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Together, they reveal overlapping vignettes of the establishment’s many colorful past lives. The framed, yellowing photos - many of them signed - depict race horses, sportsmen, one-time celebrities, and newspaper clippings about Julius’ and LGBTQ activism in New York. “Things go up, they never come down,” says Joseph Lyons, one of the managing hands, as he energetically tells me bits of the stories layered in the picture frames that crowd together to form the decor of Julius’. On April 21, 1966, three years before the riots at Stonewall occurred a block away, a gay rights milestone gave the West Village bar its status as legend, paving the way for the city’s legitimate LGBTQ establishments. Even Prohibition, during which the tavern transformed into a bustling speakeasy, had minimal impact on Julius’ operations. It bore the name Julius’ sometime in the 1920s. On the quiet corner of West 10th Street and Waverly Place, one of New York’s oldest watering holes has been operating since around 1864. Courtesy Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission. The building in 1969 and 50 years later in 2019.