American Experience; Stonewall Uprising; Interview with Jerry Hoose, 1 of 3

One quick question is, as you know, I have this problem with the pink. Okay, he's great. Great. So, you know that, you just go back in your mind to 1959 or even early and start out a little earlier. Are we rolling?

No. Oh my goodness. It's just tape. It's only a movie or whatever. Okay. Right. Honestly. I grew up in a sheep's head bay area of Brooklyn, which I like to refer to as a time warp, because it's exactly the same now as it was in the 50s. My situation was a bit different from a lot of the other gay people that you might have talked to. I grew up in a household where there was no religion, so I didn't have that baggage about the gay issue. Pretty dysfunctional household, but it was okay. I didn't get made fun of in school, even though I was very obviously gay with my shrill gay voice and my attitudes. I learned at an early age sort of like how to get along with people, and I use sense of humor really to get me through what might have been more difficult times.

When I first realized that I was different, it didn't scare me like it did a lot of other people. I sort of wanted it to be different. I preferred to be different. I didn't want to be like my parents. I didn't want to be like, I never had this thing of having a family or a wife or anything like that. I think even if I was heterosexual, that wouldn't have been what I was into. So I had those things going for me, and when I realized that it was little Johnny next door that I was attracted to and not Jamie, it was sort of like I found it sort of like interesting. I really did. I went to the library, I tried to read everything I could about what I was, which I didn't even have a name for at that time. The first time that I realized what it was called, there was an article I think in Time Magazine or something about homosexuals.

I read the article and I said, oh that's it. That's what I am. And I was sort of pleased about it to tell you the truth. It didn't phase me. But it's a lot to do with the fact that I didn't have religious baggage. My mother was completely open. She was not judgmental about anybody or anything. Her friends were gay people and different races. And I grew up in that kind of an atmosphere. So I was pretty accepting of myself as a young gay person. How about did you find other people easily, like you, as you became the earlier two? When I realized that I was a homosexual gay, whatever the term was at the time, I said about to find people. I got on the train one day.

I had planned this out and maybe I was like 15. I'd be wrong about the age, but around that age. And I got on the train one day and I had heard that Greenwich Village was where the Gays hung out. Or the homosexuals at the time. And I got on the train and I said, now I didn't know which stop was Greenwich Village. So I took a guess. And I got off at that stop and I walked up on the platform and I walked down eighth street. And I got to the corner of sixth avenue and eighth street. Across the street and there, I had found Nirvana. There was all these drag queens and these crazy people and everybody was carrying on. And that first day that I went down there, I made friends that first day. And that was my spot from then on. The village. I went to the village almost. Well, I went to the village always on the weekends.

Whenever I had a chance I got on the train, went to the village and hung out. What kind of kids like you and your Tommy? How would you describe some of the Gays there? The open gay people, young gay people or gay people in general, that hung out on the streets. Well, basically they have nothing to lose types, which I was, I fit right into. They weren't, a lot of them had been thrown out of their families. They had been rejected by their families. I hadn't been. But I fit right in with that nothing to lose crowd, which was really the only crowd that did hang out on the streets. I mean, at the time there was other places where the suit and tires went to. And where they hung out and in more of a closeted kind of a situation. But we, I was part of the street kids.

And that's what I wanted to be part of. So where did you go when you could act out no more freely? There was a route. You'd get Howard Johnson with Howard Johnson's would be at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Greenwich Avenue. And you would get there in the early evening and you'd walk from Howard Johnson's Up Greenwich Avenue to a place called Mama's Chicken Rib, which was a gay restaurant. You'd get to Mama's Chicken Rib, you'd turn around and you'd walk back down to Howard Johnson's. And all night long, you would meet people, you'd carry on, you'd socialize, you would get to know each other. Everybody knew that everybody was going to be there and you'd, then there'd always be parties. Oh, there's a party in the Bronx. We'd all pop on the train and head up to the Bronx. It was like nothing. There was parties all over. And it became like that crowd between Howard Johnson's and Mama's Chicken Rib was like the basic crowd of the gay community at that time in the village. You got to remember the Stonewall Bar was just down the street from there.

It was right in the center of where we all were. So that was one of the reasons that it was popular. What about this place that I've heard so much about over by the river? The trucks? Oh, I love the trucks. You see, I was a rebel even then. You know, before the Beatles, I had long hair. When the Beatles came in and everybody had long hair, I cut my hair. You would walk down Christopher Street. And at the end of Christopher Street, there were a lot of parked trucks. And at night, a lot of people would gather at those trucks and fool around, have sex. The police would come around once or twice a night, bang on the trucks. Everybody would pile out and run up the street.

