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
By the mid 1800's Greenwich Village had the largest African American community in the City joined by German, French, Irish, immigrants and to the immediate south a majority of Italian immigrants. Earlier more affluent communities had begun an exodus from the adjacent neighborhoods to the south and east. Edward Judson observed that "the intelligent, well-to-do, and church going people withdraw from this part of the city." Washington Square and Judson Memorial stood at the intersection between the affluence of Fifth Avenue and the poverty of Lower Manhattan. The church building, erected in 1890, designed by architect Stanford White, and stained glass master John La Farge, features Renaissance influences wedded to a basic Italianate form. SculptorAugustus St. Gaudens designed a marble frieze in the baptistery.
