The Secret Mafia Plot That Accidentally Ignited PRIDE | TMT 181

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Secret Mafia Plot That Accidentally Ignited PRIDE"

Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500 – Episode 181
Release Date: June 14, 2026
Hosts: Pearlmania500 (Phil DeFranco) & Mrs. P

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Episode Overview

This episode of Too Many Tabs dives deep into the surprising and tangled roots of the LGBTQ+ PRIDE movement, spotlighting how organized crime—specifically the Genovese mafia family—exploited, extorted, and inadvertently created critical safe spaces for queer communities, culminating in the historic Stonewall uprising. Phil and Mrs. P trace the evolution from brutal NYC street gangs to the secret mafia-run gay bars of mid-century Manhattan, ultimately revealing how a mafia racket, police corruption, and the resilience of drag queens, trans individuals, and marginalized outsiders sparked a social revolution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: A Summer of Hot Dogs and Comedy History

• (00:40–01:09) The hosts humorously open with Pride month banter and T-shirt jokes (“Yeah, I'm trans... transporting these hot dogs..."; “Yeah, I'm gay, got a yearning for hot dogs”) before diving into their signature “late-night Wikipedia rabbit hole” journey.
• Memorable Quote:
  • Phil: “What do Tony Soprano and RuPaul have in common? ...they both exploited drag queens to make a lot of money and then pivoted into fracking.” (00:00)

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2. The Mafia Roots: From Five Points Gangs to Luciano

Five Points Era & Paul Kelly

• (01:09–04:43) Mrs. P narrates the story of Paul Kelly, an Italian immigrant who rebrands himself to join and run a notoriously brutal Irish gang—the Five Points.
• Key Point: “An Italian pretending to be an Irishman bringing in Jews... This is the American story.” (03:50, Phil)

Rise of Lucky Luciano

• (04:51–11:16) Details Lucky Luciano’s ascent—crime, protection racketeering (10¢/wk to bullied immigrant kids), and the evolution from street swindling to formal, business-like mafia franchises.
• Insight: Gangs operated more like business franchises—buying in for protection and brand. (05:21–05:40)
• Luciano’s Early Criminal Ventures: Petty crimes, then “pimping” at age 16; later, heroin trafficking and bootlegging during Prohibition.
• Memorable Quote: “Are you tired of people throwing your matzo bread into the sewer? Call Lucky Luciano for one dime a week...” (06:03, Phil)

Prohibition’s Impact

• (07:10–09:38) Prohibition as pivotal, gifting organized crime their richest opportunity, functioning like modern-day drug bans do for contemporary gangs.

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3. Mafia Image Management & Public Relations

• (10:13–13:00) After his heroin bust tarnishes his high-society reputation, Luciano orchestrates a PR coup: splurging on designer clothes, VIP boxing match tickets, and mingling with politicians—restoring his elite, “classy” gangster status.
• Modern Comparison: The hosts compare Mafia “public image rebounds” to present-day internet cancel culture and celebrity reinvention.
• Quote: “As long as you can survive that week, you’re good.” (12:24, Phil)

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4. The Mafia’s Labor Influence and the Manhattan Waterfront

• (15:16–17:49) Beyond gambling and bootlegging, the Mafia expands into labor unions and controls the NYC waterfront, with ties to construction, garbage, trucking—setting up later involvement in clandestine vice rackets.

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5. Luciano’s Fall and the “Gay Bar” Market

• (19:32–22:24)
  • Lucky is arrested for “pandering” (compulsory prostitution) but continues running his empire from prison, until Vito Genovese takes over.
  • Crucial Shift: The mob notices a lucrative opportunity serving the many young, often unaccompanied men flowing through NYC’s docks—recognizing “a little bit of gay stuff” was in demand.

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6. The Genovese Family and Mob-Run Gay Bars

The Stonewall Inn

• (22:46–25:56)
  • In 1966, four Genovese associates—Fat Tony, Zuki Zarfus, Tony the Sniff, and Joey—buy a seedy restaurant on Christopher St.
  • They transform it into the infamous Stonewall Inn, using mafia muscle and mob playbooks: reinforced doors, blacked out windows, peepholes, bribed police, and no legal liquor license (loophole: operate as a “private club”).
  • “Stonewall’s owners could not obtain a liquor license because [NY] state laws... did not allow bartenders to legally serve LGBTQ people.” (25:32, Mrs. P)

Exploitation and Extortion

• (29:55–34:36) The Stonewall mobsters cut all sorts of corners:
  • Filthy conditions, dirty glassware (causing hep outbreaks), no emergency exits.
  • Blackmail as a side business: Bartenders and doormen would hunt for wealthy, closeted men to extort, surveilling, flirting, even following them home (“honey trap”).
• Quote: “This gay bar is basically the equivalent of a porn site that is stealing all your info.” (33:40, Phil)
• Key Context: While the mafia profited from providing one of the only semi-safe queer social spaces, they also ruthlessly exploited patrons—outings, blackmail, overpriced booze, and shakedowns.

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7. Police Corruption, Payoffs, and the Realities of “Illegality”

• (36:08–41:15)
  • The mob paid off the NYPD—$1,200/mo—to look the other way, but with new police leadership, bar raids increased and became more aggressive and unpredictable.
  • People at these venues—especially the most marginalized—were doubly vulnerable. The mafia was not supportive—just financially opportunistic:
  • “The mob is in no way accepting of the gay lifestyle at this point in time. … So much of it's blackmail.” (41:40, Phil & Mrs. P)

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8. The Lavender Scare, Red Scare, and the Climate of Repression

• (43:01–45:10)
  • Post-WWII homophobia spikes, fueled by changes in Bible translation and the US anti-communist panics.
  • LGBTQ people are labeled security risks—further incentivizing blackmail, policing, and marginalization:
  • “[The government claimed] queer people were susceptible to blackmail and, by extension, espionage.” (43:34, Mrs. P)
  • The linkage of queerness, criminality, and “immorality” is reinforced by state and media, leveraging the mafia’s visible criminality as evidence.

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9. The Stonewall Uprising: The Mafia, the Bar, and the Riot

Police Raid Goes Wrong

• (55:16–61:07)
  • June 28, 1969, 1:20 AM: Cops (without warning) raid the Stonewall on a bustling weekend night—catching 200+ off guard.
  • Standard “raid theater” (IDs, arrests for drag or no ID) goes off-script; instead of fleeing, the crowd stands its ground.

The Crowd Fights Back

• (61:22–68:04)

  • “A huge crowd began to grow. … Some released started performing for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in exaggerated fashions. Drag show, full drag show. Fully in the streets.” (60:03, Mrs. P)
  • Police violence, sexual assault, and lack of organization escalate events. A key moment occurs:
    • “Why don’t you guys do something?!” yells an arrested woman—galvanizing the crowd.
  • Pennies, beer bottles, bricks from a nearby construction site fly; a police van is flipped, tires slashed, and some officers flee.

• Quote:

  • “The scariest thing... is to ever hear someone in the crowd yell, ‘They can’t get all of us.’” (63:41, Phil)

Turning Point

• (68:07–79:16)
  • Cops are barricaded in the bar, the crowd swells to 600+.
  • “The mob openly mocked the police... starting impromptu kick lines and singing and kick lining towards the police.” (78:39, Mrs. P)
  • SWAT is deployed, but is humiliated by the crowd’s defiance, mockery, and creativity.

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10. Aftermath and the Birth of Modern PRIDE

Immediate Effects

• (81:08–83:46)
  • Stonewall is torched; graffiti appears: “Drag power,” “They invaded our rights,” “Legalize gay bars,” “We are open.”
  • “It was obvious... a lot of people really were gay. And you know, this was our street.”
  • The next night, protests resume, but now thousands join—including street youth and “even tourists.”
  • “From going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole... we were just out. We were out in the streets.” (83:46, Mrs. P, quoting a witness)

Direct Action and Organizing

• (85:52–88:14)

  • Local activists print thousands of pamphlets declaring: “Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bars.”
  • They issue three demands:
    1. Gay business people should open legal, healthy bars.
    2. Boycott mafia-run bars.
    3. Write the mayor for an investigation and reform.

• Quote:

  • “The only way... we can get criminal elements out of the gay bars is simply to make it unprofitable for them.” (Leaflet, 89:01, Mrs. P)

The First Pride Parade

• (92:15–94:34)
  • July 4, 1969: At an annual “respectable” gay picket in Philadelphia, radicalized New Yorkers break the rules (skirt/dress code, men in suits), defy the organizers, and are emboldened by Stonewall.
  • Craig Rodwell returns to New York and organizes the first Christopher Street Liberation Day — the precursor to PRIDE parades.

Legacy

• (94:34-end)
  • The mafia is eventually pushed out of running gay bars as LGBTQ+ people mobilize, self-organize, and take control over their own spaces.
  • Stonewall is celebrated as a turning point: “if they can do it to one of you, they’ll do it to all of you.”
  • Phil and Mrs. P reflect on how PRIDE is now a central part of NYC culture, calling on listeners to build solidarity offline as well as online.

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Notable Quotes by Timestamp

• “An Italian pretending to be an Irishman bringing in Jews... This is the American story.”
  (03:50, Phil DeFranco)
• “Stonewall’s owners could not obtain a liquor license because state laws… did not allow bartenders to legally serve LGBTQ people...”
  (25:32, Mrs. P)
• “This gay bar is basically the equivalent of a porn site that is stealing all your info.”
  (33:40, Phil)
• “The only way… we can get criminal elements out of the gay bars is simply to make it unprofitable for them.”
  (89:01, Advocate Leaflet)
• “Why don’t you guys do something?!”
  (Crowd member challenging bystanders during the raid, 63:32)
• “If they can do it to one of you, they’ll do it to all of you.”
  (73:58, Phil)

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Important Segment Timestamps

• Mafia Gangs’ evolution and franchise system: 05:20–05:40
• Mob PR stunts & celebrity redemption: 10:13–13:00
• How/why the mafia got into gay bars: 22:24–24:27
• Conditions at Stonewall & mafia exploitation: 29:55–34:10
• The mafia’s attitude (not “accepting”): 41:40–42:15
• The Stonewall Riots’ origin story: 55:16–68:04
• Police/crowd dynamics; riot escalation: 61:07–68:04
• Police barricaded, SWAT, crowd mockery: 78:14–79:16
• The birth of Pride & the first parade organizing: 92:15–94:34

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Tone & Style

The hosts keep the tone quick-witted, irreverent, and intimately conversational—balancing dark humor, righteous anger, and heartfelt advocacy. Mrs. P leads historical deep-dives while Phil interjects with contemporary analogies, personal asides, and pop culture riffs.

Directness + Silliness Example:

• “Imagine you’re trying to pretend like you’re an orc… and in front of you is 600 gays just hissing, doing Chicago…” (78:52, Phil)

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Key Takeaways

• The American Mafia, particularly the Genovese family, built a gay nightlife empire not out of liberation, but pure profit—and with heavy costs in exploitation, blackmail, and collusion with crooked cops.
• The Stonewall Uprising’s radical spark came from the courage and exhaustion of those most marginalized—not the “respectable” elite gays.
• Pride was born not of purity or safety, but defiance, improvisation, and gritty coalition.
• Mafia and state collusion, both explicit and tacit, created intolerable conditions—which, when stretched to breaking, catalyzed collective resistance.
• The struggle for safe third spaces is ongoing; liberation is built in resistance to both criminal exploitation and state repression.
• “If they can do it to one of you, they’ll do it to all of you”—unity is survival.

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In Short:
The origins of PRIDE are anything but sanitized: mafia rackets, extortion, police brutality, and the urgent creativity of drag queens, trans folks, and outcasts fighting back. The Stonewall story is a messy miracle—a reminder that sometimes, history’s victories are sparked by the accidental collision of greed, oppression, and an unbreakable spirit.

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For more, visit crashingouttour.com for the hosts’ live show dates. It’s June—be proud, eat a hot dog, and remember why we have PRIDE at all.

Transcript

[Phil DeFranco]

What do Tony Soprano and RuPaul have in common? Well, they both exploited drag queens to make a lot of money and then pivoted into fracking this and more on this week's episode of Too Many Tabs. Remember to smile. Welcome to Too Many Tabs, a podcast where a husband and wife duo sits next to each other at a table in very interesting shirts. That's right.

[Mrs. P]

I bought these.

[Phil DeFranco]

You did buy those. What's yours say?

[Mrs. P]

Wait, what's it say?

[Phil DeFranco]

It says, yeah, I'm trans transporting these hot dogs from my mouth to my stomach.

[Mrs. P]

Let's go.

[Phil DeFranco]

And what does mine say?

[Mrs. P]

It says, yeah, I'm gay. Got a yearning for hot dogs.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yep. Because it's June. And what does that mean? It means we're grilling, Right, Everybody? We're grilling hot dogs. We're boiling hot dogs. We're ingesting hot dogs.

