Stonewall walking tour at a glance
This free, self-guided LGBTQ history walking tour covers thirteen stops over about two miles of the West Village, starting at Christopher Park and the Stonewall Inn and ending at the Christopher Street Pier. Allow 2.5 to 3 hours, including the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
| Start | Christopher Park, Christopher Street at Seventh Avenue South (Stonewall National Monument) |
|---|---|
| Finish | Christopher Street Pier (Pier 45), Hudson River Park, at West 10th Street |
| Distance | About 2 miles (3.2 km), a loop through the West Village with one short leg up to 14th Street |
| Time | 2.5 to 3 hours with the visitor center and a drink; about 90 minutes if you only pause for photos |
| Cost | Free. The monument, visitor center, The Center, the AIDS Memorial and the pier charge nothing. |
| Best time | Wednesday to Sunday, starting around 1 p.m. The visitor center closes at 4 p.m. and is shut on Mondays; the bookshop at The Center opens at 1 p.m. Wednesday to Sunday. |
| Subway to start | 1 to Christopher St (stairs only), or A, B, C, D, E, F, M to West 4 St-Washington Sq (elevators), five minutes' walk away |
| Short version | Stops 1 to 4, then 10 and 11: under half a mile and about 45 minutes |
This route follows the story roughly in the order you can walk it, not the order it happened, so read our LGBTQ+ history of New York first if you want the plot. Every address below has been checked against the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, the National Park Service or the venue itself. Several stops are private homes or ordinary storefronts: look, photograph, do not ring the bell.
The route: a self-guided Greenwich Village LGBTQ tour in walking order
Times are running totals from a 1 p.m. start at an easy pace. Details on each stop follow in the next section.
Part 1: Stonewall and Sheridan Square (45 to 60 minutes, almost no walking)
- 1:00
1. Christopher Park
Begin inside the little fenced triangle. Find George Segal's four white figures and the flagpole, then look across the street at the two brick-and-stucco fronts of numbers 51 and 53. That is the whole battlefield.
- 1:15
2. Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, 51 Christopher St
Cross the street. Give it 30 minutes and play the jukebox.
- 1:45
3. The Stonewall Inn, 53 Christopher St
Next door. Photograph the sign now; come back for a drink at the end (it opens at 2 p.m. on weekdays, 1 p.m. on weekends).
- 1:55
4. Washington Place: where the first Pride march lined up
Leave the park at its eastern end and walk a minute south-east to Sheridan Square, the small planted triangle where Washington Place begins. Look east along Washington Place toward Sixth Avenue. On June 28, 1970, this block was full of nervous people with banners.
Part 2: Up Sixth Avenue (35 minutes, 0.7 miles)
- 2:05
5. Lorraine Hansberry's house, 112 Waverly Place
Walk east along Washington Place, cross Sixth Avenue, go one block north and turn right on Waverly Place. The house is half a block along, just short of Washington Square Park.
- 2:15
6. Jefferson Market Garden: site of the Women's House of Detention
Back to Sixth Avenue and north a few blocks to the garden beside the red-brick clock tower, where Greenwich Avenue splits off at West 10th Street.
- 2:25
7. Sixth Avenue at West 14th Street: Gay Liberation Front at Alternate U.
Continue up Sixth Avenue to 14th Street. No plaque and no original building, just the corner where gay liberation held its meetings and its dances. If you are short of time, skip this stop and cut west along West 13th Street.
Part 3: The Center and the AIDS Memorial (45 minutes, 0.4 miles)
- 2:40
8. The Center, 208 West 13th St
Walk one block down to West 13th Street and west across Seventh Avenue. Go in. See the Keith Haring room and the bookshop upstairs. Use the bathroom.
- 3:10
9. New York City AIDS Memorial, St. Vincent's Triangle
Continue west to Greenwich Avenue and turn left; the white steel canopy is one block down at West 12th Street. Read the ground.
