When police raided one such bar, the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village section of New York City in June 1969, patrons fought back, leading to the Stonewall Riots.

It contains Christopher Street and the Stonewall Inn, important landmarks, as well as the world's oldest gay and lesbian bookstore, Oscar Wilde Bookshop, founded in 1967.

The Stonewall Inn, taken September 1969.

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City.

The Stonewall Inn, at the time, was owned by the Mafia.

Police raids on gay bars were routine in the 1960s, but officers quickly lost control of the situation at the Stonewall Inn, and attracted a crowd that was incited to riot.

Location of the Stonewall Inn in relation to Greenwich Village

The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese family.

In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $ 3, 500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub for heterosexuals.

Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff ; the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license.

Because of its even mix of people, its location, and the attraction of dancing, the Stonewall Inn was known by many as " the gay bar in the city ".

The period immediately before June 28, 1969 was marked by frequent raids of local bars — including a raid at the Stonewall Inn on the Tuesday before the riots — and the closing of the Checkerboard, the Tele-Star, and two other clubs in Greenwich Village.

Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969

" Ten police officers — including two policewomen — barricaded themselves, Van Ronk, Howard Smith ( a writer for The Village Voice ), and several handcuffed detainees inside the Stonewall Inn for their own safety.

Witnesses attest that " flame queens ", hustlers, and gay " street kids "— the most outcast people in the gay community — were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ram on the doors of the Stonewall Inn.

Almost everything in the Stonewall Inn was broken.

Inspector Pine had intended to close and dismantle the Stonewall Inn that night.

All day Saturday, June 28, people came to stare at the burned and blackened Stonewall Inn.

It's about time we did something to assert ourselves ", and visited the open Stonewall Inn for the first time.

" Others found the closing of the Stonewall Inn, termed a " sleaze joint ", as advantageous to the Village.

The Stonewall Inn lasted only a few weeks after the riot.

Reporting by The Village Voice was positive, describing " the out-front resistance that grew out of the police raid on the Stonewall Inn one year ago ".

The Stonewall, a bar in part of the building where the Stonewall Inn was located.

Within weeks of the Stonewall Riots, Craig Rodwell, proprietor of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop in lower Manhattan, was working to commemorate them by replacing the Annual Reminder, which had been held annually in at Independence Hall in Philadelphia since 1965, with a celebration of the Stonewall Riots.

There was a riot in 1969 at the Stonewall Bar in New York after a police raid.

There were two dance floors in the Stonewall ; the interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights.

Sylvia Rivera, who was in full drag and had been in the Stonewall during the raid, remembered: " You've been treating us like shit all these years?

Bob Kohler, who was walking his dog by the Stonewall that night, saw the TPF arrive: " I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over ....

During the siege of the Stonewall, Craig Rodwell called The New York Times, The New York Post, and The New York Daily News to inform them what was happening.

Although he was stunned by the upheaval by participants in the Annual Reminder in 1969, he later observed, " By the time of Stonewall, we had fifty to sixty gay groups in the country.

This was illustrated during the 1973 Stonewall rally when, moments after Barbara Gittings exuberantly praised the diversity of the crowd, feminist activist Jean O ' Leary protested what she perceived as the mocking of women by cross-dressers and drag queens in attendance.

Reaction to the influence of Save Our Children and the Briggs Initiative in the gay community was so significant that it has been called the second Stonewall for many activists, marking their initiation into political participation.

Historian David Carter remarks in his book about the Stonewall riots that the bar itself was a complex business that represented a community center, an opportunity for the Mafia to blackmail its own customers, a home, and a place of " exploitation and degradation ".

Historian Lillian Faderman calls the riots the " shot heard round the world ", explaining, " The Stonewall Rebellion was crucial because it sounded the rally for that movement.

By calling on the dramatic tactic of violent protest that was being used by other oppressed groups, the events at the Stonewall implied that homosexuals had as much reason to be disaffected as they.

The most significant facet of the Stonewall riots, however, was the commemoration of them in Christopher Street Liberation Day, which grew into the annual Gay Pride events around the world.

A number of other defendants were found not guilty, including Stuart Christie, who had previously been imprisoned in Spain for carrying explosives with the intent to assassinate the dictator Francisco Franco, and Angela Mason who became a director of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights group Stonewall and was awarded an OBE for services to homosexual rights.

Within two years of the Stonewall riots there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as Canada, Australia, and Western Europe.

Within months after Stonewall radical gay liberation groups and newsletters sprang up in cities and on college campuses across America and then across all of northern Europe as well.

Though the reality was that the Stonewall riots themselves, as well as the immediate and the ongoing political organizing that occurred following them, were events fully participated in by lesbian women, bisexual people and transgender people as well as by gay men of all races and backgrounds, historically these events were first named Gay, the word at that time being used in a more generic sense to cover the entire spectrum of what is now variously called the ' queer ' or LGBT community.

Also located near New Market are Stonewall Jackson High School and Massanutten Military Academy, as well as a number of primary schools.

Cultural landmarks, such as Greenwich Village's Stonewall Inn are recognized as well, not for their architecture, but rather for their location in a designated historic district.

Bugs then disguises himself as Stonewall Jackson ( here as " General Brickwall Jackson "), fooling Sam into marching into a well.

Stonewall Jackson, commanding his own division, as well as the divisions of Maj. Gen. D. H. Hill and Brig.

" Stonewall " Jackson at Kernstown on March 23, and Williams ' Division fought well at Winchester, May 25, while on Banks ' retreat.

Some of these openings have individual names as well, e. g. the Trompowsky Attack, Torre Attack, Stonewall Attack, Richter-Veresov Attack, London System, and Colle System.

If Black fails to react energetically to the Stonewall setup, White may launch a lethal attack on the Black king, typically by playing the knight from f3 to e5, advancing the g-pawn to drive away the defending black knight, and making a well timed bishop sacrifice at h7 ( see Greek gift sacrifice ) when White can bring one of the major pieces ( queen and / or rook ) to the h-file.

Park amenities include trails for hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking, as well as campgrounds for family, group, equestrian, and primitive trail camping ; as well as an exhibit at a former gold mine, the Stonewall Mine.