[Mrs. P]

Hot dogs sliced up in baked beans.

[Phil DeFranco]

O.

[Mrs. P]

You know what I'm saying? Hot dogs sliced up in Mac and cheese. Or my personal favorite, hot dogs. Sliced. Sliced up in ramen noodles.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, that's because you grew up real poor.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, but I like those kind of things.

[Phil DeFranco]

You do like those kind of things. And what we like here in June is obviously our gay hot dogs, but also a little bit of comedy history.

[Mrs. P]

Mrs. P. And I've got comedy history for you this week. Are you ready?

[Phil DeFranco]

I am ready.

[Mrs. P]

This starts in 1890. Cameron Diaz is there. Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, no, that's. That's Gangs of New York. Yes, that is Gangs of New York.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I do need to talk about the gangs in New York, but I thought we'd be fun to bring them into it.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. Why? What do they have to do with anything?

[Mrs. P]

Vibes. So listen, the Five Point Gangs were groups of various Irish immigrants and Irish American gangs in the Five Points area of New York.

[Phil DeFranco]

I've seen the movie.

[Mrs. P]

That's very funny that they say, we're Irish Americans and you're just Irish. Classic.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Classic.

[Phil DeFranco]

So they really were just like, I did it the right way.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Out the gate. Out the gate. Okay, so there's this one Irish gangster from the Five Points crew called Paul Kelly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Paul Kelly, A very Irish name, but

[Mrs. P]

he was born Paolo Antonio Vaccarelli.

[Phil DeFranco]

Are you telling me that Paul Kelly. Rachel Dolezal being Irish.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, yes, yes. I'm saying that he picked a different, more Irish sounding name so he could join the Five Points gangs.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's incredible.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So this Italian guy is like, actually, I'm Irish Yeah. Hey. Yeah. Amazing.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so he becomes really powerful within the Five Points G gangs, and eventually it comes out that he's actually Italian.

[Phil DeFranco]

It comes out he's actually Italian.

[Mrs. P]

He comes out of the Italian closet.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, this is incredible. All right.

[Mrs. P]

And though his specific Five Points gang has a reputation for brutality when it comes to battling their rival gangs, and he was known for fighting to the death. Oh, okay. So like, if he. If you're fighting with him and his crew, they're going to die or you're going to die.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, so it's like that scene from Anchorman.

[Mrs. P]

What?

[Phil DeFranco]

You've seen the movie Anchorman?

[Mrs. P]

Have I.

[Phil DeFranco]

Somebody has a pitchfork.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, so it's like that scene from Gangs of New York.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

That movie Gangs in New York with Cameron Diaz. Someone has a pitchfork.

[Mrs. P]

So the gangs. And here's the other thing about Paul Kelly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He. His gang would gain more power. Not just because they're like killing everybody else, but they would recruit any remaining remaining members of the other gangs. Oh, so if you did survive, he'd be like, well, why don't you join my gang?

[Phil DeFranco]

Hey, yo, you know what? That's like literally how bacteria becomes antibiotic resistance.

[Mrs. P]

Like, don't you bring up science. Over.

[Phil DeFranco]

I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Hey, listen, you survived the onslaught of me and my boys, you seem like

[Mrs. P]

a pretty tough cookie.

[Phil DeFranco]

What are your thoughts about coming over here? I don't care that you're the wrong type of Catholic.

[Mrs. P]

As time went on, Jewish, Polish and Eastern European immigrants would also be brought into the ranks of the Five Point Gang.

[Phil DeFranco]

Can I just tell you real fast, a fake. An Italian pretending to be an Irishman bringing in Jews is. Is wild. This is the American story. When people are like, oh, no, I can't believe that they're post racial fascists. Baby, baby. We had pre racial fascism.

[Mrs. P]

That's true.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Now the thing is, this actually made him even more powerful and influential also in these gangs. So the Five Point Gang, he kind of. It used to be like there were multiple Five Points gangs. That's what you saw in the movie.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, there's really Five Points streets coming together and there's a five.

[Mrs. P]

He eventually makes the Five Points Gang. Oh, he like makes a conglomerate because he's absorbing all of them.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. This is literally. I just watched a thing about the first emperor of China. Yeah, this is the same story. It's just New York.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So in his ranks was a man named Al Capone who eventually moves to Chicago. But all his training, he got in these gangs.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. He also has this guy named Charles Lucky Luciano.

[Phil DeFranco]

I've heard of this guy.

[Mrs. P]

Now, Charles Lucky Luciano was born in Sicily.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Immigrates to America when he's 8 in 1906. And as a teenager, he started his own gang. And as he's, like, in his own gang, and he, like, also becomes, like, part of the Five Points Gang. Because what I start to understand from gang culture, reading up on all this Mob stuff.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Is gang culture at this point is just a franchise. It's like buying a franchise.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You're like, oh, I'm going to start my little gang, but I want to be under your umbrella of the name. So I'm going to pay into you for the protection of your name. But I'm going to do my own licensing rights. Yeah, it's licensing, right?

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

100% name. Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So he has his own petty crime gang. And everybody that's, like, in the Five Points, they think he's, like, a kid. They're like, oh, that kid. Because he's doing petty crimes, and then he starts offering protection services to Jewish kids and Italian kids for 10 cents a week. So, like, are you getting beat up on your way to school? Is somebody calling you a slur? I'll. We'll protect you for 10 cents a week.

[Phil DeFranco]

Hey, you tired of people throwing your matzo bread into the sewer? Call Lucky Luciano for one dime a week. I'll beat the fuck out of somebody.

[Mrs. P]

Anybody, really.

[Phil DeFranco]

Anybody, really. I got rage problems.

[Mrs. P]

So he got a lot of problems. So then World War I happens, right?

[Phil DeFranco]

Bad war.

[Mrs. P]

Bad war. Here's the thing. Charles Lucky Luciano, I'm just going to call him Lucky. Lucky starts learning a new trade.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And that is what. What we would call pimping.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, okay. That's not easy.

[Mrs. P]

No, it's not. It's not an easy thing to learn. Also, he was 16.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

He's 16, and he starts sexually exploiting women.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, okay. All right.

[Mrs. P]

Not great. Not great, guys.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because. Especially, like. And just to just. Just so you guys know. I know some people are like, oh, we should root. This is like the Andrew Tate level.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is. We are doing. We are doing live action. Discord servers here.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is. This is where we're going in this direction.

[Mrs. P]

In January 17th of 1920, the 18th amendment of the United States Constitution took effect.

[Phil DeFranco]

Boom.

[Mrs. P]

And Prohibition was enforced for the next 13 years. Hold on, I need a sip of Fresca.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, you need a sip of Fresco.

[Mrs. P]

Prohibition could ever take my fresco away from me.

[Phil DeFranco]

It wasn't Fresca invented because of Prohibition.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know. This is the peach citrus one. Love it.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. We don't have a brand deal for them.

[Mrs. P]

Call me.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. But real fast, real fast. Just Prohibition in general. Prohibition is a. Is a dividing line in American history. Before prohibition, the 18th amendment got passed, America was hammered.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

We were a drunk nation.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Phil DeFranco]

Constantly, consistently. There were some counties that were a little bit drier, but, like, that's kind of where the violent differences are in our history when we look pre Prohibition, post Prohibition. But the other thing to keep in mind, one thing you'll always notice is you'll hear stuff about the Mafia. Right. You hear about the Mafia all the time. And people always love it because they wore suits. People look back, oh, they were different. They were a different breed. This is the same as the Bloods and the Crips. The Bloods and the Crips are pushing. We're pushing crack and harder drugs because there's a prohibition on those harder drugs.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

If they had. If they, If. If it wasn't alcohol that had been banned, like, if it had been a different thing. Yeah, they Mafia, which eventually they did, would have gone into that. So the idea of the prohibition just made these guys stronger. And you're going to cover.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, I did look it up. Fresco was invented in 1966, and it was famously US President Lyndon B. Johnson's favorite beverage. Really kept it stocked at the White House.

[Phil DeFranco]

LBJ drank a Fresca.

[Mrs. P]

Loved a Fresca.

[Phil DeFranco]

I wonder if he had a Fresca button.

[Mrs. P]

Fresca, please. Okay, so 18th amendment.

[Phil DeFranco]

Something was. I swear, though, there was. One of them, though, was in bed. Get in the comments. I can tell you can already feel it. All right.

[Mrs. P]

I got so many.

[Phil DeFranco]

You know, exactly what is. There was some soft drink that we're normal. Maybe it was Mountain Dew. It's something like that, though, that was like, invented as a mixer in, like, around Prohibition time.

[Mrs. P]

I bet you're right.

[Phil DeFranco]

I didn't say I feel. It feels like.

[Mrs. P]

The amendment prohibited the manufacturer sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Since the demand for alcohol continued, the resulting black market for alcoholic beverages provided criminals with an additional source of income.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Lucky Luciano and his best guy friend, Vito Genovese started their own bootlegging operations.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yay. We love an entrepreneur.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that's. This is the American dream. Oh, Scio, this is going to get bad. Oh, so Lucky Luchano, also at the same time, around the same time, in 1923. He starts selling heroin. You brought it up.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, I did bring it up.

[Mrs. P]

He was caught in a sting selling heroin to undercover cops.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's how it always happens.

[Mrs. P]

Classic.

[Phil DeFranco]

Some guy walks up, it's like, you got any heroin? Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Some guy with, like, a crew cut gets out of a Dodge Charger with a blacked out L plate. You go, that guy's definitely not a cop.

[Phil DeFranco]

But also, it's like, this is. I love that. This is pre the tactics, cuz. Now ask me how I know if we lived on the block is you. You pay. You ask the guy at the end, and you pay him. And then he tells you further down the road to talk to another kid, who then gives a nod. And then. And then a third guy comes running.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so it's never your hand. This was early. He was like, hey, can I have heroin? Yeah. Here you go. Oh, okay. Cool cop.

[Mrs. P]

So he gets no jail time because he does have money at this point. But being outed as a drug peddler damaged his reputation. Because here's the thing. Lucky Luciano is like a classy mobster. He wears the finest outfits. He hangs out with all the fancy rich people.

[Phil DeFranco]

He's kingpin.

[Mrs. P]

He's kingpin. And so when people found out he was selling heroin, they were like, ooh, gross. That's for the pores.

[Phil DeFranco]

Wait, what's that mop boss doing selling drugs?

[Mrs. P]

Gross. Yeah, Low class. So he decides he has to salvage his reputation. So Luciano buys 200 expensive seats, like front row seats to the Jack Dempsey and Louis Farpo boxing match and then distributes them to all the top gangsters and politicians in New York. He invites every. All the big guns.

[Phil DeFranco]

You all come over here and sit in my section.

[Mrs. P]

And then him and his mentor go on a shopping spree to Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan to buy expensive clothes for the fight. Oh, okay, so movie montage. Makeover.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. No, this is so smart, though, because he's like, oh, what you say? And I'm poor. Look at me. I'm out here. I'm in my Ferragamo.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Gucci, my Dolce and Gabbana. Gabbana, look at me. I mean, I'm in. I'm hanging out in my. Bergdorf was the one we went to. We walked through that one time, and I said, I can't.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, because it's raining Bergdorf Goodman.

[Phil DeFranco]

Bergdorf Goodman. I walked through a Bergdorf Goodman with this lady, and I just went, no.

[Mrs. P]

I said, he's like, I turned into Bernie don't you touch that?

[Phil DeFranco]

I turned. I was over here. We should. The taxes must be higher with the 1%. We should go higher.

[Mrs. P]

I was like, look at this. Look how much it costs.

[Phil DeFranco]

And I legit was like, that's a hospital. That's a hospital. They're going to wear it to pay. We wouldn't have had to drive 25 minutes to go. Go to the fucking ER the other day if we had hospitals. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

That's a different thing.

[Phil DeFranco]

Different thing, but real fast. This PR move is so smart.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's just I've had a theory about cancellation.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

My cancellation in the modern day. And this is probably true for back then, number one, you only get canceled on one platform at a time. Yeah. So if you're getting canceled on Twitter, you're probably actually safe on Instagram.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Phil DeFranco]

Or if it happens over on TikTok, you're probably safe on YouTube. Right. There's, like, that part of it. But there's a secondary thing for a lot of these personalities now, they've learned as long as you can survive that week, you're good. Yeah. Especially the streamers. I see a streamer get canceled on a Tuesday. By Thursday, they're doing some other wild shit. So we're talking about the new wild thing.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Not the fact they did this other. So this for him. He was like, all right, I got busted doing the hair.

[Mrs. P]

Well, I also.

[Phil DeFranco]

What if I get. What, did you take a picture of me with the Attorney General and we're wearing big scarves.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. But I was also thinking that, like, this is very. Trump at the UFC fights.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

You know, with Guy Fieri.