I was beaten up so many times there by cops with their night sticks. But it almost, you know, I didn't think of it then, but thinking back on it now, it was almost like a political statement to go down there. You know, we were so completely vilified. Our lifestyles and everything it was like shoving it in the public's face by going down to that area at night. And I really think it was more of a political thing than almost a sexual thing. It was a social thing. I was down there in blizzards. I was down there when there was hurricanes coming to New York City. We, at one point, somebody set up a couch and we would sit around and have drinks while people would jump in and out of trucks. People got hurt though with the trucks and people got arrested at the trucks. Was it arrested three or four times at the trucks? Can you tell me specifically what do you say? What are you doing in the trucks more or less?

Like, what are you doing and when the cops come and what, how do you respond? Well, what we were doing in the trucks was not pretty. You know, we were engaging in sexual activities. We also had pick pockets, picking our pockets because we were completely vulnerable as gay people. You know, we were going to be able to go to the police and say, you know, I had my pocket picked in a truck I was having sex in. So we had really no recourse. We were at the mercy of whoever wanted to take advantage of us. And that's why I think we also tended to gather in large groups, no matter what we were doing, even if it was just sex. We gathered in a large group because there was more, you know, there was safety in numbers, basically. The police would come by two or three times a night. They would bang on the trucks. Everybody would pile out. Sometimes people would get hurt. And they'd arrest people if they could catch you. And how about you specifically?

Can you describe a moment when you were, you said you would beat up with Billy. But what would you like? I mean, hard for me to imagine. Yeah, you know, 40 years ago, it's hard for me to imagine too. It's like a different person, a different world because it was so long ago. I remember not really being afraid. And there were a lot of people afraid, especially the people that were very closeted with their families and all. I knew if I got arrested and my mother would find out about it, it wouldn't matter very much. I was chased down the street with Billy Clubs. At one time, a bunch of us ran into somebody's car and locked the door and they smashed the windows in. And I remember that one, particularly, that was scary, very scary. So they were just out to get you. What did you feel about the police? Hated the police, despised the police. The police, or as we referred to them back then, missed Lily. Or if we wanted to get more intimate, we would say, Lillian.

We would say, here comes Lillian, you know, with the bubble gum machine on the top of the car. I was not fond of the police. None of us were. We were outlawers, you've got to remember. As gay people, we were outlawers. The police were our enemies. And they were vicious and vile, even when we weren't at the trucks. In the 1960s, two gay people could not actually walk down Christopher Street without being harassed by either police or people. You know, you got it from all sides. You got it from the public. You got it from the cops. There was no real gay friendly kind of people around. We were outlawers. Did you ever have to run into the police? I really didn't. A lot of my friends did.

And one of the first actual, it was one of the first issues that the gay groups, when they formed dealt with, I don't know why I never had a problem with that. I think I was, I'm trapped, it was more of a kind of thing where they got people who were doing things like privately or secretly or they were getting picked up at a place. I didn't do much of that. I was more of a public person. I was not, and it had to do with the fact of my background that I didn't really have this kind of baggage about being gay. I was damn proud of being what I was. From the minute I realized what I was. I liked the fact that I was different. That never bothered me. Well, that reminds me of, I don't know if it had, if the civil rights movements around you affected you, can you talk about that? Well, the civil rights movement, the fact of the civil rights movement really came into play more after the Stonewall incident happened when we were putting together our political organizations. At the time, you know, everybody was demonstrating.

You had the yuppies, the guppies, the civil rights movement was going strong. The women's lib movement was very, very much being active. And when after Stonewall, after the riot, or the rebellion, or whatever you want to call it, when we put together the first gay political movements, they were really based on the counterculture groups like the civil rights movement and the yuppies and places like that. The first place that offered us a place to meet was a place called Alternate University. It was a counterculture hangout on West 14th Street. Before we get to the Stonewall, would you ever imagine in the 60s, leading up to 69, did you imagine, since you felt in your heart, you felt proud, you felt okay. But obviously from what you're saying, the cops in the world and the straight people weren't treating you as if you were okay. Did you feel there should be some change? Did you feel frustrated?

