Thomas Michael Garguilo

Welcome to my author page.

Writing Stonewall Revival: Tales of 53 Christopher Street & Other Theatrical Adventures has been a passion project for me. In 2016, I came across some old photos while cleaning out a closet. Though I'd be saving them, safeguarding them, I really hadn't looked at them more than two or three times over the last 25 years. The collection includes over 100 photos that document the re-opening of Stonewall. After looking through them, I decided that they must be shared publicly because they represent a forgotten but important moment in the history of Stonewall.

Sadly, few people know the history of that space. Shortly after the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the bar was permanently closed. Over the following two decades, a number of other businesses inhabited the space, including a Chinese restaurant and a bagel shop. There was one failed attempt to revive Stonewall at 51 Christopher Street (the original bar had comprised both the 51 and 53 Christopher Street parcels) that lasted very briefly at the end of the 1980s. Even the famous vertical sign that hung outside Stonewall for decades was removed in 1989.

Jimmy Pisano opened his first (and last) bar at 53 Christopher Street in 1990. It was a rousing failure in every respect but one. Though he lost money every year he owned it, Jimmy stubbornly refused to let Stonewall close again. He refused to let the space become something other than which it is meant to be - the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

Jimmy was my first partner. He died in March of 1994, just a few months before the 25th anniversary of the original Stonewall Riots, from AIDS. Though he was far from a perfect person, he did something remarkable - something from which we all benefit. He brought an important symbol back to life. He made it possible for there to be a gathering spot, a touchstone, for the community. Though many people helped keep Stonewall alive after Jimmy's passing, it was his original act that set in motion a series of events that culminated in Stonewall receiving numerous landmark designations and becoming a U.S. National Monument. It is safe to say that the space has been Stonewall for so long now that it is unthinkable that it could ever be something other than that. And no one knows that it's because of Jimmy Pisano.

I've taken the photos and created an online archive, www.StonewallRevival.com, so that everyone can see what those early years of the revival were like.

I also created a Facebook fan page, https://www.facebook.com/StonewallRevival/?ref=bookmarks, so that others can share their memories and add other photos of that time. Though I purposely chose to limit the amount of text on the website, wanting the pictures to speak for themselves, I've added a bit more background on selected photographs on the Facebook fan page.

And now, we have the novel. It's meant to draw attention to the photos in a way that no individual website could. The story is a fictionalized account of how the photos that document Stonewall's resurrection have come to light. Along the way, the reader learns how Stonewall was brought back into being. The story also makes use of my personal collection of Broadway memorabilia, some 30 years in the making, to connect the original Stonewall to the revived Stonewall that I had the privilege of witnessing.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words. In this case, we have 101 pictures and 100,000 words, give or take. So, I guess the old adage still rings true.