| |
Namesake | Charles Christopher Amos |
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Location | West Village, Lower Manhattan, New York City |
Postal code | 10014 |
Coordinates | 40°44′00″N 74°00′18″W / 40.73333°N 74.00500°W |
West end | West Street |
East end | Sixth Avenue |
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher Street near the corner of Seventh Avenue South. As a result of the Stonewall riots in 1969, the street became the epicenter of the world's gay rights movement in the late 1970s. To this day, the inn and the street serve as an international symbol of gay pride.
Christopher Street is named after Charles Christopher Amos, the owner of the inherited estate which included the location of the street. Amos is also the namesake of nearby Charles Street, and of the former Amos Street, which is now West 10th Street. [1] [2]
Christopher Street is, technically, the oldest street in the West Village, as it ran along the south boundary of Admiral Sir Peter Warren's estate, which abutted the old Greenwich Road (now Greenwich Avenue) to the east and extended north to the next landing on the North River, at present-day Gansevoort Street. The street was briefly called Skinner Road after Colonel William Skinner, Sir Peter's son-in-law. The street received its current name in 1799, when the Warren land was acquired by Warren's eventual heir, Charles Christopher Amos. Charles Street remains, but Amos Street is now 10th Street. [3] [4]
The road ran past the churchyard wall of the Church of St. Luke in the Fields (built 1820–22; rebuilt after a fire, 1981–85) still standing on its left, down to the ferry landing, commemorated in the block-long Weehawken Street [5] (laid out in 1829), the shortest street in the West Village. At the Hudson River, with its foundation in the river and extending north to 10th Street, Newgate Prison, the first New York State Prison, occupied the site from 1796 to 1829, when the institution was removed to Sing Sing and the City plotted and sold the land. [6]
West Street is on more recently filled land, but the procession of boats that had made the inaugural pass through the Erie Canal stopped at the ferry dock at the foot of Christopher Street, November 4, 1825, where it was met by a delegation from the city; together they proceeded to the Lower Bay, where the cask of water brought from the Great Lakes was ceremoniously emptied into the salt water. [7]
In 1961, Jane Jacobs, resident in the area and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities published that same year, headed a group that successfully stopped Mayor Robert Wagner's plan to demolish twelve blocks along West Street north of Christopher Street, including the north side of Christopher Street to Hudson Street, and an additional two blocks south of it, slated for " urban renewal". [8]
Christopher Street is the site of the Stonewall Inn, the bar whose patrons fought back violently in June 1969 against a police raid, sparking the Stonewall riots that are widely seen as the birth of the gay liberation movement. [9] The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee formed to commemorate the first anniversary of that event, the beginning of the international tradition of a late-June event to celebrate gay pride. [12] The annual gay pride festivals in Berlin, Cologne, and other German cities are known as Christopher Street Days.
In part because of the riots at the Stonewall Inn, the LGBT community came to congregate around Christopher Street. [13] [14] By the early 1970s, other LGBT businesses had opened along the street, even as the bar itself had closed. [13] [15] A commentator for The Advocate wrote in 1972 that the riots had succeeded in associating Christopher Street's name with LGBT culture, [15] while a 1982 Washington Post article described the street, and particularly the bar's site, as the "birthplace of the gay rights movement in this country". [14] Large numbers of gay men would stroll its length at seemingly all hours. Gay bars and stores selling leather fetish clothing and artistic decorative items flourished at that time. This changed dramatically with the loss of many gay men during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Christopher Street magazine, a respected gay magazine, began publication in July 1976 and folded in December 1995. [16]
Anaïs Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books, located at 45 Christopher Street. [17]
Near Sixth Avenue, Christopher Street intersects with a short, winding street, coincidentally named Gay Street.
Since 1992, Christopher Park, located at the intersection of Christopher, Grove, and West 4th Streets, has hosted a duplicate of the sculpture Gay Liberation Monument by George Segal to commemorate the gay rights traditions of the area. [18]
The Oscar Wilde Bookshop, located on the corner of Christopher and Gay, was the oldest LGBT bookshop in the world until it closed in 2009. [19]
On March 2 he moved out of the Brevoort Hotel, where he had been staying, and took up residence at 11 Christopher Street, in the West Village.
| |
Namesake | Charles Christopher Amos |
---|---|
Location | West Village, Lower Manhattan, New York City |
Postal code | 10014 |
Coordinates | 40°44′00″N 74°00′18″W / 40.73333°N 74.00500°W |
West end | West Street |
East end | Sixth Avenue |
Christopher Street is a street in the West Village neighborhood of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is the continuation of 9th Street west of Sixth Avenue.
