The Intersectn of Gay Street and Straight Street: Shoppg, Social Class, and the New Gay Visibily on JSTOR

Contents:

• WHY GAYBORHOODS MATTER: THE STREET EMPIRICS OF URBAN SEXUALI
• DID YOU KNOW THE 100 BLOCK OF GAY STREET WAS RAISED? TAKE AN UNRGROUND TOUR
• THE NEW AND IMPROVED GAY STREET SIGN IS ALL OVER NYC PRI TWTER
• GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI
• GAY STREET
• WHAT’S A NAME? GAY STREET
• WHO OWNS GAY STREET?
• GUI TO GAY STREET KNOXVILLE, TENNSEE
• HOW GREG HOLN DID GAY ACCEPTANCE RIGHT ON 'BOYS THE STREET'
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI

WHY GAYBORHOODS MATTER: THE STREET EMPIRICS OF URBAN SEXUALI

Gut Edor (s): Alex Bterman17 and Daniel Baldw Hs1817Department of Archecture and Dign, Aled State Universy of New York, New York, USA 18Department of Urban and Regnal Planng, Universy at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY USA AbstractUrbanists have veloped an extensive set of proposns about why gay neighborhoods form, how they change, shifts their signifince, and their spatial exprsns. Keywords: Urban sexuali, Technology, Gay neighborhoods, LGBTQ+ safe spacIntroductn: Gayborhood StudiThe associatn between sexualy and the cy is as tablished experientially as is affirmed the amy—om sexologil unts of sexual practic to thick ethnographic scriptns of the moral regns of urban sexual worlds (Ksey et al.

Scholars ask why gayborhoods first formed (Castells and Murphy 1982; Knopp 1997; Lewis 2013), how they have changed over time (Kanai and Kenttamaa-Squir 2015; Rhbrook 2002; Stryker and Van Bkirk 1996), their cultural signifince for queer people (Doan and Higgs 2011; Greene 2014; Orne 2017), why they appeal to heterosexuals (Brodyn and Ghaziani 2018; Ghaziani 2019d), and their diverse spatial exprsns ( Brown-Saraco 2018; Ghaziani 2019a; Whtemore and Smart 2016). Some rearchers show that people e technology creatively to image new spac away om the gayborhood (Wu and Ward 2017), while others argue that apps reproduce equali (Conner 2018) than origs, anizatns, and technology, rearchers who work a fourth stream of gayborhood studi document mographic chang (Moral 2018; Sprg 2013) and nsir their effects on muny-buildg and placemakg efforts ( Brown-Saraco 2011; Casey 2004; Ghaziani and Stillwagon 2018; Rennger 2019).

DID YOU KNOW THE 100 BLOCK OF GAY STREET WAS RAISED? TAKE AN UNRGROUND TOUR

Cens tracts, real tate ads, bs and non-prof listgs, llective memori, revenu, nighttime enomy, pop-ups, cultural archipelagosAlthough scholars have produced nsirable knowledge about gayborhoods, a key oversight remas: what do the gayborhood mean for the people who actually live ? I draw on more than six hundred natnal media reports about the gayborhood across several s of verage, particularly stori which a journalist terviewed lol rints, to intify six major reasons why queer people say they live a gay district and what about appeals to them. 2 Non-rintial stakeholrs make “vir” claims on gayborhoods as well (Greene 2014), but the are precisely what the ncept of virns suggts: proxy experienc that take the place of, or are imaged as related to, the on of rints.

”8 Rints like the pend on the streets of gayborhoods, which are often shield om the heterosexual gaze, to nnect wh each four s later and across the untry, people still appreciate the streets of gayborhoods for their sexual workg opportuni. ”13 Although the gayborhood shifted om the Village to Chelsea, the sense that s streets were safer followed , as this passage om the New York Tim suggts: “Chelsea has bee the gay neighborhood bee gays and lbians feel fortable here. Black and Lato, and often om poor fai that reject them for beg gay, they are drawn to the street’s bleak g by a need to fe themselv through the pany of soul mat…‘Where I e om, you n’t be black and gay, ’ said Darnell.

