Julius on Christopher

It’s been almost forty years since the Stonewall Riots, but the now-grizzled crowd at Julius around the corner has hardly budged. This West Village tavern is not only New York’s oldest gay bar, but one of its very oldest barrooms – it’s been in continuous operation since 1863. It’s ridden out Prohibition as a speakeasy, lured Broadway starlets downtown for its famous burgers, and played host to the Sip-In of 1966, when a group of gay men demanded bar service at a time when homosexuals could not legally assemble. Julius is a bit worse for the wear, however, and it doesn’t immediately seem like a gay scene (the bar is typically full of males and females); only a few back-room rainbow scarves set it apart from any other male-heavy, ramshackle sports bar. But the yellowing newspaper clippings and wall of signed head shots recall the bar’s storied past—as does the graying crowd, putting back bottles and four-dollar burgers from the grill in the corner. As trendier gay bars wash over the West Village, Julius soldiers on, unchanged. — Carey Jones/New York Magazine