Review: Stonewall Inn

What do I need to know before I even walk in?The most famous gay bar in the world, Stonewall gave its name to the riots in June 1969, which took place just outside this nondescript drinking den after it was raided by the police in the early hours of the morning. Those riots kickstarted the LGBTQ+ rights movement in America, and beyond. Though the site is a designated national monument, the Stonewall Inn operating now has no connection with the previous, namesake tenant that shuttered not long after the riots; the current iteration, which retains the same façade, opened in 1990.

I made it inside. So who’s there?There’s a mix of longtime locals sipping cheap beer and pilgrimaging tourists, keen to see this iconic site for themselves.

How are the drinks?Drinks are unfussy and mainstream—order a vodka-soda to sound like a regular. For the past few years, local craft producer The Brooklyn Brewery has donated a portion of the profits from the Stonewall Inn IPA served here to the bar’s charitable arm.

Can I grab a bite to eat here?This is an old school drinking den. No food.

Did the staff do you right?Most of the staffers are old hands—if they weren’t working here in 1969, they have the affable world-weariness that suggests it. Feel free to strike up conversation.

Wrap it up: what are we coming here for?It’s a moving moment to stand drinking here and realize this single bar’s role in helping bring LGBTQ+ people, and their rights, into the mainstream. There is a cluster of gay bars around the triangular green space of Christopher Park here: after a drink at Stonewall, pub-crawl to the Duplex and the Monster, which are also longtime neighborhood mainstays.