A journalist for the Chigo Tribune observed, “Young gay men om the cy’s South and Wt sis e to Boystown to vis the Center on Halsted [the LGBTQ muny center], whose youth programs make them feel safe, affirmed, and valued. Co-sponsored 2019 by the Chigo Black Social Culture Map, the Morn Dance Mic Archivg Foundatn, and the Center on Halsted, the event clud muny archivg on se, oral histori, and panel discsns that celebrated nightlife’s queer roots, reflected on the signifince of public events like Black Pri, and explored the importance of inic spots and “anchor stutns” (Ghaziani 2014a: 383) the gayborhood. ” Rints found her msage pellg and voted by a marg of more than 2-to-1 a referendum to repeal a law that protected gay men and lbians om discrimatn employment, hog, and public acmodatn (Ghaziani 2008: 33) Florida fight unleashed protts across the untry, many of which were anized gay neighborhoods.

THE NEW AND IMPROVED GAY STREET SIGN IS ALL OVER NYC PRI TWTER

”26 The prott theme found s way to the first natnal March on Washgton for Lbian and Gay Rights another well-known example, the San Francis queer muny uned when Dan Whe assassated supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor Gee Masne on November 27, 1978. ”28 A wrer for the San Francis Chronicle add that mobilizatn gay districts helped to lower fectn rat: “When AIDS fally was intified, whe middle-class gays mobilized powerfully, and over time their efforts drove down fectn rat San Francis’s Castro district.

Wrg for the Washgton Post, Pla Span remarked on group’s name, logo, and activi:They uld have lled themselv somethg more prosaic, neighborhood anti-crime patrols beg nothg new, after all…But gay activism, New York-style, requir a certa ironic panache…The Pk Panthers tle, wh s echo both of ‘60s policizatn and silver-screen mp, won swift approval. Coupl, Inc., a Los Angel-based anizatn fightg for legal regnn of gay partners, anized The Weddg, a ceremony that celebrated queer relatnships and mand that their partnerships receive equal legal regnn as married heterosexuals (Ghaziani 2008). Rega Quattrochi, the former director of the New York Cy AIDS Rource Center, argu that gayborhoods have always promoted the celebratn of queer cultur: “Even as recently as the early and mid-1980s, I thk the Village was symbolic of a sort of celebratn of gay culture.

’ A welg vibe is what anizers hope to spire when visors see new street signage that will signate a portn of the Center Cy District as the cy’s official gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr-sensive neighborhood…the new street signs will feature the tradnal GLBT rabow, or ‘Freedom’ flag unrneath the ual street signs…‘The signage is an important symbol for this cy, ’ [said Tami Sortman of the Philalphia Gay Tourism uc].

GAY MOSW MOSW CY GUI

Some reporters scribe Provcetown, MA as “a gay mec the summer months, ” while New Yorkers add, “To the old-timers, Christopher Street was, and should stay, New York’s Gay Mec, where the promise of liberatn remas alive. That year, the Washgton Post ran a poignant story, worth quotg at length, that blend Islamic and Amerin imag to celebrate s gayborhoods:There will be a nstant stream of pilgrims g to gaze at the brick-and-stuc fa of the Stonewall over the next few days.

GAY STREET

My fdgs show that gay districts provi accs to urtship and partnership possibili, fluence electns, provi a perceptn of safer streets, offer accs to queer bs and stutns, enable social movement anizg, and are the ndus of muny buildg. Then the rints will e”Activism and prott“When AIDS fally was intified, whe middle-class gays mobilized powerfully, and over time their efforts drove down fectn rat San Francis’s Castro district”Communy buildg“That’s what Greenwich Village has always been.

By acceptg this methodologil directive, we n e the reasons that gayborhood rints provi for why they live the area, like other rints other neighborhoods, to expla the signifince of a ll for prrizg street empirics to unrstand what a neighborhood means—why matters to the people who live there—enabl scholars to thk broadly about the teractnal and attudal mechanisms that produce place characters. UCL Urban LaboratoryCard KG, Gibbs J, Lachowsky NJ, Hawks BW, Compton M, Edward J, Salway T, Gislason MK, Hogg RS (2018) Usg geosocial workg apps to unrstand the spatial distributn of gay and bisexual men: pilot study. Over the urse of the early 20th century, was a safe haven for New York's LGBTQ muny and home to events—cludg the Stonewall Inn protts—that would bee flash pots for the mastreamg of the gay rights movement all across the remas to this day an important symbol of LGBTQ life New York (photographs of the sign at s tersectn wh Gay Street are tourist souvenir shop stapl), even though 's now more populated wh luxury shops and extravagant gyms than the nightlife hotspots that was once famo for.