I felt there was definitely needed to be changed and I also felt it would never happen. I never thought it would change in my lifetime. I really didn't. It was so ingrained in the society, the community, gay people had no allies. You know, none. We had, there was nobody on our side and I didn't think that was going to change. And that's why when the riots happened, it was so much of a liberating kind of thing to so many of us because I never expected it. It shocked me. I was thrilled about the whole thing but it wasn't, it was very unexpected. Back again, before that night, you know, before July 27th, did you, there was a crackdown that year. I mean, there was Lindsey. Well, Lindsey was where it got a little better. Wagner was the really bad one. There was a crackdown every year. There was a crackdown every election.

There was a crackdown before an election. There was a crackdown after an election. We were the most vulnerable people to go after because we had no recourse. So they went after us and we had no recourse. So, you know, we were obviously a victim because we were so easily victimized. Why do you think there was a crackdown? Because, because number one, we were hated by everybody. So, who was going to complain? Politicians got, you know, cheered if they went after us. It was against the law to actually serve an open homosexual in a bar if they were open. I mean, who was going to complain about a crackdown against gay people? Nobody. Not even us. We were terrified too until we finally weren't. But we had no recourse. We had no help. We didn't. There was no community police person to talk to.

There was no nothing, you know. And so, you go after the weakest. And we were the weakest. We still are in many ways. Did you ever feel, you know, with all, we'll tell you about bar raids where this don't want the only bar raid or what? Oh, bars, bars were constantly being raided. They would open and they'd be raided and closed. It was just a regular event. We would be so used to it, people that hung out in the bars. We were used to it. When the cops would come and it would be a raid, it would be such like a nothing. The drag queens or a lot of the queens would make, carry on and make fun of it. Oh, they're here. Get ready for the pattywag and girl, you know, and all of this stuff. One thing I have to say about gay people is we did use humor very effectively to cover like pain, to cover frustration. And a lot of gay people got very good at that.

I remember I was in a pattywag in one time on the way to jail. And one of the, we were all locked up together on a chain in the pattywag and the pattywag and stopped for a red light or something. And one of the queens said, oh, this is my stop and went to get up and we all screamed and carried out. We made up for our, we made up for the problems and the bad times we really were suffering by with humor. And humor helped us get through at the time. Humor is a fabulous thing, period. You know, I use it today. And so when you were, tell me about the time you arrested. The time? You mean the times. I was arrested. I was arrested quite a few times. It was usually the same thing. They'd keep you overnight and the next morning you'd go to court and you, there were two gay lawyers that represented gay people in court.

One was, uh, e-need-girling and one was Greg Ottley, the two I remember. Usually you were arrested in a group. Invariably, every time I was arrested, one of the people in the group that I was arrested with, called one of those lawyers. The lawyer would come down and talk to the judge and we would usually be let go with maybe a $10 fine. We were out the next day. One time I was arrested on a Friday night and I didn't get out until Monday. And that was extremely unpleasant. Um, so the, the, the idea was you don't get arrested on a weekend if you can help it. And I'm, I always kept that in mind. Um, jail, you know, I didn't even have problem in jail. I think people respect people who are open and I didn't go to jail hiding anything. You know, I'm a queen. I'm gay. Well, I wasn't in a closet in any way, shape, or form.

And I think people respect you more. And even people that don't like, didn't like gay people, respected and openly gay person over a very closeted gay person. The way I looked at it. Do you think they'll with all these love? Sing. So, you think a little bit to the Stonewall. What was the Stonewall barn to you? What did you feel about it? Did you go a lot? What was it like? I went a lot. I didn't like it. Did you get to tell me what bar are you talking about second year than you were with your boys? Where did you go? Okay. Um, I went to the Stonewall Bar a lot. I did not like it. I thought it was an extremely unpleasant place as all gay bars were at the time. Run by extremely unfriendly gay, unfriendly people. I was not a drinker. I never drank much. So that wasn't an issue.

I was told the drinks were watered down. And to me it didn't matter. I went for several reasons to the Stonewall. Number one, it was the old thing location, location, location. Stonewall was in the center of the so-called gay universe at the time. It was the center. It was in between Greenwich Avenue and the trucks on Christopher Street. My friends all went to the Stonewall. Everybody I knew was at the Stonewall. I was young and I did like to dance and you could dance at the Stonewall, which was very unusual at the time because there were very few places where gay people could dance. And they did let us dance there. Of course, whenever the police came around, the lights would come on. You'd have to separate from each other and pretend like you weren't dancing or maybe some of the lesbians would start dancing with the gay guys or something.

