Nowadays, gays have sex their apartments—sometim even beds—but back the old days, lots of gays went to all kds of rnchy lol to rry on, om clubs to parks to tcks to bath ho. Let me brg all back to you a pre-Grdr whiff of Poppers and prote. THE TRUCKS Y, t...
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THE RAMBLE AND LAKE, CENTRAL PARK - THE RAMBLE AS A GAY IN
The wt si of that 30-acre sectn of Central Park known as the Ramble had a reputatn as a homosexual meetg ground long before Cole teased his iends at private parti wh this suggtive lyric. But though Central Park at night—any part of the park—is dangero, the gay ghetto that is the Ramble is perhaps the sectn most fear-ridn.
You don’t have to be gay. But the shadowy dangers are sharp ntrast to the sereny of the sun-flecked arboreal mec the Ramble be for thoands of gay men throughout each day. The sun, the strollg, even the solu, and the natural bety of the park’s most bulic pse—more than the opportuny for a sual sexual enunter the bh—are the mags that for much of this century have ma the Ramble the cy’s bt-known outdoor gatherg place for gays.
The Ramble has been the public eye ever sce the asslt July 5 by a gang of anti-gay toughs who, at 9:30, jt a ltle after dk that Wednday, went wadg wh baseball bats, bashg any men they thought were gay. And leadg to those verduro tangl are man-ma trails—cleared not by the Parks Department but by the feet of s of men, seekg to meet other men a gay cloister away om the cy’s disdaful ey. There have always been parts of our cy that have served as gay cisg areas: Washgton Square Park the 1940s, Third Avenue near the Queensboro Bridge the 1950s, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at 89th Street and Riversi Drive the sixti, piers at the end of Christopher Street Greenwich Village the seventi.