[Phil DeFranco]

No, listen, there is literally a moment. Recently, I saw this clip. Joe Rogan was claiming that Trump getting booed at the Knicks wasn't real.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because it was like. No, it was more mixed as the first thing. It wasn't. Everybody. Everybody was. We covered it on Crashing out this week. Fucking everybody was booing. You were sitting next to me on the couch.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. He wouldn't stop watching the booing clips.

[Phil DeFranco]

I just. Everyone. A new angle. I could, babe. A new angle. A new angle.

[Mrs. P]

But so, again, to paint a picture from my perspective.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You were sitting on the other couch. I was sitting in the big chair where I read the books to the kid.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

And you're sitting on the chair, you're looking at your phone swiping, and all I hear is deep, deep booing. And then you're giggling like. Like a little kid kicking your feet.

[Phil DeFranco]

Boo.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Over and over again. And then. Then that one woman. Are you scrolling?

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Boo.

[Phil DeFranco]

So. So when. So Rogan recently had a guest on. And Rogan said he was like, no, I've seen Trump get walked out. UFC fights. Everybody's cheering, everybody's cheering. And then somebody posted a clip from like two and a half or three years ago.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Talking about Rogan, who is a ufc. Joe Rogan's UFC announcer. Yeah. Talking about Trump getting mercilessly booed at UFC events.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Years prior. Because they didn't have the psyop gun aimed at the entire MMA algorithm at that point. Well, but, yeah, this is just. But this, the idea of fights, especially the fights, aren't ever about the actual fight that's happening in there. It's about being scene. It's a gladiatorial combat. It's also a visceralness to them. And then attaching yourself to this, especially

[Mrs. P]

Jackson men like to watch scandalously dressed other strong men beat each other up.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Anyway, in about eight hours, you can watch that on the White House lawn because this episode's being released the same day. Happy birthday, Mr. President. You don't have CTE anywhere near as close to the fighters that you just watched get bludgeoned on your front lawn. Or it rained. I don't know. We episode, Rain, Rain, Come on, rain.

[Mrs. P]

So the strategy worked. I know. Because then they'll just keep doing it. They don't care about people. So it'll rain and then they'll be all wet and fighting each other and shirtless. Pride Month.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

So this strategy works. Luciano's reputation was saved. Everybody's like, no, this guy's classy and cool.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He wears fine designer clothes. He smells of good perfumes and colognes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And he probably smokes good cigars.

[Phil DeFranco]

Big fish, fat cigars he puts in his mouth and he sucks on.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So by 1925, Luciano was grossing over $12 million per year, which is a

[Phil DeFranco]

lot of money back then, and made

[Mrs. P]

a personal income of about 4 million per year, running an illegal gambling and bootlegging operations in New York and Philadelphia. In New York City now, Lucky and Vito Genovese at this point are creating what is now known as the Genovese crime family. Okay, okay. This is a big deal. The Genovese crime family is like one of the most notorious, well known crime families in the country.

[Phil DeFranco]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. Lucky Luciano becomes the dominant crime boss, by the way, because again, we've talked about who trained him. The guy that trained him was kill them all and then recruit everybody else.

[Phil DeFranco]

Lucky is Doing a little bit of a pivot on this. The other guy was just like, murder in the streets. And he's like, what are your thoughts on Rent? Yeah. What about portfolio diversification, which is a big part. I mean, this is. Yeah. This is part of the change in the. The Mob versus the Mafia versus, as you're looking even further down. Yeah. It's about control levels that you get. And when you go back to the Five Points era, it's dudes literally just beating the shit each other in the streets.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And then slowly, over time, it's just the. Okay. It's almost like the filibuster.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. Are we going to speak? No, but we don't have the votes to stop you, so let's just call it the day.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And Tammany hall played a lot of.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Which back in the day, which is a big New York political machine, Democratic.

[Mrs. P]

So Lucky Luciano becomes super dominant crime boss. He had reached the pinnacle of the underworld. He was setting policies and directing activities for almost all the other Mafia bosses. So he was like kingpin.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, Right.

[Mrs. P]

Like the other guys are meeting with him and he's telling them how the criminal rackets are going to go. Right.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. He's basically the chairman of the board. Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He was doing illegal gambling, extortion, bookmaking, loan sharking, drug trafficking. And then he becomes very influential in labor union activities.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Because he controlled the Manhattan waterfront and there was a lot of money to be made in the Manhattan waterfront. In the ports, he was in charge. Or he had his hands in garbage hauling, construction, garment district businesses, trucking, port authorities like the boats and stuff. And when we come back from break, I want to talk to you about some other waterfront stuff he got into.

[Phil DeFranco]

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[Mrs. P]

Let me tell you something. Factor came in clutch this week. We've had a sick toddler. It's been incredibly difficult to get a meal, let alone think about, oh, what, vegetables, protein starches? No. Two minutes in the microwave. We have a meal and we know it's healthy and fresh.

[Phil DeFranco]

We had to do it in shifts. You left, you did your two minute meal. You shoveled it into your mouth. You went, I feel delicious. And just the right amount of full. Then I walked into the kitchen and I did the same thing, except I ate mine over the sink. It's a different world. Factor's menu changes all the time, just like your life. So keep an eye out for new dishes. Next week's menu has pulled barbecue chicken, perfect for summer. Factor also has delicious breakfast options, snacks and drinks. Try the apple cinnamon, overnight oats and and cold pressed juices for nutrition. On the go, head to factor meals.com too many 50 off. And use code too many 50 off to get 50% off. And free daily greens per box. New subscriptions only while supplies last until September 27, 2026. See website for more details. And thank you for sponsoring this show. Thank you Factor. And we are back.

[Mrs. P]

And we're at the waterfront. Oh, Ferris wheels, roller coasters. No, it's not that kind of waterfront. No, this is Doc Supports.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, this is Doc. This is dark piers and barrels and shipping containers. Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So the waterfront is incredibly important now in Manhattan. In Manhattan at this time for Lucky Luciano. But here's the problem. He gets arrested.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, no.

[Mrs. P]

For pandering.

[Phil DeFranco]

Pandering.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Like Bo Burnham pandering. No, I'm kidding. That's what they called what we would call compulsory prostitution back then.

[Phil DeFranco]

Pimping.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, so we got. He got. They called it pandering.

[Mrs. P]

They called it pandering back then.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. Cuz. What? Okay.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know why.

[Phil DeFranco]

I'm just trying to. I'm trying to picture.

[Mrs. P]

As soon as I saw that he got arrested for pandering, I, like, literally pictured Bo Burnham singing that song.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Pandering.

[Mrs. P]

And I was like, wait, what? But then I looked up. Okay, wait, he gets set to Sing Sing. Okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Sing Sing is a prison.

[Mrs. P]

When he gets sent to Sing Sing Prison.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And while he's there, he's still running the Mafia family.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Just like inside. Yeah. He's like doing the sliced garlic with the thin razor. Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Just like Kingpin.

[Mrs. P]

No, that's Goodfellas, isn't it?

[Phil DeFranco]

I don't know.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's been a while since. But I'm saying in general, like. Yeah, like one of the things with Kingpin and Al Capone. Yeah. And. And a lot of these guys putting them in jail never cut them off.

[Mrs. P]

No, it just took a little break.

[Phil DeFranco]

They take a little break, but they still have connections to the outside. They can always get messages.

[Mrs. P]

And you sometimes get treated better. Al Capone, famously. His prison cell in Philly, luxurious.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Across the street from where we met at Eastern State penitentiary.

[Mrs. P]

That's where we met.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, we met across the street. Yeah, we met that. We met across the street from a prison.

[Mrs. P]

Do you think that means Al Capone blessed our marriage?

[Phil DeFranco]

I think we've been blessed by many things.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Hot dogs.

[Phil DeFranco]

Hot dogs.

[Mrs. P]

So here's the thing. He stops, he eventually steps down. Lucky. He's gonna step down from the crime family. Vito Genovese is going to take over.

[Phil DeFranco]

And they allowed him to retire.

[Mrs. P]

They. Oh, well, here's the thing. He actually goes on, like, this weird side quest adventure where he goes to Cuba to do business in Cuba and he ends up becoming, like, best friends with Frank Sinatra. And then he gets forcibly brought back to America and then forcibly deported to Italy. There's all kinds of stuff that goes on. But I need to get past Lucky.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

We got to get in the veto

[Phil DeFranco]

because a lot, a lot happened there very rapidly that you said. And I was like, so many different things I could do. Tie ins to know. But we're just going to skip all that.

[Mrs. P]

Skip it. Let's get back to the waterfront docks and ports. Here's the thing that these Mafiosos noticed.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

There's a lot of young men coming in and out of the ports because they're like fish. Yeah. They're looking for jobs, they're looking for homes. They're coming in from different countries. They probably left their family behind in some cases. And so they. They're trying to basically get as much money out of these guys as they can. So they're doing gambling, they're alcohol, immigration coming. Yeah, there's gambling, there's the. The alcohol. So they're finding all these ways to make money off of every man that's coming off of a boat, right?

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And they find this one extra thing that I didn't mention that these guys are looking for a little bit of gay stuff.

[Phil DeFranco]

What? Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The Genovese crime family is like, okay, so we've got booze and we've got venues, we've got security guards and we've got the cops on payroll. Let's open up some underground gay bars.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

And they're gonna corner this market for, like, decades.

[Phil DeFranco]

So the Genovese crime family was running gay bars across New York.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So I wanted to kind of like take that knowledge and, and filter it down to one specific group of mafiosos. These four guys from the Genovese crime family. They go and buy a restaurant at 5153 Christopher St. For $3,500 in 1966. Fat Tony pays $2,000 for the restaurant. His three business partners, Zuki Zarfus, Tony the Sniff, and Joey, each paid 500 bucks.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, so that.

[Mrs. P]

So we know who's in charge. Fat Tony is in charge.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yep, yep, yep.

[Mrs. P]

And then Zuki, Tony the Sniff, and Joey.

[Phil DeFranco]

And these are just four guys making a nice place for these fellas to dance together.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, what's the place?

[Mrs. P]

Now? This gay bar is called the Stonewall Inn.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, it's the Stonewall.

[Mrs. P]

The Stonewall Inn.

[Phil DeFranco]

The Stonewall in the Stonewall Inn. I've driven past there, like, multiple times. Yeah, yeah. Every time I end up in New York, I always end up like.

[Mrs. P]

Well, we stayed in. We stayed in hotels where you can, like, see it out the window.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah. But no, there's. There's one, though, where I've driven past there, and most, like, really bright over here, like Stonewall. I'm like, oh, yes.

[Mrs. P]

Nice. After acquiring the building, the owners renovated the exterior, blacked out the windows for privacy, reinforced the wooden front doors with steel plates in anticipation of police raids. The new operators added peepholes, several locks to the front door, and they removed columns that flanked the original entrance. The operators also placed two by four pieces of wood behind the windows so police couldn't easily enter through windows during raids.

[Phil DeFranco]

So they. They basically just fortified the entire building against police raids.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

And they said, get in here, Queens. Yeah. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Stonewall's owners could not obtain a liquor license because the state laws in 1960 did not allow bartenders to legally serve LGBT Q people. While homosexuality was legal in the state of New York, establishments openly serving alcohol to gay customers were considered by the state liquor authority to be, quote, disorderly houses or places where, quote, unlawful practices are habitually carried out in public. So the SLA refused to issue liquor licenses to most gay bars. And several popular establishments had liquor license suspended or revoked for, quote, indecent conduct.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because there was, like. I think there was rules against, like, men dancing together. You could be gay, but you couldn't do gay stuff.

[Mrs. P]

Don't do gay things.

[Phil DeFranco]

Doing gay stuff was illegal.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Being gay. There was also some stuff, too, in there about the American Psychology Association. Some others of, like, there was. There's a handbook that goes out, and it was years, decades of people activists pushing against it to get homosexuality moved off of the list of mental disorders.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

And just being like, no, it's. Being gay is normal. That's all. These are all newer ideas in the American system. In a lot of other different cultures, it's Very different, but that's very interesting. So Stonewall Inn didn't have a liquor license.

[Mrs. P]

No. It was considered a private club. So that was a loophole. So you had a private club like the Pen and Pencil and so Philly. Private club.

[Phil DeFranco]

Shout out, which they can say in Philly. They can stay open later.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And they have. You can still smoke in some of them. There's rules. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Private club. Because it's not you. You have to, like, be a part of the club. These people had to sign in a book when they went there, and they'd all use fake names.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. You'd be signing, become a member.

[Mrs. P]

But they would be like, we can serve alcohol because it's a private club. And then they would do that thing where it's like a BYO like, oh, no, we're just. We're just providing ice.

[Phil DeFranco]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

You know what I mean? Like, there was all these different loopholes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Every hookah bar.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. All these different loopholes they use. But the private club was the biggest one because that they didn't have to hold a liquor license. That being said, Fat Tony was like, we're gonna do it whether we have the private club or the liquor license or not. They were worried about following the law.

