S3 E6"The Sip-in &
the Social Prophet"
“I think we have to decide how far we can go for caring about what heterosexuals think.”
Lesbian magazine editors Barbara Gittings & Kay Tobin interview & photograph Ernestine Eckstein, who is fed up with white assimilationists. Meanwhile, Mattachinos attempt to force a lawsuit at any bar they can with a gay "sip-in." Hear the moment-by-moment story of the Sip-in at Julius' that changed New York City gay bars forever.
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Original release: May 17, 2021
Episode 6-A “Nationwide Ring Preying on Prominent Deviates”“The decoy would lure the victim to a hotel room, usually from a midtown bar, and get him into a compromising situation.” It’s me this week, Devlyn, as the New York Times reporter. Hi!
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Eckstein, Tobin, & Gittings;
January 15, 1966: Part 1
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Legendary Mattachino Randy Wicker, who witnessed the Julius’ “Sip-in” in this week’s episode, spent some time in the 1960s interviewing all sorts of fascinating people on WBAI.
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Devlyn interviews Transparent creator Joey Soloway
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March 14, 2022
Interview with Indiana LGBTQ+ historian Kelley Coures
January 18, 2023
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MAY 16, 2021
In last week’s episode, MSNY’s new president Dick Leitsch set out on a mission to take on New York police entrapment of gays. 🚨 Tomorrow, he takes on the State Liquor Authority.
🎧 S3 E6: “The Sip-in & the Social Prophet”
📸 Dick Leitsch at Mattachine’s office, 1133 Broadway, December 30, 1965. Photo by Louis Liotta, New York Post Archives. @getty
📸 Barbara Gittings and Dick Leitsch at one of the Reminder Day pickets, July 4, 1966 or 1967. Photo by Kay ‘Tobin’ Lahusen @nypl
📸 Dick at his desk in the MSNY office. The poster beside him, “Equality for Homosexuals”, were produced as bumper stickers, but everyone was scared to put them on their cars, so Mattachine ended up dispersing them all over the Village.
MAY 20, 2021
On Armed Forces Day, May 21, 1966, homophiles performed the first national gay rights demonstration. MSW picketed the White House again, the Janus Society handed out flyers in Philadelphia’s Navy Yards, Kansas City homophiles held a press conference, and Los Angeles held the first gay motorcade—for which Don Slater told Frank Kameny that his gender binary dress code would not be enforced because, Slater wrote, gays are “both the bizarre and the ordinary.”
Meanwhile, San Francisco activists picketed their Federal Building, as seen in the image above featuring Guy Strait, publisher of SF’s first gay newspaper, the League for Civil Education News, (among some other much more scandalous publications).
🎧 S3 E6: “The Sip-in & the Social Prophet”
📸 Guy Strait, San Francisco, May 21, 1966. @glbt_history
🗞 Philadelphia Inquirer ad for the Janus Society’s discussion following the Armed Forces Day protests. Philadelphia LGBT Mapping Project.
MAY 22, 2021
🔍 “The decoy would lure the victim to a hotel room, usually from a midtown bar, and get him into a compromising situation.”
🎧 S3 E6-A
🗞 New York Times, March 3, 1966.
📸 Edward “The Skull” Murphy in the Village Voice, 1978. Photo by James Hamilton.
The sip-in at Julius’
April 21, 1966
MAY 16, 2021
🍻 Tomorrow.
🎧 S3 E6: “The Sip-in & the Social Prophet”
📸 Tax photo of 159 West 10th Street, c. 1939. NYC Municipal Archives, nyclgbtsites.org
📸 Exterior of the building, 1932. Courtesy of Ellen Williams via "Daytonian in Manhattan" blog.
📸 Julius’ c. 1966. Photo by John Barrington Bayley. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, nyclgbtsites.org
MAY 19, 2021
🍻 The Sip-in at Julius’
🎧 S3 E6: “The Sip-in & the Social Prophet”
📸 Left to right: John Timmons, MSNY President Dick Leitsch (looking at bartender), Craig Rodwell, Randy Wicker. April 21, 1966. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of his estate.
📸 Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, and John Timmons—all of MSNY—in a booth at the Howard Johnson’s in Greenwich Village, one of many locations where they attempted the Sip-in unsuccessfully before it worked at Julius’. April 21, 1966. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of his estate.
📸 Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, and John Timmons at Howard Johnson's, 415 Sixth Avenue, April 21, 1966. Fred W. McDarrah.
📸 Howard Johnson's at 415 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, c. 1965. Photo by Weegee. Source unknown.
📸 Dick Leitsch, Craig Rodwell, and John Timmons, in another unsuccessful attempt the same day, in front of the Ukrainian-American Village Restaurant at 12 St. Mark's Place in the East Village, April 21, 1966. Fred W. McDarrah.
📸 Ukrainian-American Village Restaurant at 12 St. Mark's Place in the East Village.
📸 Manager (standing) of the Waikiki, 432 Sixth Avenue, speaking to MSNY members, April 21, 1966. Fred W. McDarrah.
📸 The Waikiki at 432 Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, c. 1965. Photo by John Barrington Bayley. Courtesy of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission.
📸 Julius’ c. 1966. Photo by John Barrington Bayley. NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, nyclgbtsites.org
MAY 19, 2021
🍻 The Sip-in 50th anniversary reunion, 2016
🎧 S3 E6: “The Sip-in & the Social Prophet”
📸 Recreating the original photo, April 21, 2016. Photo by Tod Seelie.