Part 4: Back down to Christopher Street and out to the river (50 minutes, 0.9 miles)
- 3:25
10. Julius', 159 West 10th St
Follow Greenwich Avenue south-east for a few short blocks and turn right onto West 10th Street; Julius' is on the corner of Waverly Place. This is the natural break for a beer and a burger.
- 3:50
11. Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop site, 15 Christopher St, and Gay Street
Go one block down Waverly Place to Christopher Street and turn left. Number 15 is at the corner of Gay Street, the crooked one-block lane everyone photographs for the sign.
- 4:00
12. The Snake Pit, 215 West 10th St
Walk west along Christopher Street, past the park where you started, across Seventh Avenue South to Bleecker Street. Turn right for one block, then left onto West 10th.
- 4:15
13. Sylvia Rivera Way and the Christopher Street Pier
Return to Christopher Street and follow it west. The corner with Hudson Street is Sylvia Rivera Way. Keep going to the river, cross West Street at the lights, and walk out to the end of Pier 45.
The stops: what happened here and what you see today
1. Christopher Park (Stonewall National Monument)
Where the uprising spilled into the street
The crowd that fought the police in June 1969 did it here, in and around this triangle. Today you will find George Segal's Gay Liberation (two men standing, two women on a bench, in white-painted bronze; commissioned in 1979, installed in 1992), a statue of General Sheridan that explains the square's name, and a flagpole. The Pride flag on it was taken down by the Park Service in February 2026 and restored for good under an April 2026 court settlement. Gates are open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. May to October and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. November to April.
2. Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center
The other half of the original bar
Number 51 was half of the original Stonewall Inn and spent decades as other things. It reopened on June 28, 2024, as the first LGBTQIA+ visitor center in the national park system, run by the nonprofit Pride Live with the Park Service. Inside: first-hand accounts from people who were there, a 1967 Rowe AMI jukebox like the one in the bar, with a playlist chosen by Honey Dijon (ask at the desk for a free token), and a small theater. Free, no ticket, Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closed Mondays.
3. The Stonewall Inn
A toast where it started
The 1969 bar closed within months of the uprising. A bar returned to this half of the building in 1990 and the current owners have run it since 2006, so what you are drinking in is a working neighborhood gay bar on sacred ground, not a museum. Open Monday to Friday from 2 p.m. and weekends from 1 p.m., until 4 a.m., with drag, piano nights and karaoke on the calendar. You must be 21 with physical ID.
4. Starting point of the first Pride march
Where Pride began
On Sunday, June 28, 1970, the Christopher Street Liberation Day March assembled on this block, with the overflow on Waverly Place, and stepped off at noon up Sixth Avenue to Central Park. Organizers were unsure anyone would come. Thousands did. There is nothing to mark it, which is rather the point: it is an ordinary street that people decided to walk down in daylight.
Washington Place between Sheridan Square and Sixth Avenue · Website
5. Lorraine Hansberry Residence
A Black lesbian playwright's Village home
Hansberry bought this building with her earnings from A Raisin in the Sun and lived here from 1960 until her death in January 1965, at 34. Her partner of many years, Dorothy Secules, was a tenant upstairs. It is a private house, so admire it from the sidewalk. Washington Square Park is half a block on if you need a bench. Detour for completists: 2 Fifth Avenue, the big white apartment block on the park's north side, was home to both Larry Kramer and to Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer.
6. Jefferson Market Garden (Women's House of Detention site)
The prison that made the Village queer
A tower-block women's jail stood on this plot from the early 1930s until it was demolished in the 1970s. A great many of the women and trans men held there were locked up for being poor, queer or both, and for decades friends and lovers stood on the sidewalk shouting up to the windows. The garden that replaced it sits beside the Victorian courthouse that is now a public library.
Greenwich Avenue at Sixth Avenue and West 10th Street · Website
7. Gay Liberation Front at Alternate U. (site)
Where gay liberation got organized
The Gay Liberation Front, formed in July 1969 within weeks of the uprising, held its meetings, classes and weekly dances in a free school upstairs on this corner. The dances were a rare chance to dance together somewhere the Mafia did not own. STAR and Gay Youth met here too. The 1909 building was demolished in 2019, so this is a stop for the imagination. For the Gay Activists Alliance, see the SoHo add-on below.
