1967-11-24Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore Opens in NYC

Craig Rodwell opens the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop, the nation’s first gay and lesbian bookstore, on Mercer Street in NYC, declaring it “a book shop for the homophile movement.” Rodwell later moved the store to Christopher Street, just a block away from the site of the Stonewall Inn and the 1969 riots that gave birth to the gay liberation movement. The store, which remained open until 2009, was a hub of political networking for many years.