Q&A: Tree Sequoia of The Stonewall Inn

For the better part of six decades, Fredd E. “Tree” Sequoia has been a fixture of New York’s queer community and a long-time bartender at The Stonewall Inn. From being present the night of the riot as a young patron, through the ensuing fight for gay rights, the AIDS epidemic, and even the Covid pandemic, Sequoia has become inseparable from the iconic bar and its place in history, now serving as a global ambassador of sorts. But most weeks, you can still find him at the bar pouring a beer or chatting with customers. We recently sat down with Sequoia at the storied establishment to talk about his experiences on both sides of the bar.

Imbibe: You’ve been a bartender the majority of your working life. How did you get into it?

Tree Sequoia: When I was younger, I worked as a gopher for Jackie Gleason. “Hey kid, go get my script!” I was just a teenager. And then a friend of mine got me a job at The Ed Sullivan Show, where I would knock on the door and say, “You’re on stage in 5 minutes, Ms. Dietrich.” Things like that.

I was just figuring out my sexuality then, and I snuck into the Village one day and I saw these two very obviously gay guys go into a coffee shop called Mama’s Chicken Rib, right on Greenwich Avenue. I followed them in, sat down, and the waiter introduced himself, saying, “Hi, I’m Joan Crawford.” And I knew I was in the right spot. I made some friends there. And one day I asked the manager for a cup of coffee, and he says “I’m busy, get it yourself.” So I go behind the counter, I make coffee, and he says, “actually, make two.” And the next thing I know, I’d worked there six years.

I moved into my apartment in Chelsea March 8, 1968. I just celebrated 57 years there. Sometimes we’d go to my house and play charades, but mostly we’d hang out at the bars. One of my friends was a bouncer at the Ninth Circle, and he asked me to cover for him on Mondays and Tuesdays because he hadn’t had a day off in months. But I didn’t call myself a bouncer—I called myself an attitude adjuster. And after about a month, the owner came over to me and said, “You know, everybody likes you. You’ve got a great person personality. We’re going to make you a bartender.” I said, Bobby, I don’t drink. And I’ve never made a drink.” He says, “You’re going to learn to do both.” That was 57 years ago. 

What has kept you in the profession all these years? What do you love about it?

Meeting people. Every day, here at the bar, you name a city, or state, or country, and they’re here. I would say 80 percent of the time, I’ve been to their city or country, so I can talk about a bar or a restaurant or the people. And then they look me up on Facebook and we have nine mutual friends. The other week, two guys from London came in. One works in theater, and he said he’s going to say hello to Russell Davies for me, who was the writer who wrote Queer As Folk and Doctor Who. I met Russell when I won the Attitude Magazine award in London. And the other one works with Ian McKellen, and I’m Ian McKellen’s favorite bartender. You just never know who is going to come in. 

Is that part of what makes Stonewall so special? That it brings in people from all over the world?

Well, yes. And now, sometimes in the afternoon with the tourists, we have more straight people than gay—husbands and wives, groups of three or four couples that came in from Michigan because they heard about this place and wanted to visit. So I get to talk to all of them. And, of course, I make fun of where they’re from, like, “Come on, there’s no such place as Michigan.” My boss says, “You’re always in a good mood, you talk to everybody, you have fun with them, you tease them… why don’t you come in and just talk to everybody at the tables?”

So now on the weekends, they put tables out in the middle of the street, and I just go sit and talk with everyone. And the next thing you know, they’re taking my number, and I’m getting phone calls asking if I want to come here or there for events. But I never say no. I always I tell the truth: If you pay for it, I will go to the opening of an envelope. I’ve met the Infanta of Spain, the two crown princes of Denmark, presidents, prime ministers… It makes me laugh. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn!

What was the scene like in the early days, and what are your memories of the night of the riot?

I always say I was in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the right time. Because I went to jail so many times for being in gay bars. They either threw us out of the bar, or they asked us our names, and nobody had proof, nobody had an ID, so we would make up names. Sometimes they put us in jail and we’d go before a judge in the morning, and they’d either throw it out as a waste of time, or some judges would fine us $20 for being perverts… But we’d all go back to the bar that night or the next night.

I don’t think they raided the bars because we were gay. I think they raided it because the boys forgot to pay the police that week. The expression “New York City has the best police money can buy” was because almost every cop was on the take.

Everybody always asks me if I was afraid. I never set anything on fire, like garbage cans. I never rattled a police car, I never threw a bottle or a rock or anything. But we were lucky—Frank, Charlie, myself, and Gregory got out as the cops were making people start to run. They would put drugs on the floor and tell people, “That’s yours.” Because in 1969, even if you had a little roach of pot, that was 5 years in jail. Gregory had to leave because he was a Catholic priest. And he would not want to be caught in the gay bar in 1969.

And that’s when the riot squad came, and I did something then that I can’t do now—ran.

So we were all outside, and we noticed that the lock was hanging off the paddy wagon, so Charlie knocked it off, the door opened, everybody ran down the street. And all the store owners and people in the buildings around, they actually let the people into their hallways and would not let the cops arrest them… We saw two people pull a parking meter out of the ground, concrete and all, and were using it as a battering ram next door to get into the bar. The police were barricaded in there and the crowd of 25 people grew to a couple of hundred, literally trying to set the bar on fire with the police in it.

And that’s when the riot squad came, and I did something then that I can’t do now—ran. We all went back to Mama’s Chicken Rib, and we said, if the cops come in, we’ll swear we were here. We went back to the bar the next day, and the whole area was full of smoke and garbage cans and people running around. There were TV cameras, newspapers—everything.

Do you think places like Stonewall and other queer bars still inherently serve as places of rebellion? Do you have any advice for younger generations?

Well, this place is now Mecca for the gay community. People all over the world know Stonewall. But I would say maybe 20 percent of the young people who come in today don’t give a shit about the history. They just come to dance, party, drink, have fun. But a lot of them do care. I always tell them: Get an education. Education is so important in these times. You’re gonna be gay 24/7, but don’t do it 24/7. Get yourself an education. Then I always tell them: Safe sex. Because I lived through AIDS pandemic. And because I haven’t had [a cigarette] in 50 years, I tell them to stop smoking. But these kids know more than I did when I was that age.

You’re still here at Stonewall every week, and you’ve traveled the globe as an ambassador—any plans to retire?

I can’t retire. My invitation to my birthday party last year at 85 said, “You are cordially invited to Tree’s 15-more-years-to-go birthday party.” Now I’m 86, so it’s 14 more years to go. And I expect to be here. I’m going to retire at 100, maybe. I don’t wanna give up, I love it.

Liza Minnelli with Tree Sequoia at Eighty-Eights piano bar and cabaret in the late 1980s. | Photo courtesy of Tree Sequoia

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