Sixth Avenue at West 14th Street (formerly 530 Sixth Ave / 69 West 14th St) · Website
8. The Center (The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center)
Keith Haring's bathroom and the room where ACT UP began
A former public school from 1845, home to the community since 1983 and the birthplace of ACT UP (1987), GLAAD (1985), Queer Nation (1990) and the Lesbian Avengers (1992). Visitors are welcome: ask at the front desk for the Keith Haring room, a former second-floor bathroom he covered wall to wall in 1989 with a mural called Once Upon a Time. It is joyful and very much not for children. Room 210 is the Bureau of General Services-Queer Division, an independent queer bookshop and gallery, open Tuesday to Sunday, 1 to 7 p.m. The building is open Monday to Saturday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
9. New York City AIDS Memorial
The quietest stop on the route
St. Vincent's Hospital, which stood across the avenue, had the first and largest AIDS ward on the East Coast. The memorial was dedicated on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2016: an 18-foot white steel canopy of linked triangles by Studio a+i, over a fountain and granite paving by the artist Jenny Holzer engraved with lines from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself. It honors more than 100,000 New Yorkers. Walk the spiral of text slowly.
St. Vincent's Triangle, West 12th Street at Greenwich Avenue and Seventh Avenue · Website
10. Julius'
The 1966 sip-in, and the burgers
A bar has stood on this corner since the mid-19th century and gay men have been drinking in it since about 1960, which makes it the city's oldest gay bar. On April 21, 1966, the bartender here refused three Mattachine Society members a drink for the cameras, and the 'sip-in' became the most effective press stunt in early gay rights history. The photograph hangs inside. It has been a New York City landmark since December 2022. Order the burger.
11. Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop (site)
The bookshop that organized a movement
Craig Rodwell opened the first gay bookshop on the East Coast in November 1967 at 291 Mercer Street and moved it here in 1973. It was never only a shop: the first Pride march was planned from it, and its window said 'Gay is Good' when that was a risky thing to print. It closed in 2009. The storefront is now just a storefront, at the corner of Gay Street, whose name is far older than the word's modern meaning.
12. The Snake Pit (site)
The raid that proved Stonewall was not a fluke
In the small hours of March 8, 1970, the same inspector who had raided Stonewall raided this basement bar and arrested 167 people. Diego Vinales, 23 and terrified of deportation, jumped from a police station window and was impaled on the railings. He lived. Five hundred people marched that night, and the gay movement learned it could mobilize in hours. The stairwell and iron railing down to the old basement entrance are still there, to the left of the apartment door.
13. Christopher Street Pier (Pier 45) and Sylvia Rivera Way
Sunset, and a lot of ghosts
The corner of Christopher and Hudson Streets was named Sylvia Rivera Way in 2005. Keep walking west. After the shipping left in the 1960s, the derelict piers here became a cruising ground, an artists' studio for David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar and Alvin Baltrop, and a home for young people with nowhere else to sleep, whom Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson looked after. Johnson's body was found in the river just south of the pier in July 1992. Rebuilt and reopened in 2003, the pier is now lawn, shade and skyline, and still a gathering place for queer and trans young people of color. It stays open until 1 a.m.
Accessibility, restrooms and practical notes
Step-free arrival
Christopher St station on the 1 has stairs only. The visitor center recommends West 4 St-Washington Sq (A, B, C, D, E, F, M) as the nearest accessible station; it is about five minutes from Christopher Park. The M8 crosstown and M20 buses stop close by.
Terrain
The whole route is on city sidewalks with no hills and no steps, and corners have curb ramps. West Village sidewalks are narrow and can be uneven, and Christopher Street gets crowded on weekend afternoons. Crossing West Street to the pier is at a signalled crossing.
Wheelchair users
The visitor center is wheelchair accessible throughout, has an ADA-compliant single-stall restroom and keeps one wheelchair on site to borrow. The park, the AIDS Memorial and the pier are outdoors and level. For the bars and for anything inside The Center, call ahead on the numbers above rather than take our word for it.
