It's the bar considered by many to be the place where the gay rights movement was born, and now the Stonewall has been named a national landmark by the U.S. Department of Interiors.
This makes the Stonewall the first gay-related site to achieve that status, which is awarded to locations figuring significantly in U.S. history. The bar was already listed on the National Register of Historical Places, which lists sites of local or state significance - and only three percent of those are considered significant to the entire nation.
Originally two stables built in the 1840s, the Stonewall was a gay bar in Greenwich Village in 1969, when selling drinks to known homosexuals was illegal. In June 1969, an early morning police raid on the unlicensed bar met with patron resistance with people outside the bar joining in, triggering days of riots and protests considered the beginning of the contemporary gay rights movement.
"It was a galvanizing event and led to the creation around the country of a number of other organizations that began the effort of recognition of gay and lesbian Americans," says assistant Interior Secretary John Berry.
The Interior Department reportedly received only one negative letter to the Stonewall designation - the writer, says the Bergen Record, did not understand why the bar was considered so significant.
