Like most gay bars at the time, Gianni’s hid its identity. It became more diverse and welcoming in the post- Stonewall era of the early 1970s. Gianni’s first drew a butch/femme, white working-class crowd that characterized the Sea Colony and other Mafia-run lesbian bars. As the Mafia-affiliated owners were closing the Sea Colony in Greenwich Village, they were opening Gianni’s, a lesbian bar in Chelsea, which operated from 1966 to 1975.
