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Gay Street

New York, United States of America

Gay Street

Gay Street is a short, angled street that marks off one block of Greenwich Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Although the street is part of the Stonewall National Monument (a U.S. national monument dedicated to the LGBT-rights movement), its name is likely derived from a family name

d Gay who owned land or lived there in colonial times. A newspaper of May 11, 1775, contains a classified ad where an "R. Gay", living in the Bowery, offers a gelding for sale. This street, originally a stable alley, was probably named for an early landowner, not for the sexuality of any denizens, who coincidentally reside in Greenwich Village, a predominantly homosexual community. Nor is it likely, as is sometimes claimed, that its namesake was Sidney Howard Gay, editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard; he would have been 19 when the street was christened in 1833. The mistaken association with an abolitionist is probably because the street's residents were mainly black, many of them servants of the wealthy white families on Washington Square. Later it became noted as an address for black musicians, giving the street a bohemian reputation. Since it was once too narrow to be a full-fledged...

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