![earliest pictures of gay men earliest pictures of gay men](https://cdn2.lamag.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/05/queer-rev-collage-LAMAG_LGBTQ_AGNEW.jpg)
No census data exist that could firmly establish the residential patterns of gay men, but two studies of gay men incarcerated in the New York City Jail, conducted in 19, are suggestive. For many, this meant joining the large number of unmarried workers living in the furnished-room houses (also called lodging or rooming houses) clustered in certain neighborhoods of the city. In the 1950s a major apartment house at Number 405 in a street in the East 50s was so heavily gay that gay men nicknamed it the “Four out of Five.”Īlthough living with one’s family, even in a crowded tenement, did not prevent a man from participating in the gay world that was taking shape in the city’s streets, many gay men, like Willy, sought to secure housing that would maximize their freedom from supervision. This was not the only predominantly gay apartment building Willy remembered. Within a few years, Willy remembered, “we took over.” Gay men occupied 14 of the 16 apartments in the building. The building’s narrow railroad flats, if not luxurious, were adequate and cheap the location, near the gay bar circuit on Third Avenue in the East 50s, was convenient and most important, the other inhabitants were friendly and supportive. Several friends did, and some of the newcomers encouraged their own friends to join them. Willy was happy to do so, and as other apartments opened up in the building he invited other friends to move in. When they moved out he wanted to make sure that someone more understanding would take their place. An elderly couple had occupied it for years, and, since the walls were rather thin, the friend had never stopped worrying that they heard him late at night with gay friends and had grown suspicious of the company he kept. The friend had an apartment in the building and wanted Willy to take the apartment next to his. He moved there at the invitation of a friend he had met at Red’s, a popular bar on Third Avenue at 50th street that had attracted gay men since its days as a speakeasy in the 1920s.
![earliest pictures of gay men earliest pictures of gay men](https://images.theconversation.com/files/179799/original/file-20170726-17560-1uj2n21.jpg)
George, it seemed to him, was “almost entirely gay,” and the friends he met there introduced him to yet other parts of the gay world.Īfter living briefly in a rooming house on 50th Street near Second Avenue, he finally took a small apartment of his own, a railroad flat on East 49th Street near First Avenue, where he stayed for years. George Hotel in Brooklyn, which offered more substantial accommodations. Most of those friends were gay, and the gay world was a significant part of what they showed him. As was true for many other young men, the friends he made at the Y remained important to him for years and helped him find his way through the city.
![earliest pictures of gay men earliest pictures of gay men](https://c1.staticflickr.com/6/5593/14823044691_7cf535c26c_b.jpg)
arrived in New York City in the 1940s, he did what many newcomers did: he took a room at the 63rd Street YMCA.