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1970 The Snake Pit (Gay Bar) police raid...
1970 The Snake Pit (Gay Bar) police raid...
Item # 703358
March 19, 1970
THE VILLAGE VOICE (weekly), Greenwich Village, New York, March 19, 1970
* The Snake Pit - gay bar police raid
* After-hours homosexual establishment
* NYPD inspector Seymour Pine
* Woodstock revisited with photos
The front page has a two column heading: "The Boys in the Snake Pit: Games 'Straights' Play" with lead-in: "'Remember the Stonewall !'" and 2 related photos. (see images) Very lengthy coverage continues on multiple inside pages. See images for portion. Probably only reported in this publication.
I suspect this to be an extremely rare item because their was really no reason to save it at the time.
As most might be aware "The Village Voice" was an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. It introduced free-form, high-spirited, and passionate journalism into the public discourse a tradition it maintained throughout its 60+ year history.
Complete in 80 pages, tabloid-size, folded at the center, nice condition.
source: NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project: In 1970, less than a year after Stonewall, the police raided the Snake Pit bar and detained many people at the local police station.
After one person attempted to escape and was impaled on a fence, the Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front quickly assembled a protest march, the results of which demonstrated the strength of the recently formed gay rights organizations and inspired more people to become politically active.
Only eight months after the Stonewall uprising, in the early morning of March 8, 1970, police raided the Snake Pit, a gay-run, non-Mafia, after-hours bar in the basement of a Greenwich Village apartment building. The raid was led by NYPD Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine, who had also led the ill-fated raid on the Stonewall.
Fearing similar rioting from the large crowd of male patrons, the police arrested 167 people, who were taken to the 6th Police Precinct Station House at 135 Charles Street. Argentinian immigrant Diego Vinales, who was only 23 years old and visiting a gay bar for the first time, panicked over the possibility of deportation since his visa had expired, tried to escape from the third story of the jail, and was impaled on the iron fence below. He was cut loose along with part of the fence by firemen, taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and survived, but word spread that he was dead or dying. A number of arrested men found an empty police office and started making phone calls to Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) leaders and to the press.
Provenance note: This issue comes from The Village Voice's own archives, part of their in-house collection used to create their digital archive and has never been in circulation. Rare as such.
Alert: Many issues of The Village Voice contain articles and/or photos which some consider offensive, and are certainly inappropriate for children. Please purchase with discretion.
Category: The 20th Century
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