It is most notable for the Stonewall Inn, which is located on Christopher Street near the corner of Seventh Avenue South. As a result of the Stonewall riots in 1969, the street became the epicenter of the world's gay rights movement in the late 1970s. To this day, the inn and the street serve as an international symbol of gay pride.
Christopher Street is named after Charles Christopher Amos, the owner of the inherited estate which included the location of the street. Amos is also the namesake of nearby Charles Street, and of the former Amos Street, which is now West 10th Street. [1] [2]
Christopher Street is, technically, the oldest street in the West Village, as it ran along the south boundary of Admiral Sir Peter Warren's estate, which abutted the old Greenwich Road (now Greenwich Avenue) to the east and extended north to the next landing on the North River, at present-day Gansevoort Street. The street was briefly called Skinner Road after Colonel William Skinner, Sir Peter's son-in-law. The street received its current name in 1799, when the Warren land was acquired by Warren's eventual heir, Charles Christopher Amos. Charles Street remains, but Amos Street is now 10th Street. [3] [4]
The road ran past the churchyard wall of the Church of St. Luke in the Fields (built 1820–22; rebuilt after a fire, 1981–85) still standing on its left, down to the ferry landing, commemorated in the block-long Weehawken Street [5] (laid out in 1829), the shortest street in the West Village. At the Hudson River, with its foundation in the river and extending north to 10th Street, Newgate Prison, the first New York State Prison, occupied the site from 1796 to 1829, when the institution was removed to Sing Sing and the City plotted and sold the land. [6]
West Street is on more recently filled land, but the procession of boats that had made the inaugural pass through the Erie Canal stopped at the ferry dock at the foot of Christopher Street, November 4, 1825, where it was met by a delegation from the city; together they proceeded to the Lower Bay, where the cask of water brought from the Great Lakes was ceremoniously emptied into the salt water. [7]
In 1961, Jane Jacobs, resident in the area and author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities published that same year, headed a group that successfully stopped Mayor Robert Wagner's plan to demolish twelve blocks along West Street north of Christopher Street, including the north side of Christopher Street to Hudson Street, and an additional two blocks south of it, slated for " urban renewal". [8]
Christopher Street is the site of the Stonewall Inn, the bar whose patrons fought back violently in June 1969 against a police raid, sparking the Stonewall riots that are widely seen as the birth of the gay liberation movement. [9] The Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee formed to commemorate the first anniversary of that event, the beginning of the international tradition of a late-June event to celebrate gay pride. [12] The annual gay pride festivals in Berlin, Cologne, and other German cities are known as Christopher Street Days.
In part because of the riots at the Stonewall Inn, the LGBT community came to congregate around Christopher Street. [13] [14] By the early 1970s, other LGBT businesses had opened along the street, even as the bar itself had closed. [13] [15] A commentator for The Advocate wrote in 1972 that the riots had succeeded in associating Christopher Street's name with LGBT culture, [15] while a 1982 Washington Post article described the street, and particularly the bar's site, as the "birthplace of the gay rights movement in this country". [14] Large numbers of gay men would stroll its length at seemingly all hours. Gay bars and stores selling leather fetish clothing and artistic decorative items flourished at that time. This changed dramatically with the loss of many gay men during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Christopher Street magazine, a respected gay magazine, began publication in July 1976 and folded in December 1995. [16]
Anaïs Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books, located at 45 Christopher Street. [17]
Near Sixth Avenue, Christopher Street intersects with a short, winding street, coincidentally named Gay Street.
Since 1992, Christopher Park, located at the intersection of Christopher, Grove, and West 4th Streets, has hosted a duplicate of the sculpture Gay Liberation Monument by George Segal to commemorate the gay rights traditions of the area. [18]
The Oscar Wilde Bookshop, located on the corner of Christopher and Gay, was the oldest LGBT bookshop in the world until it closed in 2009. [19]
On March 2 he moved out of the Brevoort Hotel, where he had been staying, and took up residence at 11 Christopher Street, in the West Village.