WHAT’S A NAME? GAY STREET

Durg this time, the FBI matas a list of gay Amerins, who will subsequently be targeted by police for an array of illegal activi, cludg habatn and kissg the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, many queer people of lor had been leadg a (relatively) open life the north Manhattan neighborhood—as celebrated gay artist Bce Nugent put : "Nobody was the closet. Activists hatch a plan to go around bars the Village, and tt out whether they will still receive service after revealg to bartenrs that they are gay—all ont of the half dozen reporters they have ved along for the ri. First opened at 291 Mercer Street 1967, mov to the rner of Christopher and Gay Streets (the etymology of Gay Street's name, cintally, is a total cince) held on Christopher Street for the victims of the Orlando shootg.

By 1982 the term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is formally troduced by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn for the disease that is sweepg through the untry, and cimatg the Village's gay populatn. Sourc: Greenwich Village and how got that way, Terry Miller; Gay Metropolis, Charl Kaiser; The Village: 400 years of beats and bohemians, radils and rogu, John Strsbgh; Love, Christopher Street: Reflectns of New York Cy, Thomas Keh. It's pure cince that Gay Street tersects wh Christopher Street right near the Stonewall Inn — the "Gay" of Gay Street is a fay name — but s lotn on the para route mak prime real tate for a statement on what pri means 2019.

That said, the vast majory of viss rema trouble-ee, even for visors who equent the cy’s ls-than-secret gay bar and club bt hotels MoswThe historic exterr of the Hotel Metropol, facg the ternatnally-celebrated Bolshoi Theatre and close to many of the other ma thgs to do Mosw, is nothg pared to s sumptuo terrs. It was not until the mid-20th century that e of the term “gay” me to more monly mean specifilly those attracted to the same sex, and was not until the late 20th century that this fn me to eclipse other and associatns.

WHO OWNS GAY STREET?

Of urse, durg this same time perd, Greenwich Village also evolved om beg one of the premier lol for those who were “gay”– as unfettered by ntemporary nventns — to, more specifilly, a mec for those who were “gay” — as attracted to the same sex. Acrdg to “The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan’s Street Nam and Their Origs” by Henry Mosw, the name Gay Street first appears officially the New York Cy Common Council mut on April 23, 1827 — when Greenwich Village was first beg settled as a suburb of New York by merchants fleeg the yellow fever epimics downtown. They appeared a rabow of lors and read ( scendg orr): Lbian Street, Bisexual Street, Trans Street, Queer Street, Intersex Street, Asexual Street, Nonbary Street, Pansexual Street, Two Spir Street and + Street, wh the pl sign signatg any group that might feel ntrast to so much of Greenwich Village, which n feel like a satelle mp of Hedge Fund Universy, Gay Street still retas the character of an old, bohemian left.

GUI TO GAY STREET KNOXVILLE, TENNSEE

It is bee of the associatns that people who have lived on the block liked to thk about the street relatn to Sydney Howard Gay, the edor of The Natnal Anti-Slavery Standard and a key operative the Unrground Railroad, which some believe might have clud stops on the block. In this se, might serve the greater good to move past street signs and mount a plaque outlg the street’s seems clear that Gay Street was named for a man named Gay — someone, acrdg to property rerds, livg on the Bowery the late 1700s, someone whose distctns have been lost to the Street is also jt around the rner om the Stonewall Inn, a landmark to the movement for L. Christopher Park is near Sheridan Square, but was not formerly known as Sheridan we handle rrectnsA versn of this article appears prt on, Sectn MB, Page 3 of the New York edn wh the headle: Who Gets to Lay Claim to Gay Street?.

HOW GREG HOLN DID GAY ACCEPTANCE RIGHT ON 'BOYS THE STREET'

” Holn wrote “Boys the Street” after Krist Rso and Dannielle Owens-Reid, the -founrs of Everyone Is Gay, an anizatn that supports LGBTQ youth, asked him to ntribute to their 2014 fundraiser pilatn, The Gayt Compilatn Ever Ma II.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

“What works is that those emotns that he was feelg are very siar to the emotns that somebody feels when they are g om a place of, ‘I’m gay, I’m queer, I’m trans, and I don’t want to tell my father bee my father disapprov. Bee was clud on the Everyone Is Gay pilatn, “Boys the Street” directly supported an anizatn workg wh LGBTQ youth, and he says he’d like to rerd more songs like “The Lost Boy, ” his 2012 chary sgle that was spired by the story of a Sudane refugee and raised money for the Red Cross.