[Phil DeFranco]

No, that's what I am.

[Mrs. P]

According to the owners, they acquired this private club's license for Stonewall. They intended to serve LGBTQ people without obtaining the license. So they openly stated for. You know.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, they're like, we're gonna do like, we're the mob. It's cheaper for them to pay off cops.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Than it is for them to try to go through all of the.

[Mrs. P]

Push the bureaucracy.

[Phil DeFranco]

Bureaucracy to get this document. Yeah. Because this is the same thing. Like Amazon, UPS and others, they have a baseline for tickets. Oh, yeah, like parking tickets. Yeah. Because they just like, yeah, we're going to get them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So it's just, at this point, it is basically a kickback to the city. And it's the same sort of way for them kicking back to the local police.

[Mrs. P]

The owners controlled everything in the club. They owned the jukebox, the cigarette machine. So, like, everything inside they were making money off of. Okay. They also bribed New York City's 6 police district. They paid about $1,200 a month for the cops to turn a blind eye to the goings on of the establishment. So, yeah, they're like, we're gonna take money from the jukebox to pay off the cops, Basically.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Yeah. I miss a jukebox.

[Mrs. P]

Go. I miss a cigarette. Machine. Not even smoke. I, like, pull the little bar.

[Phil DeFranco]

You got to pull the bar.

[Mrs. P]

Let me get them Camel Crushes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I miss. I. I truly miss.

[Mrs. P]

What was the thing where you did the Mega Touch with the. The naked people?

[Phil DeFranco]

We Mega touch that. Literally. It's called Mega Touch. That's the bar game that would pop up now in Pennsylvania. It's all just literally slot machines.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

They were like, no, is there skill games here? And I watched some Sad person dump $20 in to win three.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Phil DeFranco]

But. Oh, and I missed the. The giant jukeboxes.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. That had, like, the slab. And you had to, like, spin it

[Phil DeFranco]

with the thing I liked. Because the thing is, you go to some places and the music was curated.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So I was like, yeah, this. This. Our jukebox got 50 songs.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. McGlinchey's crush.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, but. But they were all hand picked. They're not gonna have a song that we don't want to hear.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Versus when the. The mega tunes. Whatever that.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, and then you can look up whatever.

[Phil DeFranco]

Whatever. And then sometimes you have to pay extra to quote to download it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, but wasn't there a way to, like, skip to other people's songs?

[Phil DeFranco]

You could pay extra to skip other people's songs, which is evil. But also, I have a friend of mine, and he used to do this all the time. Yeah, he. There's a. There's an app.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because those things are tied to the Internet. And so they were like, no, we want to make an app. So that way you can go and. And you can pick songs. You don't have to get up from your seat. So you can play the songs in your jukebox.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

But again, it's tied to the net. So I have a buddy of mine where every time he gets mad, he goes this one, like, Super Red county in Oklahoma, and he picks random bars, like, on a Friday night where he can, like, take hell because they'll have, like, live streams and stuff like that too.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And he can tell, like, they don't have a dj, and he just, like, just starts loading it up with, like, Lady Gaga. And I'm like, what? He told me, though he only does it, like, once every couple months. He always has to uninstall because that app is stealing so much data. But you can feel your phone get hot as you use it. Because. Yeah, he's like, it's. Yeah, it's loaded with credits.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So there's no police enforcement of local laws at this point.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Fat Tony was able to cut corners on safety and hygiene, bartenders did not have access to running water behind the bar. They often serve drinks most of the time in dirty used glasses.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is also before bottled water.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So it's only. They could just have a case of bottled water, and then you're just kind of rinsing it into a slop sink. Yeah, they legit don't even have running.

[Mrs. P]

There's no running water.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's insane.

[Mrs. P]

Many gay rights groups claimed blamed the STONEWALL for the 1969 outbreak of hepatitis among its patrons.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, because they're all drink dirty glasses.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. And that's how you get hepatitis. So you're not supposed to grab them like that. Yeah, yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Not from the top.

[Mrs. P]

You're always supposed to grab the bottom.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, like this.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Not like this.

[Mrs. P]

Yep. That's how you get serv. Safe certified. Gotcha. Okay. So in violation of other city codes, Stonewall also lacked a rear exit, leaving the narrow front door the only escape in event of a fire emergency.

[Phil DeFranco]

All right, guys. All right, Everybody calm down. I gotta feel you. Right. In a real rear exit. So Stonewall jokes. Calm down.

[Mrs. P]

Don't do it.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is very similar to the story of immigrants in this country. Migrants in America. Right now, there's a big thing we pointed out repeatedly about things like sanctuary cities. The reasoning is because that what they were doing was considered illegal under the law, even though it's not immoral to being gay, but because the actions of being gay were illegal, they were immediately put into situations where there was no way to enforce the other laws.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So because they're gay, they can't get clean glasses. They aren't in a building that is up to fire code. Yeah. And the same thing you see happen with immigrant communities in the United States, especially as we've seen updates in ICE and others in these raids, they're less likely to call the police if they're being abused by a loved one or also by just the system around them. They're less likely to call L and I, because what if an L and I inspector shows up and then they give an ICE tip? You're less likely to want to touch base with any level of your government because you know that that government at any point in time will say, oh, by the way, while we're here talking about the lighting situation, you're illegal.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And I'm going to throw you in jail. And this is the exact situation they ended up with.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly. Also, the alcohol served at the bar, which was probably stolen or bootlegged, was Watered down and sold at top shelf prices. Come on. Of course.

[Phil DeFranco]

Right?

[Mrs. P]

They had water to water it down, but not clean the glasses. Wow.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, listen. At the end of the day, let's get one thing clear. Stonewall was owned by Italians. Okay? Every Italian restaurant I've ever worked in, everything was water the down. Don't ever. Oh, Mafia. Okay, no, Italian. That was. That's an Italian thing. I've seen them water down every. I've seen them water down. Ketchup catch up. I've seen it happen. All right. Out of here.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, we should have got a little. Our puppet. Or puppet. Oh, Pepe Pizzeria somewhere over there. I can see him. He's looking at me from over there.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, yes, he's on the floor over there.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

He's saying to himself, hey, it's me. I got a pepperoni for you.

[Mrs. P]

Huh?

[Phil DeFranco]

You want to open up the back of your throat for my pepperoni?

[Mrs. P]

Stonewall's owners also repeatedly engaged in extortion.

[Phil DeFranco]

No shit.

[Mrs. P]

So employees, the bartenders and other staff would single out wealthy patrons who were not out publicly, obviously, about their sexuality.

[Phil DeFranco]

Barely anyone was.

[Mrs. P]

And they would, you know, hunt for more information about them and then blackmail them for large sums of money with the threat of being outed.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So the bartenders were in on it with the. The crime bosses.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Like, if anybody came in that was actually, like, wealthy or, you know, had any power, they would have people follow them home. They would have somebody fake flirt with them to, like, get more information.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is basically this. This gay bar is basically the equivalent of a porn site that is stealing all your info.

[Mrs. P]

This practice eventually became the most profitable aspect of the club's management.

[Phil DeFranco]

It was a honey trap.

[Mrs. P]

It was a honey trap.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So they were like, at the end of the day, Fat Tony and all the others were like, oh, okay. So the money from the alcohol, the money from the jukebox, the money from the door cost this money. That money. They're also selling drugs.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because they're also the people selling any drugs. So, like, they're making. They're like. You know what, though? Nothing is as good as the blackmail money.

[Phil DeFranco]

Nothing is as good as telling a guy in a nice cufflinks that you love him and then writing his name down and saying he'll tell the New York Times.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Nothing pays as well. Anyway, come on into catfish night at the Stonewall Inn. Hey, welcome to the Stonewall Inn. I love you now. A thousand dollars.

[Mrs. P]

A thousand dollars, please.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's me, Fat Tony.

[Mrs. P]

Despite the police payoffs Mafia run establishments were not exempt from state laws, and owners were prepared for regular raids. If a bar was shut down by the police or the licensing board, most owners could pick up and relocate the entire operation to a nearby alternate space, filling it with new items and people and staff. Managers also often kept a few liquor bottles stored off premises. So in another building, in cars that were parked or in some cases, hidden behind walls and panels.

[Phil DeFranco]

So they're still doing speakeasy shit even though this is decades after prohibition has been overturned.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Because that's the other thing, too, is the mob has experience with running speakeasies from prohibition.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And this is just one big, giant gay speakeasy.

[Mrs. P]

Yes. With blackmail.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, I know, but can I say something? I hate a modern speakeasy.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, gross.

[Phil DeFranco]

I hate them when you go.

[Mrs. P]

It feels so pretentious.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's so pretentious. Oh, no, look, you have to go and you have to know the four digit code in the phone, and then it'll spin you around and put you into a bar where the cocktails are $35 and you have to wait 45 minutes to drink.

[Mrs. P]

It's called the Amaretto Scooter.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, the ice. We hand chiseled the ice. How about you hand chisel me a shot of Fireball and a Miller Light?

[Mrs. P]

I would like a crispy Diet Coke from McDonald's, please. Got one of those.

[Phil DeFranco]

I would like you to play nothing but Rihanna Jams from 2014.

[Mrs. P]

I have a peach citrus fresco. You can't. You can't do this.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, I've had some very close friends of mine who worked in speakeasy.

[Mrs. P]

I was going to say didn't. Ryan, he was the door guy there.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, there was a few guys I know that. A few guys I know that have worked at multiple different speakeasies. Not just that one. Yeah, our one friend that was a. He was a. He was a bouncer of a speakeasy in Philadelphia, and he got to tell Tiffany Trump. No, that was his. It's his big. His big claim to fame from the first term. He was like, yeah, Tiffany Trump show. Because they all went to UPenn.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And he showed up and he's like, yeah, you got to wait. No, because she showed up with, like, her friends and Secret Service. He's like, oh, so you need a table of 12 on a Saturday at 1.

[Mrs. P]

You want me to let Secret Service, aka the cops.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Into a speakeasy?

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, No, I get it. I can't tell you. I just. Now give me an entrance. Give me an easy entrance. Identifiable.

[Mrs. P]

Don't make them pay for parking.

[Phil DeFranco]

She. Don't even get me started. We went to a Cheesecake Factory yesterday, and they. The mall parking lot has premium parking now. I lost my mind. Absolutely the fuck not. They wanted me to pay $4 to park. We walked that extra block. I'm not paying $4 for mall parking. Nickel and dime me like, it's an app. I'm like, okay, well, who enforces it? Like, the security guards enforce it. Like, how are they going to make me pay? They're going to put a boot on my car? You're going to come over here. I drove all the way to fucking Delaware to go to a Cheesecake Factory. There's $4 on the app. So as an app, too. So you want to steal my data? Because I know you're selling my data on the other fucking side. There's not a guy. There's not a fucking. There's not a ticket. There's not a toll booth. Get the fuck out of here. And they put it just in front of the Cheesecake Factory because everybody knows when you go to the Christiana Mall, you're gonna go to the fucking Cheesecake Factory. Why would I want to park far from the Cheesecake Factory? I'm there to eat the fucking food and then walk around one of the last indoor malls left in America. If I didn't want. I want to park close. I don't want to pay for it. That's against the law. There's the laws in this country.

[Mrs. P]

So.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, yeah, Gay bars.

[Mrs. P]

Gay bars owners were prepared for all the raids, right? While patrons real fast.

[Phil DeFranco]

We got to stop this now, though. We have to stop premium parking. They want to. They want to put class stratification into how we park. It's one thing if you're like, that's an expensive garage. The whole garage is expensive. What do you mean, a segment. A segment of the free park? The parking lot. They didn't improve the parking lot. Just so you guys know. It was the same price, the same blacktop the entire way across. I looked. It hasn't been redone. They haven't been resealed in like 30 fucking years that the lines weren't bigger. It's not. You have premium space. At least when you're on the plane, like, you get on first, the chairs are bigger. They give you a free drink. You know, nobody makes eye contact with you unless you demand it. That's different on a plane. This is a fucking parking lot. So I can walk through The Cheesecake Factory. You're charging me so I can get fat? No, this is. This is. This is the problem with this country. We nickel and dime everything. Shit. Used to. We used to have concierge service. Used to be able to get a hot towel. Used that. People come and go, oh, welcome to the place. Would you like a glass of water? And now like $4 to park. Fuck you.

[Mrs. P]

He also said this at the restaurant.

[Phil DeFranco]

I didn't say no. No, I asked him. I was very nice. I was very nice at the restaurant. I asked the server. I go, when did that happen? They told us right before Christmas. I said, you're kidding me. They said, no, and our numbers are down and everything here sucks and it's terrible.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Our server said that they had to park all the way.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, the servers have to park.

[Mrs. P]

So at night when they get done work, they have to walk across the whole park.

