Site 3: Park Square (Intersection of Arlington and Stewart streets and Columbus Avenue) Its legacy lives on, though, in the Napoleon Room, a piano bar and lounge in ClubCafé, a GLBT restaurant and club on Columbus Avenue. The Napoleon Club closed in 1998 and much of the contents of the establishment put up to auction. Regular crooners were joined by such luminaries as Liberace and the Queen of Queens herself, Judy Garland, who visited the club every night for a week shortly before her death in 1969. It wasn't until 1952, though, when under new ownership Napoleons became a gay bar and eventually a piano bar. The Napoleon Club opened as a speakeasy in 1929 and later operated as a private club with a sizeable gay clientele. Site 2: Napoleon Club (52 Piedmont Street)
They stood up when the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street was raided. The Flyer: "Two years ago on June 27, homosexuals in New York City for the first time refused OPPRESSION AS USUAL. This walking tour follows the route of Boston's first Gay Pride March in 1971 and offers information about different services, community organizations, issues, and individuals related to this route. We demand an end to this now! We will not be put down any longer." Speaker Laura McMurry told the throng, As gay people, we have been given a second-class citizenship. When the marchers arrived at the State House, a call was issued to include homosexuals in civil rights legislation and eliminate anti-sodomy statutes dating from Puritan times. At each stop, a speaker presented a list of demands. The march route encompassed four major stops: the Bay Village bar Jacques, Boston police headquarters on Berkeley Street, the State House on Beacon Hill, and St.
#GAY BARS IN BOSTON FULL#
This was a distinctly political event that was preceded by a full week of workshops on various issues affecting the emerging gay community, such as coming out and gay spirituality. The first official Gay Pride March in Boston was held on Saturday, June 26, 1971.