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Sentimental notions aside, America’s health crisis may merely be accelerating a recent trend in queer culture. In March, Chicago-based gay bar owner Mark Robertson told the Daily Beast, “The vast majority of bars don’t operate with margins to be able to sustain themselves for two weeks, four weeks, or eight weeks without cash flow.” Some bars are entering their fifth month without the ability to turn a profit. If businesses remain closed much longer, it’s doubtful that even the most successful campaign will keep them alive. The Stonewall Inn, ostensibly the most well-known gay bar in the world, raked in over $300,000 since its campaign began in mid-June. Since May, the kitschy-queer haunt raised over $100,000 from individual donors. It worked for Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, the last remaining gay bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Other bars, including one of New York’s only lesbian haunts, Henrietta Hudson, hope their GoFundMe campaigns will save them from ruin. After an 11-year run in Los Angeles, Gym Bar announced its permanent closure on July 5. The Stud, San Francisco’s oldest gay bar, shuttered in May, as did Washington DC’s Eagle and North Austin’s ‘Bout Time II. Several queer watering holes in NYC, including 9th Avenue Saloon and Therapy, have already closed their doors. “We all need to work together and also understand that small business owners are getting hurt tremendously trying to navigate the forever changing rules,” she wrote online earlier this month. In March, owner Helen Buford started a GoFundMe campaign to raise $50,000 for Julius’, but with no possibility of reopening anytime soon, she’s now hoping for $100,000. Twitter Gay bars look to patrons as a lifeline Because of financial uncertainty related to the on-going health crisis, the bar is fighting for its life and asking patrons for their support. That black-and-white photograph may soon be the most consequential record to keep the memory of Julius’ alive for future generations. The picture taken in 1966 hangs proudly near the bar’s entrance. Julius’, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016, is one of NYC’s oldest continually operating gay establishments. It made a splash: After receiving coverage in The New York Times and The Village Voice, the Commission on Human Rights stepped in to say that homosexuals had the right to receive service in bars.Īlthough often overshadowed by the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, the Mattachine Society’s Sip-In was a watershed moment in the LGBTQ rights movement. Modeled after the Civil Rights Movement’s successful sit-ins, the Mattachine Society’s Sip-In was a staged event protesting New York State’s discriminatory laws against serving homosexuals. The bartender then places his hand over the glass and says, “I can’t serve you.” At that very moment, a photographer alerted by the activists snaps a picture. A bespectacled bartender places an empty glass in front of them, and the men announce a once-unspeakable truth - they’re homosexuals. The men, members of an early gay-rights advocacy group called the Mattachine Society, take a seat facing bottles filled with booze.