[Phil DeFranco]

Empty parking lot, through an entire paywalled area. Because they park there every day.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so if they get a ticket, they will get a fucking boot. So now you're charging the servers to walk further.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Which is bullshit. So then I start looking up who owns this mall.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. I want to say we. He. We didn't talk while we were at the Cheesecake Factory because somebody was rage researching everything about this mall parking lot situation on their phone.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And yelling under the ref. Well, they hit it in a shell company.

[Phil DeFranco]

All everybody wants in this country is a fucking third space. All everybody wants is a place where they can walk through air conditioning inside, see other people, break down the walls of our fucking algorithms, leave our house, not feel isolated. And you want to fucking. You want me to pay to fucking park? The point of the mall is that the free. The common spaces are free. That's the fucking point. You know how a mall makes money? It makes money on the rent of the businesses inside of there. If you're charging me $4, I'm not going into your fucking businesses. The businesses fail, your malls go under. Oh, yes. Oh, I just got it. They're going to make them all into a data center.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So speaking of third spaces, the patrons of these bars hated the poor conditions and the known underhanded tactics that the mafia controlled gay bars and clubs were doing. Yeah, but they knew that they wouldn't have any third spaces without the mafia, so they were willing to pay the parking. Pay the door cover.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The over.

[Phil DeFranco]

And it's not like they could complain to anyone because it's literally. It's the guy going to the cops to Be like, my drug dealer shorted me.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Which I've known people who've done. I've known people who got so high they complained to police that their bag was short.

[Mrs. P]

That's actually incredible. And I love that.

[Phil DeFranco]

I know, but this is. But this, again, this is that type of stuff. This is that similar situation in a world where, you know, being gay.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Is illegal.

[Mrs. P]

Also, I do want to be extremely clear that the mob is in no way accepting of the gay lifestyle at this point in time.

[Phil DeFranco]

But when I said there's all blackmail.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, it's black.

[Phil DeFranco]

So much of it's blackmail.

[Mrs. P]

But also, I found it interesting because, like, when I was doing research about the mobs, like, kind of interface with the gay community, it wasn't actually a big deal for the people coming in through the ports and the immigrants and, like, New York at the time. Like, it was. Being gay wasn't really a thing until 1946, when the Bibles were changed. It was like, there was a big change in the Bible. And then Post World War II, there was, like, homophobia palooza, basically because of the Bible change and World War II. But before that, like, the. The immigrants were just like, yeah, sometimes I have sex with guys. Like, it wasn't. It was to be the. What we would call the bottom. Yeah, that person was gay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But the. Just guys going around having sex with other people, they were like, yeah, it happened. Whatever, dude. Yeah, we're all working together.

[Phil DeFranco]

JFK famously had a boyfriend.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

There's, like, legit. There's, like, a guy. There's, like, these pictures of JFK and this guy together.

[Mrs. P]

And are they handsome?

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, they're kind of handsome together. But when you're looking at. You're like, oh. And it's just like. Yeah, it's just what they do in college.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like, it was just like a thing like.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Until they meet their wife.

[Mrs. P]

And then the reason. This also plays into what was called the Lavender Scare and the Red scare during the 1950s. Because the US government and media tied homosexuality to the threat of communism. Gay men and lesbians were labeled as security risk masks. This was fueled by, obviously, Joseph McCarthy. The panic resulted in mass firings of LGBTQ plus federal employees. And officials claimed queer people were susceptible to blackmail and, by extension, espionage.

[Phil DeFranco]

So that. That last part is the reason why you want especially homosexuality to be legal.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So that way there isn't a fear of your guys being blackmailed or your. Or your gals is number one. Because there is. They are more susceptible because you already. You're telling us a story about how every bar they went to was making them pay protection racket to not be outed for using the bar they went to. Yeah. To go get a little kissy.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

To have a little dance.

[Phil DeFranco]

Little dance. And the thing is, is the lavender scare and the red scare, those two went together. There's a thing that happens, you hear conservatives, Nazis especially, they love to use this term cultural Marxism. They lean on that term a lot. Cultural Marxism is. It's a dog whistle.

[Mrs. P]

I was gonna say it doesn't sound.

[Phil DeFranco]

It is, but it's this idea that basically anything that isn't conservative lifestyle. So if it's not a straight heteronormative CIS lifestyle.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

That. That is being pushed by secret communist agents to destroy the fabric of the nuclear family.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is their. This is the type of things that you hear from them a lot.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so playing that in with. You have these bars that are being run by the mafia, which already obviously doesn't have a great reputation because they are criminal. So you have criminal bars that are doing criminal acts that are being run by criminal organizations that are being raided constantly. And whenever they're rated, this gets put in the paper and that entire thing goes, okay, well look, they're all criminals, you know, else is criminal. Communism.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so that's how they would tie it all together. Even though again, it's not true.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because as you look towards Russia especially, these are especially big parts of Eastern Europe, deeply homophobic societies now. Especially more post the wall falling. But this is part of it. There's that. There's these ideas that this would go. There's this idea that they're just so much more likely to do it and so they have to persecute. Is this insane idea. And you see that happening all the time today on so many different issues.

[Mrs. P]

So listen, let's take a break and when we come back, I want to talk to you about the most historic raid of this bar.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. And I need to lift my mood right before we find out about it. Some people think summer isn't relaxing anymore. But inda cloud is here to change that. Is it feeling too hot? Let the clouds give you some cover. Because whether you're watching the world cup or just enjoying the sunshine into cloud has everything you need to kick back and have fun. Soda flavored gummies and zero calorie THC sodas. Premium vapes, fat pre rolls and high quality flour THC cereal bite edibles. Perfect for a day on the couch. Staring at your Nintendo Switch, wondering, how'd I get here? Who cares? Everybody else is out. I'm just enjoying the day with the windows open. Got just the right. I'm listening to Fleetwood Mac rumors just playing in the background.

[Mrs. P]

This is a real personal endorsement right here.

[Phil DeFranco]

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[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

Bringing us dead into the next part of this episode.

[Mrs. P]

So the Stonewall Inn had an assortment of Patreon patrons. Patreons Patrons.

[Phil DeFranco]

Patrons. We have [e-mail] if you're tired of hearing these ad reads, this bar specifically

[Mrs. P]

was very popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community. Drag queens, members of the transgender community, effeminate young men, sex workers, and homeless youth.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Police raids on gay bars were frequent, occurring on average once a month for each gay bar in the city. Many bars kept extra liquor and secret panels. Ba ba. So that they could go back. During a typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up and asked for their ID cards. Those without ID or dressed in full drag were immediately arrested. Okay. Got no ID or address arrested.

[Phil DeFranco]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Anybody else would usually be allowed to leave. Women were required to be wearing three pieces of feminine clothing, and if you weren't, you'll be arrested for not wearing them.

[Phil DeFranco]

So I'm guessing so if you were a stud or if you're wearing, like, jeans, boots, and a T shirt. Yeah. You're in jail. Yeah. They're looking for, like, what, Like a skirt.

[Mrs. P]

Doesn't think it's like, what are the three skirt, heels, bra, that would.

[Phil DeFranco]

That would count Three. Big hat. Big. Big hat.

[Mrs. P]

Lady in the. The red lady society. Red hat.

[Phil DeFranco]

Red hat lady society. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

I would fail that. I would get arrested.

[Phil DeFranco]

You would get arrested right now. You would get arrested right now. Yeah. With your trans hot dog shirt. I'm over Here with my God. A yearning for hot dogs. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Well, I got pants on.

[Phil DeFranco]

You do have pants on.

[Mrs. P]

I got your nails did. Clogs. I always have my nails.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, your nails look good, obviously.

[Mrs. P]

So I've got. Look at this. I got a little strawberry bunny rabbit bracelet.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Come on.

[Phil DeFranco]

But also, can we point out again, talking about with. Again with trans, like the trans bathroom bills. Yeah. Like there's this idea that you have to be dressed a specific way so some random lunatic doesn't assume.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. You're like, no, I just was born with a more square jaw.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And also I'm just peeing. I'm just peeing.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. This is the thing that always gets me.

[Mrs. P]

I'm sitting alone in a room.

[Phil DeFranco]

The thing that always drives me insane with the trans bathroom shit is literally. We're talking about shit.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like there was someone I talked to recently, they had a whole thing about how they were at Philly International and they drove them insane going to the men's room. Because they've been to airports that have gender inclusive bathrooms where everyone just gets their own stall.

[Mrs. P]

You just get your own stall.

[Phil DeFranco]

You just get your own stall with a full door handle lock. And that was it. And it was so much more efficient because in Philadelphia International, the way the urinals are set up are like around this corner. And the first guy in the line was at some point must have been a teenager because teenage boys are terrified to use the urinal next to another man.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because they think it's gay.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

They think even though there's a divider and there's a whole other urinal.

[Mrs. P]

Parallel penises.

[Phil DeFranco]

You have to make sure there's urinal urine. Like there's. There's like mean jokes about this.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so. So there's like a way of like, like having to like break through internalized homophobia.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

To like be like, no, guys, we're all just peeing.

[Mrs. P]

We're just peeing.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like the Romans used to sit around a circle and share a vinegar sponge on a stick.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. With dipped in vinegar.

[Phil DeFranco]

But they literally just sat. They literally all sat down and just stared at each other in the eyes.

[Mrs. P]

They probably had good conversations. Philosophical.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You know who I think is behind this big toilet because toilet.

[Phil DeFranco]

American Standard.

[Mrs. P]

Think about this. We have a women's room with 10 toilets and a men's room with 10 toilets. And then God willing, a parents one with the big changing table. Yeah. That 11th toilet. Right. Or whatever. So 10 and 10. Now we have 21 toilets.

[Phil DeFranco]

You're actually Wrong. You're wrong. Because what you would end up having is you'd have eight urinals, three toilets.

[Mrs. P]

Got it. Because you guys get urinal.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because we get urinals.

[Mrs. P]

So we have all these toilets. But if you just did non gender specific. This is a bathroom. Like the bathroom in our house. It's just a bathroom. You would just have 10 bathrooms. 10 toilets instead of 20 toilets.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So I think.

[Phil DeFranco]

I also think on the cleaning side, you could do better too, if you do it as each of. If you make all of them handicap accessible.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Right.

[Mrs. P]

And then with a big changing table too.

[Phil DeFranco]

With a little sink.

[Mrs. P]

Yes. Oh, my God.

[Phil DeFranco]

Inside. So you can wash your hands. Yeah, yeah. And a door locks with a door that. With a door that is accessible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Look, we just solved the whole non issue. It was not an issue.

[Phil DeFranco]

We figured out most because we were peeing. Because we. Because the whole thing is we're going in there to take a shit. And then here's the thing. Other thing, too, is if you don't put the sink in there.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

You can do. Which I love. Communal sink.

[Mrs. P]

Love a communal sink.

[Phil DeFranco]

When you come out and there's just like a big. It's almost looks like a water table, kids water table out there. And you're all just washing your hands. Yep. Good. Because it also shame the men.

[Mrs. P]

And you got to shame them.

[Phil DeFranco]

You got to shame men and to wash their hands.

[Mrs. P]

It's weird.

[Phil DeFranco]

I want to let you all know, before COVID I don't think I ever saw men's sync turn on.

[Mrs. P]

That's weird.

[Phil DeFranco]

Men are gross.

[Mrs. P]

Men are gross.

[Phil DeFranco]

We're gross. And one of the arguments is that men shouldn't be in the women's room. Right. Because of the communal side of this.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like, and because men are so gross.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

That we would gross up the sacred cleanly space of women.

[Mrs. P]

That's true.

[Phil DeFranco]

But here's the thing. Here's the thing. I used to work in restaurants. I've cleaned a women's room. Y' all are. Y' all are gross too. You're just a different type of gross. It's just a different type of gross. That's all. Women clean up at the communal space a little bit better.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So I feel like I've never seen, like, a women's sink. That was, like, disgusting.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

I've been in men's rooms where, like, dudes have shaved in the sink.

[Mrs. P]

Ew.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like crazy shit.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. But again, that's in a matter of how often is the janitor coming so

[Mrs. P]

during a typical raid.

[Phil DeFranco]

I forgot what this is. The light Stone, by the way, this is about the stonewalling. The raid in the Stonewall.

[Mrs. P]

During the typical raid, the lights were turned on and customers were lined up. Like I said, they have. They check for IDs. Let's see. The ladies. Are the ladies wearing lady clothes? Raids typically occurred on weeknights or in the early evening when bar crowds were expected to be small.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The Stonewall raid, in contrast, was taking place late on a Friday night when the crowd was expected to be at their highest.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, so there's a reason I do want to point out people who aren't clocking it yet. The reason the raids happen on weeknights or early on the weekends during the peak days is because of the payoffs.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because this was a part of the theater. It was never. The idea was never to shut them down. They had state agents that were coming in who were saying, you guys have to hit a certain quota of doing these liquor license raids.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And then the cops were like, all right, we gotta do it. Call Fat Tony and let him know. Make sure that his high end regulars. There's higher end regulars. The ones have been paying them off, they shouldn't be there.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Tell those guys, watch out, wink, wink, nudge, Judge. Maybe don't have that one guy you like working the bar that night.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

You know what I mean? Like, that was the type of setup.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. And so what has actually happened is there is a new police chief guy, like the guy in charge of the police at the, at the precinct.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, the captain.

