Queer Places:
129-10 95th Ave, Queens, NY 11419
The Loft, 89 Christopher St, New York, NY 10014
35 Charles St, New York, NY 10014
Robert Andrew "Bob" Kohler (17 May 1926 – 5 December 2007) was a gay rights pioneer. Born and raised in Queens, New York, Kohler was a lifelong activist in New York City.[1] He was at the Stonewall riots, and was a friend to many of the activists in groups like the Gay Liberation Front and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.
Kohler was born in 1926 in Queens, New York and lived in Greenwich Village for most of his life, where he became a friend and confidant of the homeless youths who congregated at Sheridan Square and would play a significant role in the Stonewall Riots. Later in life, he did extensive work for the homeless living with HIV/AIDS, including an 18 month period where he would wait outside of the Division of AIDS Services and Income Support (DASIS) office each evening to ensure that no one was turned away without shelter. He was arrested approximately thirty times in his life for his role in political protests and demonstrations, and on more than one occasion successfully sued the City of New York over these arrests.
After serving in the Navy during World War II, he worked in the entertainment industry, first as an assistant production manager at CBS and later as the owner of a talent agency. The Bob Kohler Agency was notable for representing a number of black actors throughout the 1960s. For most of the 1970s he managed the men’s-only Club Baths in the East Village and later owned the Christopher Street-based clothing store The Loft, which at various times also had locations in the Upper West Side, Fire Island, and Boston.
Kohler was proud of the fact that he rubbed Calvin Klein’s nose in it by pulling the designer’s underwear from his store after repeated misogynistic comments from the company’s model Marky Mark. “This is a gay store,” a sign in the window read. “Straight are welcome if they behave. Please sue me.” In an interview with Gay City News’s Andy Humm for the 2008 Village Care of New York calendar, Kohler bragged, “Gay kids came into the store and pretended to be shopping just to be in a safe haven.”
Though Kohler is best known for his role at the Stonewall riots and his early involvement with the Gay Liberation Front, he was active with many movements and groups, including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Black Panther Party, Act Up, Sex Panic, the Neutral Zone, the New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Irish Queers, Fed Up Queers, animal rights groups, and FIERCE!
Kohler died of lung cancer on December 5, 2007, at the age of 81, in the Charles Street (West Village) apartment that he had lived in for 45 years.[3] Friends of Kohler held a “political funeral” at the L.G.B.T. Community Center at 208 W. 13th St. then marched to Christopher St. and the Christopher St. Pier, where they poured his ashes into the Hudson.
My published books:
