{"id":5259,"date":"2013-04-02T18:48:32","date_gmt":"2013-04-02T18:48:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thedowntownproject.com\/?p=5259"},"modified":"2013-04-02T18:48:32","modified_gmt":"2013-04-02T18:48:32","slug":"downtown-pride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/downtown-pride","title":{"rendered":"Downtown Pride"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Totally<\/p>\n

NY – Instead of the usual dinner and movie, a recent date offered to give me a tour of historical gay establishments in Manhattan\u00a0and I’m thrilled to share the details of my day with The Downtown Project!<\/p>\n

\"Gallery\"
1. Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

1. Our tour started one chilly Saturday afternoon in Soho at the\u00a0Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art<\/a>.<\/b>\u00a0 Co-founders Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman began collecting art in 1969 and now\u00a0the first and only gay art museum in the world counts\u00a0Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe among its permanent artist collection.<\/p>\n

\"Julius'
2. Julius Bar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

2. From Soho we checked out\u00a0Julius Bar<\/a><\/b>\u00a0in the West Village, frequented back in the day by Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote\u00a0and now known for delicious burgers. The building dates back to 1826 and although it’s thought to be the oldest gay bar in New York, that distinction actually goes to the Upper West Side\u2019s\u00a0Candle Bar Amsterdam<\/b>. \u00a0Back in the 60\u2019s, it staffed gay bartenders and openly served gay men long before the Mattachine Society, a gay rights group, induced a \u201cSip-In\u201d protest. \u00a0Until the Sip-In, it was illegal for gays to cruise in bars. \u00a0Patrons were encouraged to face the bar and those who turned away from the bar to scope the room were ejected by bouncers. Thankfully, my date and I were free to cozy up to a table made from a vintage Jacob Ruppert Brewery barrel and flirt with one another over burgers and beer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Christopher
3. Christopher Park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

3. A West Village bar-hopping excursion would not be complete without visiting the iconic\u00a0Stonewall Inn<\/strong><\/a>,the location of the \u00a0legendary Stonewall Riots of 1969 and the\u00a0beginning the gay liberation movement. \u00a0We\u00a0ended our evening with a stroll across the street through\u00a0Christopher Park<\/strong><\/a>, home to pop sculptor George Segal\u2019s\u00a0Gay Liberation. A<\/i>fter suffering years of vandalism while on display in Connecticut and Wisconsin, the sculpture was moved here and serves as a reminder of the bravery and struggles endured in the fight for gay equality. As my date and I stood, proudly looking at the celebrated sculpture in the moonlight, I couldn\u2019t help but notice that despite the numerous bars within ear shot, the quiet park was filled with a solemn reverence. It was a stark contrast to the nights of turmoil outside of the Stonewall Inn in 1969 — and a welcome reminder of how far we’ve progressed as a society.<\/p>\n

For more on Tyler, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NY – Instead of the usual dinner and movie, a recent date offered to give me a tour of historical gay establishments in Manhattan\u00a0and I’m thrilled to share the details of my day with The Downtown Project!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[17,6,18],"class_list":["post-5259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destination","category-nyc","tag-historic-places","tag-soho","tag-west-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanasanko.com\/downtown-project\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}