It was so ridiculous and it was annoying and it used to piss me off something terrible because I was an angry person. If you were to ask what I was like in the 60s, I was angry. I was angry because I didn't have the baggage of feeling self-loathing about gay. I realized from all the gay people I had made friends with that they were great people, that they were funny, they were smart, they knew how to have a good time. Most of the gay people I met didn't want to hurt anybody. Also, we were victims that managed to laugh off our victimization, which was I think extremely brave at the time. Since there was no other out except to laugh it off. There was nothing you could do. It was a totally helpless situation being a gay person in the 1960s. You were just at the mercy of whoever wanted to take advantage of you.

Stonewall was there, it was unpleasant, but I had fun, I danced, I carried on. It was also the thing I liked about the Stonewall was there was all kinds of different kinds of people there. It wasn't just they had the suit and tires in place where the ball was in the front room. They had the drag queens, they had the kids who weren't really old enough to be in there, but had the false IDs and got in or however they got in. There were the drugies, there were the alcoholics, there was the non-trinkets. It was a complete roundabout kind of situation. You got every aspect of what the gay community, gay community, well there was no gay community. What the gay people would like at the time. There wasn't no gay community. It didn't exist. I don't consider the gay community to have come into being until one year after Stonewall. But is it fair for the nights who were there, the Stonewall was kind of like a substitute community or what?

I never felt that way, but I have friends that did. To me, the community was the street. The Stonewall was a place to go, to get out of the cold, get out of the rain, dance. I would get back out to the street. I was not fond of the Stonewall, but I wasn't fond of any bar. But it was a refuge. It was a temporary refuge from the street. He does bark. Six minutes we've done? No. I have a question in the area. Was it fast dancing, slow dancing? How did you do that and how did it feel? Well, it was all kinds of dancing, even in bars that had allowed dancing other than the Stonewall. They never really allowed slow dancing.

Stonewall, it was slow dancing. It was fast dancing. It was whatever kind of dancing the music called for. That was another good thing about the Stonewall. As a young guy, I really had fun with that. I couldn't dance anywhere in here. We were in the middle of the village, right? Outside, right inside from where everybody was hanging out. We were able to dance and have a good time. For a while, sort of be ourselves without having to worry about getting your head hit over with a billy club or having somebody insult you. Although the people that ran the bar, I felt were very un-gay friendly. They weren't happy pleasant people to us. Although gay bars were run by the mob, all of them. They're making a lot of money off of us, but we were the ultimate victims. Who else could they water down drinks and get away with it?

Who else would other people would have tolerated getting the bar rated all the time and still coming back the next day when it was open again? We had no other choice. We had no other place, and that was it. So we got to the point where we just dealt with whatever kind of problems would come up like police raids. And we dealt with it with humor. I'm a little confused. I got the beautiful and really positive about things you said about the Stonewall. What did you not like? You used a great word earlier in the kitchen. You said the Stonewall. I consider the Stonewall a terrible place where something wonderful happened. When I was involved in the rebellion and the riot, I was not defending the Stonewall Bar. I was defending and fighting for my rights as a person. The bar itself, no. I get a little upset with people that sort of rever the Stonewall Bar. The bar itself was a toilet. It was dirty. It was unfriendly.

And they basically just tolerated us because it was a way for the mob to make lots of money. But the place itself, no. I didn't revere the place and I don't now. I do revere what happened there. Just specifics like was there clean? Was there running water behind the bar? Let me see if I can remember. There were two rooms. There was the right side, which was the bar on the right side. That's where the suit and tires hung out more. And then you'd cross over to the left side, which is still there now, actually. And that's where the dance floor was. I remember a fireplace. I don't know why I was in there recently. And I didn't see a fireplace. It was dirty. I think it was what you call it on the ground sand. What did they put on the ground?

Saw dust. Saw dust around. I always thought to drink out of any of the glasses there was very unpleasant because it didn't look clean to me. It was a very grimy, sort of scrungy looking place. But that was really perfect because we were all pretty grimy and scrungy people at that point. How would we do this? The first night of the riot, it was Friday night. I had actually decided I wasn't going to go out that night. I was visiting my mother in Brooklyn. And the phone rang. And it was my very best friend at the time, John Goodman. All right, I'm going to...