Bruce Benderson on Stonewall at Fifty Interview by Dale Corvino
DC: 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, which I understand was a long weekend of fighting back against police brutality, led by bar patrons, gay street kids, drag queens, transgender folks, and hustlers. The way it’s been commemorated has morphed over the years. Last year, I was at a meeting where a young organizer from Heritage of Pride (HoP) presented proposed changes to the parade route. I asked him if the NYPD had been involved, and he confirmed that they had dictated the proposed changes, and HoP just accepted this, in the name of safety, security, and minimizing disruption. This anecdote brings to mind your observation about the gentrification of the gay rights movement. So, fifty years later, how should we reflect on Stonewall? BB: Well, one thing you didn’t mention is revisionism. I feel that the identity of Stonewall has been revised. Stonewall was a mafia-run bar, it’s true. Though drag queens were not always well treated, it was incredible, the most popular bar in the West Village, packed every weekend. It had dancing. You could dance any way you wanted; sometimes people slow danced. When the lights blinked on and off it meant the cops were coming, and you just separated for about 30 seconds, and then went back to what you were doing. I know it’s perverse to say, but the mafiarun bars in New York were some of the most enjoyable, lively, sensual, sexy, festive places, my favorite bars. I didn’t know at the time they were mafia run, but that’s why they were so much fun, because a lot of the rules were suspended, such as male-on-male dancing. There was a certain amount of gay freedom at the Stonewall. Other bars didn’t allow dancing, certainly not close dancing. I always had the most wonderful time there, and never once did I feel like the sort of homosexual who had to shrink off into a corner, or that I’d get arrested. The cops were probably paid off, because the lightblinking episode would last less than one minute. I’m sure the transvestites had it much worse than I did. To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember seeing them, although they must have been there. When the rebellion started, there was a law on the books against cross-dressing. I don’t think that the rebellion started because we were repressed gays being exploited by the Stonewall owners. It started because the cross-dressers were being harassed by the police. And now that whole Bruce Benderson. Photo by Bertrand Le Pluard, ©2019
thing has been revised; there have been movies about it in which Stonewall is this dreary, intimidating place and you’re hiding in the shadows and you could get arrested at any moment. That’s not how it was. The revisionist tendency is that Stonewall’s history involved gays who had been repressed, punished, and exploited by that bar. It was the opposite. Stonewall was a banquet of sensuality and opportunity. The mafia was probably making a lot of money, but it was not a negative experience for the customers, and it’s been revised as practically like a prison, a punishing place where you were in danger of ending up in jail or being beaten up by the cops. The pleasure that we had
there doesn’t exist in the history books, but it doesn’t exist anywhere today, that pleasure that comes from a mixing of the tribes. The reason that no clubs are enjoyable today is because there’s much less mixing of class and race. As an example, take Studio 54, which was exciting not only for its celebrities, but because it was a class democracy. Inside you could see a black bicycle messenger dancing with someone like Liza Minnelli. Every class and race and sexual orientation and gender were welcome, if they looked interesting, and looking interesting could involve something very eccentric. Once you got in, you were free to relate to everybody from every economic level, every race, and that’s what created the party at Studio 54. The moment Reagan was elected and Times Square got gentrified by Mayor Giuliani, the races and the classes were torn asunder, poor people were pushed to the peripheries, and real estate was bought up and RFD 178 Summer 2019 5
