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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Paresis Hall | |
|---|---|
 | |
Alternative names | Columbia Hall |
General information | |
| Location | 392 Bowery (now 32 Cooper Square), New York City, United States |
| Coordinates | 40°43′41″N 73°59′29″W / 40.728183°N 73.991400°W |
| Owner | James T. Ellison |
Columbia Hall, commonly known as Paresis Hall, was a brothel, gay bar and meeting spot for "inverts" located at 392 Bowery in Manhattan, New York City, in the 1890s.[1][2] Located near Cooper Union, the hall was owned by the gangster James T. Ellison.[1]
Paresis Hall took its common nickname from general paresis, a term for syphilitic insanity.[3]
Jennie June wrote that the name "Paresis Hall" was the popular name, but androgynes disliked that name, and instead referred to it as "the Hall".[4] June wrote that the term paresis was used as a general term for insanity, but also wrote that the name followed a superstition that androgynes could cause virile men to succumb to insanity, later discovered to be a side effect of advanced syphilis.[4]
On the ground floor, Paresis Hall had a small bar room in front, and a small beer garden behind it.[4] The two floors above the ground floor were rented out in small rooms.[4] At least ten rooms above the bar were used for private encounters.[1]
One space above the bar was permanently rented by the Cercle Hermaphroditos, an early transgender advocacy organization. They stored clothing there because of the illegality of and public hostility to dressing in women's clothing.[5]
According to historian Susan Stryker, the Cercle Hermaphroditos was the first group in the United States to be concerned with what today would be considered transgender social justice issues.[6]
Paresis Hall was particularly renowned and reviled even at the time, and was a common target for both police activity and religious protests.[7] Despite this, evidence suggests it was active until at least 1899.[1]
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Columbia Hall, commonly known as Paresis Hall, was a brothel, gay bar and meeting spot for "inverts" located at 392 Bowery in Manhattan, New York City, in the 1890s. Located near Cooper Union, the hall was owned by the gangster James T. Ellison.
The Cercle Hermaphroditos was the first known informal transgender advocacy organisation in the United States, founded in 1895 in New York City "to unite for defense against the world’s bitter persecution". The group first met at Paresis Hall, also called Columbia Hall or simply "the Hall," which was a center of homosexual nightlife in New York City. There, male sex workers would solicit men under an effeminate persona. In a time when cross dressing was socially unacceptable and a punishable crime, places like Paresis Hall provided a place where self-described "instinctive female-impersonators," androgynes, queens, fairies, or Uranians could gather and feel more free to express themselves and socialize with similar people. These were Victorian era and Edwardian era words – with their own nuances of meaning – for people who were born male, felt they were at least partly women in mind or spirit, and preferred having sex with men; people who today might call themselves transgender women, non-binary people, or feminine gay men, in the language of today's LGBT communities. The nature of Paresis Hall during this period is known to historians today from a variety of sources. However, the Cercle Hermaphroditos is more apocryphal, known chiefly from the autobiography of an "instinctive female-impersonator," Jennie June, who provides the main surviving description of it. June says all the group's members knew one another only by pseudonyms, for reasons of safety. Additionally, June also stated that the majority of the group were Ultra-Androgyne, & would always clothe themselves as female in their daily lives if the law permitted it. The group was led by pseudonymous Roland Reeves. Little evidence of the Cercle's existence is known to survive today, outside of June's autobiography. If it issued any pamphlets, none are yet known to historians. For this reason, some historians have raised questions about whether the Cercle existed at all. The Cercle is noted by transgender historian Susan Stryker as "the first known informal organization in the United States to concern itself with what we might now call transgender social justice issues".
Webster Hall is a nightclub and concert venue located at 125 East 11th Street, between Third and Fourth avenues, in the East Village of Manhattan, New York City. It is one of New York City's most historically significant theater and event halls, having hosted social events of all types since the club's construction in 1886 as a "hall for hire". Its current incarnation was opened in 1992 by the Ballinger brothers, with a capacity of 1,400, providing its traditional role as well as for corporate events, and for a recording studio. A scholarly account of Webster Hall and its place in the wider history of rock music in Lower Manhattan was published in 2020. Webster Hall has been recognized as the first modern nightclub. On March 18, 2008, after a landmarks proposal was submitted by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Webster Hall and its Annex a New York City landmark. BSE Global and The Bowery Presents (and Bowery's parent company AEG) acquired the operating rights for and assets of Webster Hall in February 2017, and after a nearly two-year renovation, the venue re-opened to the public on April 26, 2019.
Heidi Lynne Fleiss (born December 30, 1965) is an American former madam, media personality, and entrepreneur. In the earlier 90s, Fleiss ran an upscale prostitution ring based in Los Angeles, and is often referred to as the "Hollywood Madam". Fleiss also formerly worked as a columnist and was a television personality regularly featured in the 1990s American media.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Shirley Chisholm, elected in 1968.