Soon they were advotg nothg ls than “gay liberatn” nscns-raisg groups to fundraisg danc, protts outsi hostile newspapers to refug for homels trans and queer people, this surge LGBTQ+ anisg took many forms, and as the first anniversary of the rts me to view, some the muny began discsg how bt to mark what was beg regard as the “Bastille day” of gay rights. Wh a sgle lifetime, homosexualy has moved om beg a crime and a psychiatric disorr, punished the US by imprisonment, chemil stratn, social ostracisatn and a lifetime as a registered sex offenr, to a socially and legally regnised sexual inty. To relig and cultural nservativ, Pri paras are nothg ls than the public flntg of viancy, while many LGBTQ+ people regard today’s rporate-sponsored paras as havg sold out the radil, revolutnary mands of the gay liberatn movement.

PARTY AND PROTT: THE RADIL HISTORY OF GAY LIBERATN, STONEWALL AND PRI

The roots of that bate go back to s earlit days, and suggt that Pri and the Stonewall rts have always been part of a ntent battle for inty and ownership – a battle that has helped produce the very ia of what beg a lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr or queer person might Stonewall rts were not the birth of the gay rights movement.

Seven years before that, when police had raid Coopers, a donut shop the cy ntled between two gay bars, LGBTQ+ patrons had attacked officers after the arrt of a number of drag queens, sex workers and gay had been a gay rights movement the US among people scribg themselv as “homophil” sce the late 40s.

Hirschfeld’s scientific approach, bed wh his sympathetic treatment of LGBTQ+ people – he was himself homosexual – had been key velopg the ia that their shared experienc uld be unrstood not jt as discrete sexual (and crimal) acts, nor as psychiatric illns, but as a legible sexual and genr inty, which uld be afford civil rights. Photograph: Getty ImagIn Los Angel 1950, a group of experienced polil activists and munists, cludg Communist party USA member Harry Hay, me together to form the Mattache Society, one of the first homosexual rights anisatns the US.

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

) The Mattache Society had radil roots activism, takg on the anisatnal stcture of cells and central anisatn favoured by the Communist well as publishg magaz for gay men, and supportg victims of police entrapment, the society had wir polil aims, cludg to “unify homosexuals isolated om their own kd” and to “te homosexuals and heterosexuals toward an ethil homosexual culture parallelg the cultur of the Negro, Mexin and Jewish peopl”. It wasn’t enough to fend men who had sex wh men; rather, a polil stggle uld only be waged by creatg the ia of the homosexual as an inty, the same polil mol as other mori – someone who uld regnise him or herself as part of a wir culture. Such aims would bee key to the ncept of “gay pri” some two s two s, however, would be among the harst for LGBTQ+ people US history, as the greater visibily of the homosexual inty led to a nservative backlash, and a moral panic the media that was palised upon by policians.

Ironilly, sackg 5, 000 feral employe and thstg them out of the closet, the red-baers provid a new hort of activists for the homophile movement, such as the army map service astronomer Frank Kameny, who voted the rt of his life to the LGBTQ+ e. After he was forced to appear before the Hoe Un-Amerin Activi Commtee, Hay was expelled om the Mattache Society, now a growg anisatn of a few thoand men, and he wasn’t the last radil to be thrown homophile movement began to tackle “subversive elements” and orient self around rpectabily. In 1966, the Mattache Society challenged this policy wh a “sip-” at Juli’, a Greenwich Village bar that was popular wh gay men, but was attemptg to shake off s homosexual bars equently flouted this law, explog legal loophol and payg off the NYPD while chargg their LGBTQ+ ctomers high pric for watered-down drks.

Dpe his own rervatns about the place, Mattache activist Dick Lesch, wrg jt a month after the rts, acknowledged how Stonewall was more than jt a dance bar, terg for those “who are not wele, or nnot afford, other plac of homosexual social gatherg”. When, ncerned by the ongog unrt, members of the society pated on the board-up wdows of the Stonewall “WE HOMOSEXUALS PLEAD WITH OUR PEOPLE TO PLEASE HELP MAINTAIN PEACEFUL AND QUIET CONDUCT ON THE STREETS OF THE VILLAGE – MATTACHINE”, their ll went unheed.