... Street received its name, when the land was acquired by Charles Christopher Amos. You can see his name in a few areas of the West Village (Charles Street would be one, Christopher would be the other and 10th Street also bore his name Amos at one time). At that time Christopher Street only went west till what we know today as Weehawken Street, which was laid out in 1829 and is the shortest street in the West Village. Not to long after the city continued to landfill its way north up the Hudson River and created a man made [...]
The Keller Hotel 1898 & Keller’s Bar 1956
... was the Knickerbocker Hotel & Saloon till 1910. In 1911 the hotel reopened and operated under the name “New Hotel Keller” till 1929 (from 1929 to 1993 the hotel was listed under the name Keller Abington Hotel). By 1939 it became Renee Tavern which housed mostly transient sailors of all nationalities till 1949. In 1950 the space became Charles Bar & Grill and stay open till 1955. The mid 1950′s to early 1960′s saw the decline of the maritime industry on the Hudson River and moved to Brooklyn & New Jersey where there was more space. During this time [...]
Gay Sex in New York City During the 1970′s
... in the previous decade of the Sixties (60′s). In the 1960′s it was illegal to be gay (basically) and by 1969 the LGBT community had been driven/pushed into a corner and the retaliation was destined to begin. At the turn of the decade the laws were laxed and the Gay Sexual Revolution had begun. The outlets for gay sex were endless and in New York City Forgedaboudit, just about anywhere you could think of became a place for sex. The abandonded piers on the Hudson river, the truck trailers under the Miller Evevated Westside Highway, and the [...]
Sylvia Rae Rivera During the Stonewall Riots, a Transgender Activist
... true recognition while being in the front line of the Stonewall Riots during the summer of 1969. Rae was also one of first people to set off the riots during that summer and always mentioned her part during that hellish time to equality. Rivera would continue her fight during the 1970′s and 1980′s for those that were often forgotten by society or never recognized by others in the LGBT community itself. In 1995 Silvia made an attempt to take her own life by walking into the Hudson River and was not successful. Not to long after her recovery she was part of a series that was on [...]
Malcolm Michael Jr., Marsha “Pay It No Mind” Johnson LGBT Activist
... We remember in the mid 1980′s into about 1991 always seeing Ms Marsha skating all around the city, panhandling and carrying on. One day she disappeared and we always wondered what happened to her. Then one day we see a picture of her in a store front on Hudson Street and Christopher Street. That’s when we knew something had happened to her. Later in 1994 we found out about her untimely death in 1992. The police ruled it a suicide after finding her body floating in the Hudson River and never looked further into what happened to Marsha P. Johnson. But her friends [...]