police had arrested got out.”

“One year after the riots, when I saw all the people lining up outside of Stonewall to march from Seventh Avenue to Central Park to fight for our rights, I thought they were crazy! But eventually I did decide to march with them, staying on the sidewalk in case somebody took my picture. I passed plenty of people shouting ‘fag,’ ‘queer,’ ‘dyke,’ ‘homo’—all kinds of names. Now I look back on that day knowing that I was part of a huge moment in history. That parade was the first step to where we are today.”

“The officer who led the raid in 1969 apologized to the gay community before he died. In those days, it was seen as a disease, but then he came to understand that it’s just life for some people. Little by little, we gained rights. We could actually feel safe to be gay at work, or in public. And the next thing I know, we have gay marriage! We have almost everything that we want now. Dear brothers and sisters, forget the past because it’s a prologue. The future is us. Love, hug, kiss.”

“I have been working at Stonewall since they reopened 13 years ago. I’m meeting people from all around the world. If we get along, I take them barhopping. I have people come here once or twice a year because they’ve heard about me, and they think I’m crazy. They say it’s the way I talk to people. I have fun.”

“ The fact is that some of the younger generation have no idea about Stonewall. That’s why I lecture in high schools and colleges. That’s why underage kids come with their teachers to Stonewall—before we open of course—and I explain the history of Stonewall before, during, and after the riots. I tell them the history of the bar, but I also tell them, please, no drugs, safe sex.”

Q&A

What neighborhood do you live in? I live in Chelsea. I’ve been here for 51 years now.

Best thing about living there? My apartment is rent-stabilized, so I enjoy that! Chelsea is also one of the gay neighborhoods in New York, so the diversity here is awesome.

Favorite neighborhood? The Village.

Favorite restaurant? Sevilla Restaurant in The Village is great–a classic that opened in 1941. Churrascaria Plataforma on 49th Street is a Brazilian steakhouse I love as well.

Favorite bar? Three of them. All gay, and very inclusive. Stonewall, Julius’, and Lederhosen.

Visit Tree at home in a 3-minute video: quotedmagazine.com/tree