[Mrs. P]

The captain. There's a new captain who's come in at this point. Point.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And he's trying to re. Like redo the police precinct. Oh.

[Phil DeFranco]

You know what I mean?

[Mrs. P]

So he's like, no, we're gonna clean these streets up situations.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh. Because he wants a raise.

[Mrs. P]

So that Tony was expecting the usual treatment, but we got this new cop on the block.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. That's some. Some information I got when I was doing research. I didn't actually write it down. I don't think.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay. Yeah, no, that makes. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that immediately makes a lot of sense that some guy is going to come in. He's like, oh, I know. I'm going to make my name.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

I'll be the guy who raids gay bars more than anybody else.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And then it'll have.

[Mrs. P]

I'm going to clean the crime out of this community.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. And then. But then his stats would be higher. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So also, I think I did just say Friday night. It was actually Saturday night at 1:20am on Saturday night, June 28th.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, so that is Friday night.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Because it's Friday.

[Mrs. P]

Friday night into the morning, in the morning.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's a very wee hours of the morning.

[Mrs. P]

Four plainclothes cops and two patrol officers in uniform arrive at Stonewall Inns doors unannounced. And then they make an announcement. Police were taking the place. What? Two undercover police women and two undercover policemen had entered the bar earlier to gather visual evidence for the public moral squad and then made a phone call from the pay phone to signal these other cops to come in. Stonewall employees had not been tipped off that there was a raid occurring this night. So that like was against the normal protocol.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Approximately 200 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were completely confused. A few who realized what were hat was happening began to run for the doors and ski daddle. Yeah, okay. They went for the windows, the bathrooms.

[Phil DeFranco]

She said it's the cops.

[Mrs. P]

Literally.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The police bar the doors and lock everybody in.

[Phil DeFranco]

Obviously that's not. That's fire safe.

[Mrs. P]

The raid did not go as planned.

[Phil DeFranco]

Famously, famously. This raid at Stonewall Inn in 1969 is not go as planned.

[Mrs. P]

Standard police procedure. Like I said, they're going to line them up, we're going to check IDs. Ba ba. The officers would normally arrest any trans women or drag queens. However, the women refused to go with the officers and men were refusing to produce identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station. So they're like, we're arresting everybody. Usually we let some people go, but we're going to take everybody. Right.

[Phil DeFranco]

Part of that too is scare tack. Attacking for the rest of the crowd is what they're trying is. Okay, so because this guy's being. You guys have all been in that class. You all have been in that class. Because Mrs. P didn't bring gum for everybody. Now no one's allowed to have Starburst.

[Mrs. P]

Wait, what?

[Phil DeFranco]

It was Starbursts. Oh, yeah, the extra bag of Starburst.

[Mrs. P]

Lemon Starburst.

[Phil DeFranco]

But you know what I mean, like they pick up. They pick random people. And in this case they're probably trying to pit.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

The drag queens in particular against the guys who are not showing ID and blah, blah. You know, this guy over here. Come on, you, you'll be act. You'll act nice. You'll tell the rest to calm down.

[Mrs. P]

So all parties, people that were interviewed about this Event recalled that there was a sense of discomfort spreading quickly through the crowd. And it began because some of the police officers sexually assaulted some of the lesbians, feeling them up inappropriately while frisking them.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So immediately people are just like, way on guard.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

There's a bunch of beer and liquor that is being like, pulled out by some cops and taken to the curb. But the booze patrol wagons hadn't arrived yet, so the patrons were forced to wait outside. The ones that are like in cuffs are getting lined up outside with the booze. We're all waiting for police wagons. This was poorly organized. New cop.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

New guy in charge. And plan this out.

[Phil DeFranco]

Well, because again, this is also probably one of those situations where they're so used, like, well, how do we do it? This is how we do it. But they're not used to going on a Saturday morning at 1am they wouldn't

[Mrs. P]

normally have 28 cases of beer, 19 bottles of hard liquor, blah, blah, blah. Because they would have only had a case of beer because they knew they were getting raided. Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And they would have made sure there's only like 12 guys in there. So that way they could have a number to see, say, hey, look, we did raid it. Yeah. There wouldn't have been 200 people.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

Half of, you know, with a big number in drag.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And like just that. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Those who were not arrested were released from the front door area. But they did not leave quickly like they usually did. They didn't run away scared, which is what would normally have happened in the past. Instead, they just stood outside and watched what was going on. And a huge crowd began to grow. Because people, you're in downtown New York. People are seeing commotion.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They're. They're in their windows going, what's going on down there? They're walking by.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's also 1:00am Probably 2:00am at this. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

You're like, go to sleep.

[Phil DeFranco]

You had. But you also have now the nightlife. This is Saturday, this is Friday night. Nightlife in New York in 1969.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, it was probably so fun, dude.

[Phil DeFranco]

Long before Fortnite. So everybody under 25 is in, is out.

[Mrs. P]

Outside, baby. Right outside. Hot girl. Summer.

[Phil DeFranco]

They're outside.

[Mrs. P]

The crowd begins to grow outside. And within minutes, 100 to 150 people had congregated outside. So we started with approximately 200 in the bar.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Now we have an extra 150 outside

[Phil DeFranco]

the bar because also to the. Remember, the bar is also open and bars throughout the night, people come in and out of them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So There are people who are coming to the bar because they were going to go end the night at Stonewall. Yeah. And now they're showing up. You're like, what do you mean it's been raided?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. There's like, what's going on?

[Phil DeFranco]

It's Friday.

[Mrs. P]

It's Friday night.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's Friday night.

[Mrs. P]

Although the police forcibly pushed and kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers that had been released began performing for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in exaggerated fashions. Drag show, full drag show. Fully in the streets.

[Phil DeFranco]

They're basically doing Paris is Burning now.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Fully in the streets. The crowd begins to applause and encourage the show. Right. Because now we're doing it. Now we're doing it. The first patrol wagon arrives. Okay. The, the police officer recalled that the crowd, whom they assumed were mostly homosexual, had become very quiet. Listen, yo, that's a bad sign.

[Phil DeFranco]

No.

[Mrs. P]

You got 200 gay people on a Friday night out at a bar and it got quiet. I got chills thinking about it. Right.

[Phil DeFranco]

Pink Pony Club. I, I, yeah. I just want to tell you right now, if you're ever in a situation and 200 people are quiet, get out. Looking at you.

[Mrs. P]

Get out of that situation and you're

[Phil DeFranco]

not on stage, get out of it. You gotta go, you gotta make it. There is an eeriness. Imagine if you're walking in Manhattan. Yeah. You come, you get out of your car and there's 200 people looking at you like this. Yeah. I'd go, I'd be like, oh, no.

[Mrs. P]

Nope, I'm somewhere wrong.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. Mind you, also, Again, this is 1969. This is, we've had now at this point, like multiple, multiple years, the 60s, especially the summers in the 60s, is just riots on riots on riots. So, like, there's a feeling, there's a, there's a palpable feeling in the air in the heat of the late 60s. Yeah. Between the MLK riots, things happening around the Vietnam War, the, everything having to do with students.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

There's, there's been this, you have this feeling this blow off is coming.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And so this is, this is that moment.

[Mrs. P]

So the police first begin escorting Mafia members to the first wagon, Right. So they're, they're starting to put people in the police wagons. And at first they put the Mafia members and the whole crowd of bystanders begins cheering, like, yeah, rest of you, Fat Tony.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, whatever. Yeah, look at him, Johnny Zuko.

[Mrs. P]

Then the office officers shove a person in drag, who responds by hitting him on the head with her Purse the cop, then clubs her over the head with the police club. And the crowd begins aggressively booing. Then they begin throwing pennies at them. Then they begin throwing beer bottles at them. Then what happens is there begins a rumor spread through the crowd. And, like, I don't. Rumor implies lie. I don't know if it's a lie, but it starts going through the crowd that the. There's still patrons in the bar who are being beaten by the cops.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So people are getting really mad now. Another scuffle breaks out because the cops pull a woman out of the bar in handcuffs. But the thing is, she had, like. They keep trying to get her into this police wagon, but she keeps getting away from them, like four different times. And every time they catch her, she's swearing, shouting, punching, kicking. It takes about 10 minutes to get her to the wagon door. Basically, she had been hit on the head by an officer with a baton. And one witness claimed she was hit because she complained that the handcuffs were too tight. When she's finally getting pushed into the police wagon, she screams at the crowd, why don't you guys do something? And after this, this is the moment where the crowd becomes violent.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. So there's that.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

There's also a moment because I've. I've been near some near riots and like, moments like that. The scariest thing for whether it be a cop or anyone who is supposed to be in the crowd control, is to ever hear someone in the crowd yell, they can't get all of us. Yeah, that's the scariest moment. That's when you should. Hey, drop.

[Mrs. P]

Can't get all of us.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, drop your shield and run, boy. Because they can't. They really can't. And that in that moment, an invincibility happens inside people's heads. They go from if I step over this line, I will get hit. To if we step over this line, I probably.

[Mrs. P]

Numbers game.

[Phil DeFranco]

Somebody else might get hit.

[Mrs. P]

Numbers game.

[Phil DeFranco]

And this is also down at a time when, again, as we've seen over the last few years now, now we have things like LRADs. Now we have different police tactics right now. There's flock cameras. The person, the woman you're describing in the handcuffs. I saw something very similar happen in Minnesota around the ice protest there of people being handcuffed and actually getting away.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Getting away with the handcuffs on. But the downside was, is I saw it on film.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

So it will be tracked. There's flock cameras. There's. All of us carry devices in our pockets and we think, oh, this is interesting, we want to get it out there. But in reality, we're uploading people, people's faces to AI data centers. There's layers to it now. But the thing is, is those layers, just like they were dealing with in the 60s, are designed to make you pre afraid to do anything.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And it's the same thing that this crowd was feeling up until that moment. Up until that moment, they were separated across dozens of gay bars across New York. They were separated by the different levels of the amount of money they had, how out they were, how, how visibly gay they were, whether or not their friends and family knew, whether or not their job would know. Does it matter any of those? And they were also being cornered. They were being picked off of the pack one by one by either the mafia who was demanding blackmail, or by the police who was demanding a different form of blackmail in the fines they were doing in the pickup raids and others that were happening. And we have that same sort of feeling when it comes in these moments today in 2026 of will this get a knock on your door?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Will this cost you your job? Will libs of TikTok go and get mad at you for your Charlie Kirk joke type of shit? Right. And now we're getting into a point just so everybody knows. We're getting closer and closer to a point where they've done it to enough people that people are beginning to ask, why aren't you doing anything? And then someone's going to notice. They can't get all of us. We just finished a sold out show here in New York City. And it was. The energy was amazing. Phil. It was great. You had a chant going. It got weird, it got fun, it got crazy. But we have more coming because we go. We are going to be doing live shows in Seattle, Portland, Boston, Philly, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, St. Paul, D.C. and Pittsburgh crashing out toward dot com. Get your tickets now or check the link in both of our bios. What a spot for an ad break.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so the police tried to restrain some of the crowd. Yeah, they knock a few people down, you know, on purpose in 1969. But this incited bystanders even more. Some of those people that were handcuffed in the wagon escaped because the police left them unattended. So they all jump out of the wagon, handcuffed, and make a run for it. Then after the wagons are empty now, some of the people in the crowd flip the police wagons, hashtag, go birds, flip the wagon. Then some other people go and Slash some cop tires so they can't drive away.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But most of the. A lot of the cops actually flee the scene. They don't talk about this a lot, but there's a lot of people that were there that said a lot of cops fled the scene because they're like,

[Phil DeFranco]

I don't get paid enough to get punched by someone wearing that many rings.

[Mrs. P]

No, literally, they were so embarrassed. They were so. They did not want to be seen as getting beat up by the gay community.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's so.

[Mrs. P]

They were like, I. Oh, no, I'm just driving back to the precinct, whatever. Like, I don't know. Like, I. There was just.

[Phil DeFranco]

Guys, my shift's up. I got my shift. I gotta go. I gotta go. Those queens got bricks.

[Mrs. P]

The commotion attracted more and more people.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And people were, like, running down the street and being like, you'll guess what's happening over at Stonewall.