Restrooms
Use the gender-inclusive single-stall restrooms at the visitor center (stop 2) and the facilities at The Center (stop 8). After that it is bars only until you are back on Christopher Street.
Shorten it
Skipping stop 7 saves about half a mile. If you are tired at Julius', stops 11 and 12 are on the way to the 1 train anyway, and the pier will still be there tomorrow.
Weather and timing
There is little shade between stops 4 and 8 and a river wind at the pier. In winter Christopher Park closes at 5 p.m., so start earlier. During Pride weekend in late June the area is packed and partly closed to traffic; go the week before. See Pride.
Manners
Stops 5, 11 and 12 are people's homes and businesses. The AIDS Memorial is a memorial. The pier belongs first to the kids who use it every day; you are the guest.
Where to stop for coffee or a drink on the route
The visitor center does not allow food or drink beyond water in a clear bottle, so caffeinate first. Greenwich Avenue, which you walk between stops 9 and 10, is the best stretch for an independent coffee and a seat; take your pick. For something stronger, the route passes three bars that are part of the story, all confirmed open as of October 2026.
Julius'
Burger and a beer
Stop 10 and the obvious half-way break. Dark wood, wagon-wheel light fittings, a mixed-age crowd and a grill in the corner turning out burgers the bar itself calls its best-kept secret. Unfussy and cheap by Village standards.
Marie's Crisis Cafe
Sing-along show tunes
A basement piano bar one block from Christopher Park where the whole room sings show tunes, unamplified, with strangers. The bar opens at 4 p.m. daily and the piano starts at 5:30. Go early on a weeknight if you want to get down the stairs at all.
The Stonewall Inn
The full-circle drink
Finish where you started. Weekday happy hour, outdoor tables on Christopher Street in good weather and something on stage most nights. Bring physical ID; they are strict.
Staying for the evening? The neighborhood's lesbian bars, piano bars and restaurants are in our West Village guide, with more in bars and lounges, Sapphic NYC and eat and drink.
Guided LGBTQ history tours in NYC (operating in 2026)
A good guide gives you the gossip and the argument. These are the ones we could confirm are running this year.
Christopher Street Tours: Village Pride Walking Tour
Small-group tours by queer guides
A two-hour walk with a local LGBTQ+ guide that takes in the Stonewall Inn and ends at The Center with the Keith Haring mural. Groups are capped at 20. From about $59 a head, year-round; pick a date on the booking calendar. The same company runs a Lost Nightclubs of New York tour around the Meatpacking District.
Meets at McCarthy Square, 211 Waverly Place · 646-397-3768 · Website
Oscar Wilde Tours: Greenwich Village walking tour
The scholarly, funny option
A scholarly, witty two-hour walk that goes from Walt Whitman to Stonewall by way of drag shows, bars and James Baldwin. Advance purchase is required and private tours start at around $200. The company's LGBTQ+ Secrets of the Metropolitan Museum tour is a smart rainy-day alternative.
NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project walks
Tours by the people who wrote the footnotes
The historians who researched most of the stops on this page lead occasional walks of their own. In 2026 these included Chelsea on June 11, a Lesbian Herstory of Greenwich Village walk on June 16 and an East Village tour on October 5 for LGBTQ History Month. Dates are irregular and fill fast, so watch the events page. Their free online map is the best companion to a self-guided walk.
Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center group tours
Groups and classes
For school and youth groups (age 12 and up), workplace employee groups and nonprofits, the visitor center runs on-site and Zoom tours at about $10 a person. Submit the tour request form on its website. Individual visitors just walk in.
Add-on walks: SoHo, the East Village, Chelsea and Harlem
Got another hour, or another day? Four short extensions, each a subway ride or a 15-minute walk from the main route.
