For a fictional account of pre-Stonewall gay life (or at least a slice thereof), which deals extensively with the New York (among other locales) gay scene, such as it was then, I recommend John Rechy’s City of Night. It’s an incredible book. Unfortunately, it’s the only decent book he ever wrote, as far as I know. He’s still around, and he has a new novel out, if anyone is interested.
An old (gay) friend of mine told me that in the Good Old Days, parrots being on an establishment’s sign was a semi-secret indication it was a gay watering hole.
Still, I would like confirmation of that. I could never tell when he was pulling my leg.
A male friend in grad school once got a phonecall on his machine–calculated to reach him when he wasn’t at home. The male caller remarked that he had seen him around, caught his eye a number of times, thought there might be something there. He apologized for the awkwardness of the call, especially if he read my friend wrong, but if there was any interest please call Stephen as 555-5555. My friend played me the message. I recognized the distinctive voice of one of our classmates (who wasn’t exactly closeted), and knew his name wasn’t “Stephen” but he was obviously protecting himself a bit until he knew my friend’s reaction.
That has stayed with me–I thought this was a very careful, finessed way to handle this sort of thing, but I felt considerable sympathy over how difficult this must be. I imagine gentle inquiries like this have been the norm throughout the ages in societies where homosexuality was frowned upon.
Mmmmmm. . .brined up baby.
Of course, despite all the talk of ‘sleazy bars’ and ‘secret signals or code-phrases’, I expect that the majority of gays met the same way most straight couples did: they were connected by friends or family members. That’s certainly true of the couples that I know that are of that age range. (And it’s much more common nowdays.)
Gays have always had sympatic straight people (often family members) who knew they were gay, and unhappily single. And people of every era seem to enjoy matchmaking. So they arranged introductions, or meetings, or got them working on the same committee, etc. Just as straight matchmakers have ‘arranged’ things for countless years.
DANTESTENTH-I think that would be the Oak Room at the St. Francis, an UP SCALE hotel.
Gay-dar worked well then, but you had to be carfull. The police would station good looking cops in the park with tight jeans or white trousers (I think some of them used old socks or something) and arrest any one who approched them.
I found the Black Cat without any trouble, I walked by and looked inside and knew what it was.
Spelling and grammer subject to change without notice.
there were gay bars even back in prehistoric times.
“When you’re with the Flintstones
you’ll have a yabba dabba doo time.
A dabba doo time.
You’ll have a gay old time”.
We developed radar long before the military did.