[Phil DeFranco]

Again. The worst time of the night to possibly do this. The only other time that would have been worse, actually, I would say is probably like 10:30 or 11.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Someone in the crowd declared that the bar. By declared, I mean screamed. Someone screamed they didn't pay off the cops, which someone else yelled, well, let's pay them. And they started throwing coins at the cops again, which. There's something so funny about throwing coins at cops. I can't.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They also start.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is why they. This is why they push crypto.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. They don't want to step back to coins anymore.

[Phil DeFranco]

They don't want.

[Mrs. P]

They don't build the penny anymore.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. They got rid of the penny because

[Mrs. P]

we knew we'd throw pennies.

[Phil DeFranco]

I do want to say, if you get it, if you get a quarter flick where you point your elbow and you flick it. That stings.

[Mrs. P]

Got them.

[Phil DeFranco]

That stings.

[Mrs. P]

They're screaming pigs. They're throwing beer cans.

[Phil DeFranco]

Well. And real fast. I know you mentioned it somewhere in here. You did mention that the. The. The mob called these fairy bars.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And I just love the idea of just being like, who is that? It's the Fairy Archers, and they're just chucking quarters at cops. Like, it would look like Helms Deep loose. Ha. Like, I just. Just seeing these Irish cops. I don't get paid enough of this. I gotta go. I gotta go.

[Mrs. P]

Irish cops that were installed by the Five Points gang only a few centuries earlier.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. I love it.

[Mrs. P]

The police lash out more, disperse. They try to disperse the crowd and push the crowd more. But here's the thing. As they disperse the crowd, there's a construction site Nearby that has what? Stacks and stacks of bricks.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay, timeout. Timeout real quick. We've seen this happen. We have saw it happen in 2020. I recently saw it happen also in Minnesota.

[Mrs. P]

And it's touched the bricks. It's a trap.

[Phil DeFranco]

There's been times where along certain routes, people have noticed that pallets of bricks have showed up. Those are plants.

[Mrs. P]

This situation, this is where the cops learned about that.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes, this is. This is pretty close to where it happened. In this situation, there literally is a construction site. Oh, yeah, the fence is open right here. Hey, there's a pile of bricks inside of a construction site. That makes sense.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

But if you're walking down the street and then you go, what's that pallet of bricks doing there? The pal of bricks is waiting for you to fucking touch them.

[Mrs. P]

And that's why you should bring a can of soup for your family. So the. They're got. The police are currently outnumbered by approximately 600 people who have gathered in this area with bricks and beer bottles and pennies.

[Phil DeFranco]

And for people who don't know Christopher street, like, this intersection is pretty wide. Yeah, this is, like a bigger area. It's not like this is on a narrow New York side street. That's like a little park alley. It's a little part that's like. It's like a center island.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Now, I don't know if it was the same way back then, but. But, like, the space. Every time I've ever gone past stone, I've always been kind of struck by how much space you could spill into the street on. Yeah, it's a little bit wide. It was like. There's a lot of things in here that checkpoints of like, oh, you fucked up choosing this location. Yeah, like, the cops truly fucked up this location.

[Mrs. P]

The 10 cops barricade themselves inside the bar with several handcuffed detainees for, quote, their own safety. Okay. Now, there was one of the people that was a detainee. His name was Howard Smith. He was a writer for the Village Voice. And I found this quote from the Village Voice, which was a newspaper at the time for the gay community. It says, we all have had a collective feeling like we've had enough of this kind of shit. It wasn't anything tangible anybody said to anyone, anybody else. It was just kind of like everything over the years had come to a head at. On this one particular night in this one particular place. And it was not an organized demonstration. Yeah, the Stonewall was a place of gathering for people who were not welcome in or could not afford other places of homosexual gathering. The Stonewall became homes to these kids when it was raided. They fought for it and they had nothing to lose that.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes. And this is the thing, as you've mentioned a few times here, like, again, Stonewall was not the only gay bar.

[Mrs. P]

No.

[Phil DeFranco]

But also, as we know from seeing so many different levels of wealth and inequality in this country, is there are some people, when they have enough money, they can dodge all of this. And so the people who were there were the ones who had had to flee their homes from other places because of unacceptance. You're talking about people who are unhoused. So we have a lot of. There's a lot of runaways and others that would hang there. These are people that weren't accepted because they were too flamboyant.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Or they didn't have the money to be able to go to the higher, higher echelon.

[Mrs. P]

But also, just being a person of color, being a trans person, was very looked down upon by the LGBTQ community at the time, because they didn't even use that.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, they need that terminology.

[Mrs. P]

And being a drag queen.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. LGBTQ was embedded after this. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So, like, the. The people that were there were considered, quote, the bad gays.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Right. Like, it was like they were the other of the others.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. I always think of the Patrick Stewart. There's this clip from Patrick Stewart from this movie where he plays. He plays a gay man, like, sitting with his boyfriend, talking about, especially in the 90s, there was always this push for, we're normal gays. Yeah, look at us. And he was like, oh, look at you. But it's just a very. It's such a great quote from this movie. I referenced it in a video a long time ago. But there's. There was a huge push on this. And because of that, you end up. It's actually right now what you're seeing, the LGB community, there's these people. I get the T out type of bullshit. They're all being pushed by the J.K. rowlings of the world. Again, they're trying to do a thing of. No, no. Being lesbian, gay, or bisexual. That's different than being trans.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

But what everyone learned in this moment at the Stonewall is if they can do it to one of you, they'll do it to all of you. And they always will do that. And tokens get fucking spent. Just keep that. Keep that shit in mind, everybody.

[Mrs. P]

It is said that the protesters lit garbage on fire and stuffed it through the broken windows as and Then the police were grabbing a fire hose, but the fire hose had no water pressure, so it was ineffective at dispersing the crowd around the bar. Marsha P. Johnson later said that it was the police that had started the fire in the bar, which in my opinion is probably true because the main inspector that I was talking about, he really wanted to close down this bar and he intended to dismantle the Stonewall that night. So the cops had actually smashed the payphones, broken the toilets, the mirrors, the jukeboxes, cigarette machine, everything. So why wouldn't they burn it down? That's just my opinion.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah. And it wouldn't shock me too, of just as they were smashing stuff, especially if you're smashing bottles of alcohol. Yeah. And this is back when you could smoke every. Everywhere. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

That.

[Phil DeFranco]

You know, a bottle of low end vodka getting a cigarette ash in it is just a Molotov.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Or just the cops try to burn it down.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, but I'm saying. But in the smashing, I'm saying, yeah, smashing. The burning could also happen. We have three different stories. I don't believe that they were trying to burn their own bar down. Yeah. If they're fighting to save it.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Phil DeFranco]

You wouldn't burn it down.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. But the newspapers at the time were like, oh, they tried to burn it.

[Phil DeFranco]

They're trying to smoke them out.

[Mrs. P]

It's like, why would you burn a ground park? So when all this violence is breaking out, the women and trans masculine people that were arrested were held down the street at the women's house of detention. And here's the thing, the women's house, attention. I looked, it's literally at the end of the street from the Stonewall. You could, they could see it from. If they're on like the second or third floor of the detention center.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, wow.

[Mrs. P]

Right. So these women and trans masculine people that were arrested, they're screaming from the windows, gay rights, gay rights. And they're lighting their shirts on fire and throwing them out the window. They're grabbing things from inside the jail and throwing them out the window and screaming at the people on the street to fight for gay rights. And I have a quote, a historian, Hugh Ryan, said when I would talk to people about Stonewall, they would tell me, the night on Stonewall, we looked to the prison because we saw women rioting and chanting, gay rights, gay rights, gay rights.

[Phil DeFranco]

I'm just picturing on that street there had to be some old person who was just trying to sleep. And it's a hot night, it's pre Air conditioning. So the windows open like, okay, come on. I come.

[Mrs. P]

I'm going to tell you exactly who it was. His name was Bob Cole Kohler swat. The SWAT team arrives to try to free the cops that are trapped inside Stonewall that trap themselves, by the way.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

This guy Bob, who was walking his dog before bed, happened to be walking his dog by Stonewall. That night, saw the SWAT team arrive and he had a quote for the newspaper. These cops were totally humiliated. This never ever happened. These cops were angrier than, I guess they had ever been at anybody who had ever rioted before. Now I'm saying this is the quote. But the. Anybody could riot. But the fairies were not supposed to riot. No group had ever forced the cops to retreat before. So the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill them. That's crazy, because that's the thing. These cops are extra bad that it's a gay community.

[Phil DeFranco]

Because like I was saying before, everyone had. There had been so many riots, there have been so many uprisings that had already happened. And there had been this palpable feeling. Yeah. For years. There's a reason why Nixon won the year before 1968. Nixon came a law and order. The moral. There's the silent majority, where the ones are actually gonna come in here. But again, you also see, just like we're seeing right now, there are always these moments where it seems like the right wing swings and then people go, okay, well, we. You don't want to do it the. The nice way, then let's go try this way. And this is kind of this. That sort of moment. Nixon was coming in and telling the cops to go, beep, beep people. Dixon is coming in and telling them to be more to scare crowds away. And then the crowds were like, oh, there's enough of us.

[Mrs. P]

Yup. The SWAT formed a military formation behind shields and attempted to clear the streets by marching slowly and trying to push the crowd back. The mob openly mocked the police while the cr. The crowd began cheering and starting impromptu kick lines and singing and kick lining towards the police.

[Phil DeFranco]

A cancer for my family.

[Mrs. P]

A can can for my family against the swat.

[Phil DeFranco]

That is so. Imagine trying to be intimidating. Yeah. And they're doing kick. Come on.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, come on.

[Phil DeFranco]

Imagine. Imagine you're trying to pretend like you're an orc. You're one of the Uruk Hai marching towards Helm's Deep. And in front of you is 600 gaze, just hissing, doing Chicago. Just. Yeah, just. Oh, that's so incredible.

[Mrs. P]

He had it coming.

[Phil DeFranco]

He had it coming. I Don't know if that was the music that wasn't happen so something for everyone. A comedy tonight.

[Mrs. P]

An owner of a local bookshop reported watching police chase participants through the streets, only to see them appear around the next corner behind the police.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's Scooby Doo shit. That's like the Scooby Doo hallway run.

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Phil DeFranco]

Is that her? Benny Hill.

[Mrs. P]

That's what I was picturing is Benny Hill is like the cops with the billy clubs chase a guy and then all of a sudden they're behind him.

[Phil DeFranco]

There's this one shot on every year from Chicago, I think was last year.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Of some dude talking shit on like ICE or dhs, like in the streets. And he's like on one of those like rental bikes and he like drops his phone and they start running towards him. As he drops his phone, he scoops it up and he gets away on the bicycle. And then like I don't remember if he circles back, but emotionally it feels like he's like.

[Mrs. P]

And you're slow.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like it just feels that way. There's so many times like that where you see these fucking losers.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And they're stupid masks.

[Mrs. P]

By 4am the streets had been nearly cleared. Many people sat on stoops and gathered nearby at the park throughout the morning, dazed in disbelief at what been what had transpired. Many witnesses remembered a surreal and eerie quiet that descended upon Christopher street and electricity in the air. One person commented, there was a certain beauty in the aftermath of the riot. It was obvious, at least to me, that a lot of people really were gay. And you know, this was our street. Thirteen people had been arrested, some in the crowd were hospitalized and four police officers were injured. On the next day, June 28, people came to stare at the burned down blackened Stonewall Inn. Graffiti appeared immediately on the walls of the burned out bar declaring, drag power. They invaded our rights. Support gay power. Legalize gay bars. And my personal favorite, we are open.

[Phil DeFranco]

Like good clerks. Yes, we are open. I can go back real fast to the thing about not being alone. Yeah. This has been a thing that is growing because the isolation, isolation and solitary confinement that we are causing ourselves through our apps. This has been a thing that this how they win, how they get control. It's making you feel like not only are you a minority, but you're alone. And even though these were gay men in a gay neighborhood, the neighborhood itself to didn't even know who it was because they didn't even know who their neighbors were. And it wasn't until they were all dragged out of a dark bar into the streets and then the community start to come together. Because again, again, think about this. With a bar or any of these, like places, people are cycling through. Sure, you see the same faces every now and then, but you don't know. Yeah, you don't know they. You don't know their story. And until you're standing next to someone else and you're both screaming gay rights and throwing quarters at a cop. Yeah, there's a moment there where like that is different than sitting off to the side and picking up the Village Voice and being like, we should have more representation. Yeah, there's a difference in there. And it's the same thing I've been screaming when I went to all these conferences in the last week. Yeah, we got to figure out how to get that online offline. I love that you guys write comments. I love that we all are in the comments section. But we have to take that comment section rage and we have to make it into real world action. And this is an area of it. It will happen in a blow off or we can prepare for it. And I think there's so many people who are preparing for this that when this natural moment happens, this is where you get the turn.

[Mrs. P]

That next night there was more rioting again surrounding Christopher Street. Many of the same people returned from the previous evening. Some street youths, hustlers, Queens, also people not from the neighborhood. Some police provocateurs showed up.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yes, and they do show up.

