1976-05-01

The great CHRISTOPHER STREET magazine debuts under the guidance of founder and publisher Michael Denneny.

In 1976, Mr. Denneny and Chuck Ortleb started Christopher Street, a monthly magazine that would publish fiction and nonfiction by gay writers for the next 19 years. It was a risky personal move for Mr. Denneny, the rare openly gay editor in a publishing industry in which many gay and lesbian editors were still closeted.

Months before the first issue was published, several top gay men in publishing, who were not out, “took me out for lunch and subtly threatened to end my career if my name appeared in the magazine,” he told the New York newspaper Gay City News in 2004.
He did not back down.

The unapologetically, LGBT-oriented magazine published in New York City was known both for its serious discussion of issues within the LGBT community and its satire of anti-homosexual criticism. It was one of the two most-widely read Gay-issues publications in the United States. Christopher Street printed 231 issues before closing its doors in December of 1995.