Remembering the Christopher Street That Held a Community
August 28, 2026
The distance between Lake Harriet and Christopher Street is more than a thousand miles, but memory has a way of collapsing distance without warning.
Not so much about individual people this time, but about the set. That’s what it felt like as I started putting the pieces back together.
There was Allstate Art, where I worked. Kiss My Cookies. Hercules on the corner. The loft a couple doors down. Boots and Saddles. Clyde’s. A Clean Well-Lighted Place, a lovely little gallery.
There was Richard White’s jewelry store. I remember Richard and his lover sitting behind the counters, working side by side. It was a dark little place, nothing flashy.
At Bleecker and Christopher was an Asian fruit stand. There was Paul Bolardo’s place further down Christopher. Across from Kiss My Cookies was a little photography store in a basement.
Then there was the food. Chicken from Jefferson Market for dinner. Turkey legs from the deli. Zito’s Bakery. And Rocco’s, where my favorite was the creamolata. Wonderful.
There were lots of other places, of course. These are simply the ones that stayed with me.
Together they made up this little world where we worked, ate, went out, saw friends and ran into people we knew.
It was a community, but today I was remembering the place that held the community.
And somewhere in the background was Sylvester singing “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real),” probably drifting out of Boots and Saddles—also known as Bras and Girdles.
The drawing here isn’t Christopher Street. But somehow it feels right with these thoughts—pieces connected to pieces, the way memory sometimes works.
Today, for a little while, I could see the set again.
I wonder what part of it I’ll remember next.
— Bill Hendricks
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For more photographs, stories, and memories of Christopher Street, visit this Facebook group.