[Mrs. P]

Curious bystanders and even some tourists who had read about in the paper were like, well, we're visiting. Yeah, we're in New York. Let's go see what New York's doing.

[Phil DeFranco]

Start spreading the news.

[Mrs. P]

Remarkable to many people was the sudden exhibition of homosexual affection in public, as described by one witness. Quote from going to places where you had to knock on a door and speak to someone through a peephole in order to get in. We were just out. We were out in the streets. So, like this was a cataclysmic change in the neighborhood, like you were just saying.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, because I mean, think about it though, if before that moment you were always worried that somebody would declare that you're gay and then it didn't matter. You go into every single precaution. Yeah, you go through every single precaution. You're paying blackmail to the mobile so you can hide in a bar that doesn't have running fucking water to be able to get a kiss. Yeah, you go through all of those fucking steps and then the cops show up and said, doesn't fudgeing matter?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Then why do all those steps. Just be gay on the streets. Let's be gay in the streets.

[Mrs. P]

Just be gay.

[Phil DeFranco]

Just be gay in the street.

[Mrs. P]

Thousands of people had gathered in front of Stonewall, which had opened again, choking Christopher Street. Because people are coming from all over at this point. The crowd spilled out into adjoining blocks. Marsha P. Johnson was seen climbing a lamppost and dropping a heavy bag onto the hood of a police car, shattering the windshield. We love when somebody climbs a pole. I just had to bring it up. I had to bring.

[Phil DeFranco]

Gotta bring up a pole.

[Mrs. P]

Sometimes you gotta bring up a piling coal and a whole bag. I'm gonna say bricks. I don't know.

[Phil DeFranco]

Can I tell you?

[Mrs. P]

Marsha Johnson. Marsha P. Johnson threw the first bag of bricks.

[Phil DeFranco]

Dropped it when the Knicks lost game three. And there was like, some, I'll say, minor scuffles in the streets. You know, I saw. I saw some, you know, spurs fans getting attacked by Knicks fans, and I saw someone's head get lit on fire and some other things.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Phil DeFranco]

And I kept seeing the comments. Be like, new York, why Don't. Don't turn into Philly.

[Mrs. P]

You can never.

[Phil DeFranco]

Fuck you. You could never fuck you. Here's my question for you real fast. Here's my question for you real fast. How come when your city starts rioting, you immediately start thinking about Philadelphia? Because we live rent free in your head. Because the rent's too goddamn expensive in New York. Enjoy your lovely mayor. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And we're so.

[Phil DeFranco]

By the time this is posted, hopefully the Knicks will have won America.

[Mrs. P]

America's team.

[Phil DeFranco]

America's team owned by evil people and worshiped by them.

[Mrs. P]

Who isn't owned by.

[Phil DeFranco]

I know. That's the thing. That's the thing with the Knicks. It's like saying there's, like. There's this beautiful story of, like, all of New York coming together around the Knicks. Yeah. And then, like, Howard Lutnick, Jerry Seinfeld and Donald Trump are in the audience. You're like, yeah, that's too many kids.

[Mrs. P]

Whoa. Okay, this Craig. Okay. There's these two guys I need to introduce you to.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Craig Rodwell and his partner, Fred Sargent. They owned, like, a bookstore in the area. I think it might have been the first gay bookstore in New York.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And they also, like, did, like, what we would call, like, zines now. Zines.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And they began printing. So this same weekend, when all this is happening, they sit down together and they start writing out a leaflet and they print it out Almost like printing press style and start distributing it. They end up distributing over 5,000 leaflets. So they're out in the streets handing these out. Like, they were like, we need to get the word out. We need to spread this message. There's people in the streets.

[Phil DeFranco]

I miss pamphlets.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Well, the only time you get now are like, the Jehovah's Witness ones.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Or the ones where it's like, you're gonna go to hell.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah. No, no, I'm saying it's like people used to just hand out pamphlets of different ideas. You get them, you throw out whatever. But, like, now the only ones I ever usually get are like, the tourist thing for like, a bus. You know what I'm walking by, like, take the bus tour. I'm like, I don't.

[Mrs. P]

I'm not taking a bus tour. Okay. So anyway, this is the title of the leaflet.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Get the Mafia and the Cops out of Gay Bors.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Nailed the title.

[Phil DeFranco]

That's a good, that's good. SEO. Maybe should we use that as our.

[Mrs. P]

Maybe should use that as our title.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So I'm going to read it to you really quick. It says, the nights of Friday, June 27 and Saturday, June 28 will go down in history as the first time that thousands of homosexual men and women went out into the streets to protest the intolerable situation which has existed in New York City for many years. Namely, the Mafia control this city's gay bars in collusion with certain elements of the police department of the city of New York. The demonstrations were triggered by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn late Friday night. The purported reason for the raid was that Stonewall's lack of liquor license. Who's kidding whom? Can anybody really believe that an operation as big as Stonewall could continue for almost three years with just a few blocks from the 6th Precinct house without having a liquor license? No, the police have known about the Stonewall operation along. What has happened is the presence of new brass in the 6th Precinct who have vowed to drive us out of the village. End quote. Where it says, drive us out of the village. There is a slur there that I'm not gonna say, but I just.

[Phil DeFranco]

No, I understand.

[Mrs. P]

Historical clarity.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah. No, I, I, I find it. This is very smart that they came on this so quickly. Yeah. About like. No, part of this is the fact that the mob controls this.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And that we don't have people who are willing to, again, go through the work of dealing with the paperwork. Yeah. Like, cutting this corner is actually what's holding us back.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So then they call for three. This is. This is what you do. You write the mission statement. And then at the bottom of their leaflet, they call for three actions of the community. They give people three direct actions. One, the gay. That gay businessmen step forward and open gay bars that will be run legally with competitive pricing and a healthy social atmosphere. Two, that homosexual men and women boycott places like the Stonewall. The only way it seems that we can get criminal elements out of the gay bars is simply to make it unprofitable for them. And three, that homosexual citizens across all of New York City and concerned heterosexuals write to Mayor Lindsay demanding a thorough investigation and effective action to correct this intolerable situation.

[Phil DeFranco]

Wow. Those are. Those are three. Great call to action. I'm saying, number one, the first one, though, of being like gay businessmen. I know you exist.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. We know you're the one and we

[Phil DeFranco]

know who you are. Yeah, exactly. It is cheaper. Yeah. It's actually cheaper for you to open gay bars. Yeah. Number one. Number two, boycotting and just being like, we're not going to use this. We're just building our own system finally.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Which is incredible. And I think it's so important to highlight that last one, though, about calling on the mayor. Yeah. Because this year, 2026, all these years later, they had a massive Pride event in New York with Mayor Mamdani. Yeah. Where they had ballroom culture in front. He declared the protection of trans people. They had drag queens out there. They had people being visibly queer.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Openly. And declaring that this is part of New York City culture is such a giant flip. And I think the thing that we've seen a lot with, especially around Pride, it was years ago of the. The joke about, you know, Lockheed Martin doing a rainbow flag, you know, pink washing and rainbow washing and all this stuff. There's a difference, though, is when they retreat.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

When the fake allies retreat. And this is. I think this is that step in the right direction. And this is what we need to constantly, constantly see is because every time there are dark moments like this, that's when you get your next moment of light to cut through the clouds.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Now the feeling of urgency also spread throughout Greenwich Village. Even people who had not witnessed the riots were moved by the rebellion and started attending organizational meetings. People felt this was an opportunity to take action. So, like you were saying, like, gay rights groups started popping up all over Greenwich Village and also New York City. People were just like, we've met each other. We're motivated. Let's create groups let's get action done.

[Phil DeFranco]

It's also a thing too, is. Again. Again. Again. Before, some of these groups existed, but they weren't going to get any press. Yeah, they also, they existed, but they also didn't want to be highlighted.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

And the difference is. And a lot of people talk shit on stuff like autism speaks. I understand. But there is something about highlighting, showing representation and bringing awareness. Because the. Where fear and bigotry lives is the idea that you actually don't know anyone like that. Yeah, that's the thing. It's the best way to destroy xenophobia, bigotry, racism is travel and conversations.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Phil DeFranco]

Just meet meaning strangers and then going, oh, okay.

[Mrs. P]

So all this is happening in late June, right? It happens in late June on July 4th. Fucking America, dude. July 4th, 1969, the Mattachine Society performed its annual picket in front of the Independence hall in Philadelphia, which was called the Annual Reminder, which was basically a gay visibility march that tried to show, quote, acceptable gay people.

[Phil DeFranco]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

That was like their whole thing, like,

[Phil DeFranco]

look at us, we're normal. We just happen to like men and women.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. The Frank Kameny, I believe his name, when he was a co founder of the D.C. chapter, he was very, like, strict about it and was like, it was very controlling about how this annual event went. Now some organizers from New York all took a bus down to Philadelphia together. And the whole thing is that they started to feel very, like, restricted by the rules that Kameny had set, which included women had to wear skirts and men had to wear suits. And everybody marched quietly in organized lines.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And so the opposite of a pride parade. So just.

[Phil DeFranco]

Just in gray. Just slate gray.

[Mrs. P]

Just gray. Walking in straight lines, holding signs like, it's okay.

[Phil DeFranco]

You should if it's a gay pride. If it's a gay march, you shouldn't be walking in straight lines.

[Mrs. P]

Whoa. At least zigzag. So people were feeling restricted. Two women spontaneously held hands. Not combusted.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, my God. Oh, everybody. Two women held hands.

[Mrs. P]

My hand. Hold my hand.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, you don't even wanna.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, no.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, no.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, no.

[Phil DeFranco]

Oh, no. You don't even want to know what they're doing at Charlie Kirk Way this week.

[Mrs. P]

Frank Kameny broke them apart screaming. None of that. None of that. Right. Another guy, however, when after saw this, this guy, Rodwell, his last name was Rodwell, he convinced 10 other couples there to hold hands. Then all the holding hand couple couples made Kameny furious. But they got a lot of press attention because the press started taking pictures and it was the quote I have from this event was, quote, it was clear that things were changing. People who had felt oppressed were now feeling empowered.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Rodwell returns to New York. His name's Craig Rodwell. Craig Rodwell, the one that went and got people to hold hands. He returns to New York City determined to change the assessment. Established quiet, meek ways of trying to, quote, get attention. One of his first priorities was planning Christopher Street Liberation Day, which is the foundational predecessor to the modern LGBTQ+PRIDE parade. Is that Christopher Street Liberation Day event.

[Phil DeFranco]

And if it wouldn't have happened unless he came to Philadelphia and watched someone say, stop holding hands, girls. How dare you. Stop that.

[Mrs. P]

He was like, we're going to hold so many hands.

[Phil DeFranco]

And now. And now here we are 50 years later, and people are arguing whether or not you can bring your straight boyfriend.

[Mrs. P]

I don't know. It's not my place to say.

[Phil DeFranco]

You've never brought a straight boyfriend.

[Mrs. P]

That's true.

[Phil DeFranco]

You brought a bi husband. And then you say, get out that pole. And I go, but I have a bag of bricks, and I hate this cop car.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, well, I mean, I saw what happened in Philly this last drop. A bag of bricks. I didn't say that. So here's the thing. That's. That's where pride parades come from, right? To close it out on the mob. Because that's where I started, right? The. The mob does eventually get out of gay bars. Allegedly. I don't. They could still be there. They find new ways to make money in the 21st century. The Genovese family took advantage of some lax due diligence that the banks were having around the housing bubble and maybe got loan shark victims to obtain home equity loans to pay off debt to. To their mob banksters. I don't know. I don't know. It could have happened. The family found ways to use new technology to improve illegal gambling and had customers place bets through offshore sites via the Internet. I don't know. You're just finding new ways to mob.

[Phil DeFranco]

Yeah, yeah. They're mobbing up. That's digital mob.

[Mrs. P]

Allegedly, it's digital. It's a comedy podcast.

[Phil DeFranco]

This is a comedy history podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. What do I know?

[Phil DeFranco]

We don't know about the Genovese crime family.

[Mrs. P]

We don't know how to say it.

[Phil DeFranco]

We don't pronounce it. Yeah, Genevieve.

[Mrs. P]

So listen, that's the episode.

[Phil DeFranco]

That is the episode. I got a gay shirt. You got a trans shirt. We all have pride together. It's June. Enjoy a hot dog. Watch the president fall asleep while he's watching, man. Get punched in the head. Yeah, that's America. It's pretty America right there.

[Mrs. P]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Phil DeFranco]

Guys, thank you so much. Remember, crashing out tour.com youm can see me live with Phil DeFranco anywhere in the country. Mrs. P. Any follow notes?

[Mrs. P]

Have a great weekend.

[Phil DeFranco]

Bye. Too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real Too many cons and too many spammers and we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs Open it. Too many tabs Remember to smile.