Gay & Queer; Accessible Archives

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GAY & QUEER (continued)

     "Gay" perhaps began at Life cafeteria in Greenwich Village.  (I had
previously posted that the full term "the gay life" was often used in
publications such as ONE.)
     I found this today in AROUND NEW YORK IN RHYME (1938) by Gerry Wayne,
pg. 15:

_Where there's Greenwich Village there's life_
_Where there's life there's queers_

There's a cafeteria in the Village
Known by name as Life
Visited by all sorts of people
>From every walk of life.

Its name before was Stewart's
By which it was reclaimed
And if you listen carefully
You'll hear why t'was renamed.

In this cafeteria poured
People known as queer
By this I do not mean peculiar
But interchanged I fear.

In other words the women
And the men were quite ironic
They had no use for the opposite sex
Except a love platonic.

The women loved each other
The men they did the same
And this shocking situation
Like wildfire spread in fame.

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ACCESSIBLE ARCHIVES

    When I tried Accessible Archives today, Godey's Ladies Book and the
Pennsylvania Gazette were listed "N/A."  Only the Civil War newspapers could
be accessed.  Is this just the New York Public Library, or is something wrong?
     The result is a "taradiddle" crisis of epic proportions!