Fresh Fruit Festival

The tradition & historical record

New York City has been described as the gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ sociopolitical field, and is home to the world's largest and the most prominent LGBTQ population. Brian Silverman, the author of Frommer's New York City from $90 a Day, wrote the city has "one of the world's largest, loudest, and most powerful LGBT communities", and "Gay and lesbian culture is as much a part of New York's basic identity as yellow cabs, high-rise buildings, and Broadway theatre". LGBTQ travel guide Queer in the World states, "The fabulosity of Gay New York is unrivaled on Earth, and queer culture seeps into every corner of its five boroughs". LGBTQ advocate and entertainer Madonna stated metaphorically, "Anyways, not only is New York City the best place in the world because of the queer people here. Let me tell you something, if you can make it here, then you must be queer." LGBTQ Americans in New York City constitute the largest self-identifying lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities by a significant margin in the United States, and the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village are widely considered to be the genesis of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. The New York metropolitan area has an estimated 756,000 LGBTQ residents—the most in the United States, including the largest metropolitan transgender population in the world, estimated at 50,000 in 2018, concentrated in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. ¹

Charles Kaiser, author of The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America, wrote that in the era after World War II, "New York City became the literal gay metropolis for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from both within and without the United States: the place they chose to learn how to live openly, honestly and without shame." Comedian Jerrod Carmichael joked, "That's actually why I live here...if you say you're gay in New York, you can ride the bus for free and they just give you free pizza. if you say you're gay in New York, you get to host Saturday Night Live. This is the gayest thing you can possibly do. We're basically in an Andy Warhol fever dream right now." ¹

The Stonewall Inn, located at 51 and 53 Christopher Street, along with several other establishments in the city, was owned by the Genovese crime family. In 1966, three members of the Mafia invested $3,500 to turn the Stonewall Inn into a gay bar, after it had been a restaurant and a nightclub geared toward heterosexuals. Once a week a police officer would collect envelopes of cash as a payoff; the Stonewall Inn had no liquor license. It had no running water behind the bar—used glasses were run through tubs of water and immediately reused. There were no fire exits, and the toilets overran consistently. Though the bar was not used for prostitution, drug sales and other "cash transactions" took place. It was the only bar for gay men in New York City where dancing was allowed; dancing was its main draw since its re-opening as a gay club. Visitors to the Stonewall Inn in 1969 were greeted by a bouncer who inspected them through a peephole in the door. The legal drinking age was 18, and to avoid unwittingly letting in undercover police (who were called "Lily Law", "Alice Blue Gown", or "Betty Badge"), visitors would have to be known by the doorman, or look gay. The entrance fee on weekends was $3, for which the customer received two tickets that could be exchanged for two drinks. Patrons were required to sign their names in a book to prove that the bar was a private "bottle club", but rarely signed their real names. There were two dance floors in the Stonewall; the interior was painted black, making it very dark inside, with pulsing gel lights or black lights. ¹

At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, and Detective Charles Smythe and Deputy Inspector Seymour Pine arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!" Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom. According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. Days after the raid, one of the bar owners complained that the tipoff had never come, and that the raid was ordered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, who objected that there were no stamps on the liquor bottles, indicating the alcohol was bootlegged. Historian David Carter presents information indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked in Lower Manhattan's Financial District. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently. Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen had entered the bar earlier that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once inside, they called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 205 people were in the bar that night. ¹

Despite playing a significant role in fighting for LGBTQ equality during the period of the Stonewall Riots and thereafter, the transgender community in New York City had previously felt marginalized and neglected by the gay community. Since then, and especially during the 21st century, New York City's transgender community has grown in size and prominence, reaching an estimated 50,000 in 2018. Brooklyn Liberation March, the largest transgender rights demonstration in LGBTQ history, took place on June 14, 2020, stretching from Grand Army Plaza to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, focused on supporting Black transgender lives. ¹

Originally, the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) website for the Stonewall National Monument discussed the transgender and queer communities. After U.S. president Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14168 in 2025, mandating that the federal government and federally funded entities cease any promotion of "gender ideology", all references to transgender and queer people were removed from the website. The news was first reported on February 13, 2025. The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative and The Stonewall Inn issued a joint statement the same day, saying: ¹

"This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals — especially transgender women of color — who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights." They went on to spotlight Marsha P. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “LGBTQ culture in New York City”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Fresh Fruit Festival is recorded in open cultural data. The structured record cited below does not describe the practice, and this entry has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 2 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²