Paresis Hall

Paresis Hall
Alternative names	Columbia Hall
General information
Address	392 Bowery (now 32 Cooper Square)
Town or city	New York City
Country	United States
Coordinates	40.728183°N 73.991400°W / 40.728183; -73.991400
Owner	James T. Ellison

Columbia Hall, commonly known as Paresis Hall, was a brothel and gay bar located on 392 Bowery in Manhattan, New York City, in the 1890s.[1] Located near Cooper Union, the Hall was owned by the gangster James T. Ellison.[1]

Name

"Bowery Queen", c. 1890s

Paresis Hall took its common nickname from general paresis, a term for syphilitic insanity.[2]

Jennie June wrote that the name "Paresis Hall" was the popular name, but androgynes disliked that name, and instead referred to it as "the Hall".[3] June wrote that the term paresis was used as a general term for insanity, but also wrote that the name followed a superstition that androgynes could cause virile men to succumb to insanity, later discovered to be a side effect of advanced syphilis.[3]

Floors

On the ground floor, Paresis Hall had a small bar room in front, and a small beer garden behind it.[3] The two floors above the ground floor were rented out in small rooms.[3] At least ten rooms above the bar were used for private encounters.[1]

Cercle Hermaphroditos

One space above the bar was permanently rented by the Cercle Hermaphroditos, an early transgender advocacy organization. They stored clothing there due to the illegality of and public hostility to dressing in women's clothing.[4]

According to historian Susan Stryker, the Cercle Hermaphroditos was the first group in the United States to be concerned with what today would be considered transgender social justice issues.[5]

Opposition

Paresis Hall was particularly renowned and reviled even at the time, and was a common target for both police activity and religious protests.[6] Despite this, evidence suggests it was active until at least 1899.[1]

See also

• Cross-dressing#Legal issues
• LGBT culture in New York City

References

1. Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Vol. 2. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. pp. 343–344. ISBN 978-0-313-32970-8.
2. Long 2009, p. 23.
3. June, Jennie (1922). The Female-Impersonators. New York City: The Medico-Legal Journal. pp. 146–151.
4. Chauncey 2008, p. 43.
5. Stryker, Susan (2017). Transgender History (2nd ed.). Berkeley: Seal Press. pp. 57–58. ISBN 978-1-58005-689-2.
6. Hatheway 2005, p. 55.

Bibliography

• Chauncey, George (2008). Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-7867-2335-5.
• Ditmore, Melissa (2006). Encyclopedia of prostitution and sex work. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32968-0.
• Hatheway, Jay (2005). The Gilded Age Construction of Modern American Homophobia (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7400-4.
• Long, Kat (2009). The forbidden apple : a century of sex & sin in New York City. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Ig Pub. ISBN 978-0-9815040-0-1.

External links

• Historical Marker Database: Paresis Hall