Julius

Established in 1862, this is New York’s oldest operating gay bar. You can feel a rich sense of history and community here: The walls are lined with historical materials, and the venue has been used as the backdrop for films such as Can You Ever Forgive Me? Thanks to a resurgence in popularity in recent years, the crowd has an intergenerational mix; longtime patrons sip their drafts at the long wooden bar as younger groups tend to gather at tables in the back and feed the well-stocked jukebox (as they chomp down on grilled cheeses and other cheap eats from the in-house grill). The hip and jam-packed party Mattachine—run by John Cameron Mitchell, Amber Martin and Angela Di Carlo, and named in honor of the Mattachine Society, which held a 1966 "sip-in" protest at the bar—happens once a month on Thursdays.