📸 The original. Left to right: John Timmons, MSNY President Dick Leitsch (looking at bartender), Craig Rodwell, Randy Wicker. April 21, 1966. Photo by Fred W. McDarrah, courtesy of his estate.
📸 Dick Leitsch & Randy Wicker at Julius’ on April 18, 2016. Photo by Karsten Moran for New York Times.
📸 Wicker & Leitsch, April 18, 2016. Photo by Karsten Moran for New York Times.
📸 Recreating the original, April 21, 2016. Photo by Tod Seelie.
📸 Julius’ is still open! It’s one of the oldest bars in New York City, with a fascinating history. Learn more in this week’s new episode!
MAY 22, 2021
🍻 “Promoting Ethical Homosexual Culture”
Check out these fab posters for @johncameronmitchell’s “Mattachine” party at Julius’. If you enjoyed learning about the bar’s history on the podcast, go experience some for yourself when the party starts again! Great music, friendly queers, fantastic party. The tagline is lifted from the original Mattachine constitution. (As ya heard in season 1 of the podcast.) @juliusbarnyc
Julius’ on screen
MAY 22, 2021
🍻 Since the Sip-in, Julius’ has also appeared in several queer films!
🎥 “Boys in the Band” dir. William Friedkin, 1970.
(Scene set to “Good Lovin’ Ain’t Easy to Come By” by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell)
🎥 “Next Stop, Greenwich Village” dir. Paul Mazursky, 1976.
🎥 “Keep the Lights On” dir. Ira Sachs, 2012.
🎥 “Love Is Strange” dir. Ira Sachs, 2014.
(Alfred Molina & John Lithgow, whose character says he was at the Sip-in)
🎥 “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” dir. Marielle Heller, 2018.
(several beautiful scenes take place in Julius’)
🎥 “POSE” S1 E2 “Access” dir. Ryan Murphy, 2018. [above]
(The bar is called Boy Lounge, where Blanca performs her own solo sip-in.)
🎥 “Boys in the Band” dir. Joe Mantello, 2020.
(Again, set to “Good Lovin’ Ain’t Easy,” and featuring “Boys” playwright Mart Crowley in tan jacket at the end of the bar.)
📸 Christopher Walken sitting in Julius’ for “Next Stop”🔥
📸 Exterior shot of @juliusbarnyc in “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Ernestine Eckstein
MAY 17, 2021
“I feel that the homophile movement is only part of a much larger movement of the erasure of labels…I’m being a social prophet but it’s the goal I think to work for.” 🌟
📸 Cover photo by Kay Tobin. @nypl
📸 October 23, 1965. Two photos by Kay ‘Tobin’ Lahusen. @nypl
📸 Barbara Gittings leading the line, Ernestine Eckstein fourth in white sunglasses. October 23, 1965. Photo by Kay ‘Tobin’ Lahusen. @nypl
📸 July 4, 1965. Ernestine Eckstein in white dress and her signature sunglasses 🔥 Temple Urban Archives @temple_scrc
📸 July 4, 1965. Ernestine in white dress at Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Temple Urban Archives @temple_scrc
📸 From her cover photo shoot with Kay Tobin. @nypl
🎧 S3 E6: NY-DOB VP Ernestine Eckstein is interviewed for “The Ladder” by Kay Tobin & Barbara Gittings… listen to the REAL audio now!
see you in the magazines
MAY 21, 2021
As we reach the final issues of ONE Magazine, the covers are printed exclusively in black and white for the first time. Beginning with the June ’66 issue the page count drops from 16 to 8, the paper is a cheaper stock, and many articles are reruns.
Fannibals of Hannibal @nbchannibal will recognize the wendigo on the April/May cover. 🔪 (I bet you never thought you’d experience TWO homoerotic wendigos in your lifetime.) The wendigo is a mythological creature who represents insatiable greed and hunger, it possesses humans and drives them to cannibalism. I gotta wonder if that cover is shade thrown at Tangents Magazine, the spin-off group who left ONE and whose own magazine is absolutely gorgeous. (See previous post!)
🎧 Issues of ONE Magazine published during the events of S3 E6
🗂 @onearchives
MAY 20, 2021
Masks off 🎭 “I think it takes a lot of courage, and I think a lot of people who do it will suffer because of it. But I think any movement needs a certain number of courageous martyrs. There’s no getting around it. That’s really the only thing that can be done, you have to come out and be strong enough to accept whatever consequences come.”
—Ernestine Eckstein to Kay Tobin, 1966.
🗞 October 1957
🗞 The Barbara Gittings & Kay Tobin era: Ger van Braam in Indonesia, first woman to show her full face on the cover. November 1964.
🗞 Lilli Vincenz of MSW, editor of The Homosexual Citizen. January 1966. (Scroll back to early May to see my post with her also on the cover of the October ’65 issue.) Photo by Kay Tobin.
🗞 “Carol” by Kay Tobin. May 1966.
🗞 Ernestine Eckstein, June 1966. Photo by Kay Tobin.
MAY 21, 2021
“Tangents is published monthly by the majority of legally elected voting members of ONE.” 🖕🏼
🎧 S3 E5 & 6: After the ONE Magazine schism, the spin-off group’s new publication renamed their version of the magazine “Tangents.” Their art has its own sleek style, different from the other homophile magazines. Feb & June are my favs.
🗞 Courtesy Independent Voices Alternative Press Collection