OPEN A NEW WINDOW...
New York has a long history of famous windows.
At holiday time, tourists and residents clamor to see any number of well-decorated windows at the city's major department stores.
For those of us of a certain age, the memory of Windows on the World can elicit profound melancholy.
Recently, I was taken aback by reports of the shattering of a certain window at 53 Christopher Street - a place I've come to know very well.
This post is prompted by some of the articles I read about that incident.
A number of outlets ran a photo of that famous window to accompany the reporting of what happened. Quite a few showed a very old photo - a photo from the Stonewall that I remember - from the early 1990s when Jimmy Pisano re-opened that space.
How can you tell the difference?
For the last 10 years or so, the bar at 53 Christopher has been known as The Stonewall Inn, and its red neon has honored the space with those three words.
Back in the '90s, early 1991 to be exact, a red neon Stonewall was installed by Jimmy in an effort to reboot his struggling bar. So, when I see a photo of that space with just Stonewall filling the window, I know it's Jimmy's neon.
Another clue is anchored to the wall, just to the left of the entrance. It was a small brass plaque that identified what had occurred at that space in 1969. Jimmy had put it there because when he originally opened his bar in early 1990 he actually didn't call the space Stonewall. He called it New Jimmy's to honor the man who taught him the bar business - Jimmy Merry. That plaque came down after Jimmy Pisano died in 1994 and was replaced by numerous other markers by well-intentioned folks seeking to honor the space in different ways. Though he hadn't originally named the bar for himself, I had always enjoyed seeing that brass plaque on the facade of the building because it was an accidental way of keeping his name tied to that place after he died. Through the back half of 1994 and into 1995, it reminded all of us who worked to keep that space open of who had made the resurrection of Stonewall possible in the first place.
To see a series of photos of the window at 53 Christopher visit www.StonewallRevival.com or visit this Facebook link:
https://www.facebook.com/StonewallRev...
I'm sharing these photos because they help to chronicle the history of Stonewall. I think it's important to get the history of that space right. Even a perhaps small detail like what the window of that space looked like at various times over the years since Jimmy made Stonewall possible again.
Back in 1969, that window was always obscured - blackened to prevent anyone from seeing in or seeing out.
The world has thankfully changed. Maybe not nearly as much as it should have by now, but certainly far more than many of us might have imagined.
At holiday time, tourists and residents clamor to see any number of well-decorated windows at the city's major department stores.
For those of us of a certain age, the memory of Windows on the World can elicit profound melancholy.
Recently, I was taken aback by reports of the shattering of a certain window at 53 Christopher Street - a place I've come to know very well.
This post is prompted by some of the articles I read about that incident.
A number of outlets ran a photo of that famous window to accompany the reporting of what happened. Quite a few showed a very old photo - a photo from the Stonewall that I remember - from the early 1990s when Jimmy Pisano re-opened that space.
How can you tell the difference?
For the last 10 years or so, the bar at 53 Christopher has been known as The Stonewall Inn, and its red neon has honored the space with those three words.
Back in the '90s, early 1991 to be exact, a red neon Stonewall was installed by Jimmy in an effort to reboot his struggling bar. So, when I see a photo of that space with just Stonewall filling the window, I know it's Jimmy's neon.
Another clue is anchored to the wall, just to the left of the entrance. It was a small brass plaque that identified what had occurred at that space in 1969. Jimmy had put it there because when he originally opened his bar in early 1990 he actually didn't call the space Stonewall. He called it New Jimmy's to honor the man who taught him the bar business - Jimmy Merry. That plaque came down after Jimmy Pisano died in 1994 and was replaced by numerous other markers by well-intentioned folks seeking to honor the space in different ways. Though he hadn't originally named the bar for himself, I had always enjoyed seeing that brass plaque on the facade of the building because it was an accidental way of keeping his name tied to that place after he died. Through the back half of 1994 and into 1995, it reminded all of us who worked to keep that space open of who had made the resurrection of Stonewall possible in the first place.
To see a series of photos of the window at 53 Christopher visit www.StonewallRevival.com or visit this Facebook link:
https://www.facebook.com/StonewallRev...
I'm sharing these photos because they help to chronicle the history of Stonewall. I think it's important to get the history of that space right. Even a perhaps small detail like what the window of that space looked like at various times over the years since Jimmy made Stonewall possible again.
Back in 1969, that window was always obscured - blackened to prevent anyone from seeing in or seeing out.
The world has thankfully changed. Maybe not nearly as much as it should have by now, but certainly far more than many of us might have imagined.
No comments have been added yet.
Stonewall Revival
The place to find out about the book, the photos that inspired it, and the theatre memorabilia sprinkled through it.
- Thomas Michael Garguilo's profile
- 1 follower