SoHo: the GAA Firehouse (30 minutes)
From Washington Square, walk 15 minutes south to 99 Wooster Street. This 1881 firehouse was the Gay Activists Alliance's headquarters from May 1971 until an arson fire in October 1974. Its Saturday dances drew up to 1,500 people, Friday nights were 'Firehouse Flicks', and the political zaps were planned upstairs. It has been a city landmark since June 2019. On the way, 291 Mercer Street, at the corner of Waverly Place, is the Oscar Wilde bookshop's first home.
East Village: STAR House and club history (60 to 90 minutes)
Take the L across 14th Street or walk east. 213 East 2nd Street is where Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson ran STAR House from November 1970 to July 1971. The Historic Sites Project's own East Village walk links it with Allen Ginsberg's apartment, the Pyramid Cocktail Lounge, and the sites of The Saint and The Loft. Our East Village guide covers where to drink afterward.
Chelsea and the Meatpacking District (60 minutes)
Chelsea became a gay neighborhood in the late 1960s and 1970s, and Gay Men's Health Crisis had its first office in a townhouse on West 22nd Street. From the AIDS Memorial, walk north up Eighth Avenue to pick up the story, with the Hotel Chelsea on West 23rd Street as your landmark. The Meatpacking District's vanished clubs are best done with a guide who can point at the right door: see the Lost Nightclubs tour above. More in Chelsea.
Harlem: ballroom's birthplace (half a day)
The Hamilton Lodge Ball packed 7,000 people into the Rockland Palace at 280 West 155th Street in 1929; the hall itself is long gone. Pair the pilgrimage with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture on Malcolm X Boulevard at 135th Street, which holds Lorraine Hansberry's papers, and use our Harlem guide for the rest of the day. Take the A, C, B or D uptown.
Further afield
All five boroughs have sites. The Historic Sites Project's map will take you from the Lesbian Herstory Archives in Park Slope to Marsha P. Johnson State Park on the Williamsburg waterfront and on to Staten Island. For museums and archives, see culture.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free LGBTQ history walking tour in NYC?
Yes, this self-guided Stonewall route is a free LGBTQ history walking tour. Its stops at Christopher Park, the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, The Center, the NYC AIDS Memorial and the Christopher Street Pier are free too. Guided walks cost from about $59 a person.
How long does a Stonewall walking tour take?
Allow 2.5 to 3 hours for the full 2-mile loop including half an hour in the visitor center and a stop at Julius'. The core Stonewall sites (the park, the visitor center, the bar, Julius' and the bookshop site) are within a five-minute walk of each other and take about 45 minutes. Guided tours usually run two hours.
Can you go inside the Stonewall Inn?
Yes, the Stonewall Inn is a working bar at 53 Christopher Street, open from 2 p.m. on weekdays and 1 p.m. on weekends until 4 a.m. You must be 21 and carry physical ID. Under-21s and anyone who wants the history without the bar should use the free visitor center next door at number 51.
When is the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center open?
The visitor center is open Tuesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and closed Mondays. Entry is free and no ticket is needed. Christopher Park, across the street, is open daily from 7 a.m., closing at 8 p.m. from May to October and 5 p.m. from November to April.
Is the walking tour wheelchair accessible?
The route is flat and on sidewalks with curb ramps, and the visitor center is fully wheelchair accessible with an accessible restroom. The nearest subway station with elevators is West 4 St-Washington Sq; Christopher St on the 1 line has stairs only. Check with the individual bars before relying on them.
Where does the tour start, and which subway do I take?
Start at Christopher Park, on Christopher Street at Seventh Avenue South. Take the 1 train to Christopher St, which exits beside the park, or the A, B, C, D, E, F or M to West 4 St-Washington Sq and walk five minutes west.
What is the best day to do it?
Any day from Tuesday to Sunday is best, starting around 1 p.m., when the visitor center, the bookshop at The Center and the bars are all open. Avoid Mondays, when the visitor center is closed, and avoid Pride weekend unless crowds are what you came for.
Is the Pride flag back at Stonewall?
Yes, the Pride flag is back at Stonewall. After the National Park Service removed it in February 2026, a lawsuit ended in an April 13, 2026 settlement that restored the Pride flag to the official flagpole in Christopher Park permanently. The full story is on our history page.
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