GEORGE CHAUNCEY'S GAY NEW YORK: A VIEW FROM 25 YEARS LATER - Volume 18 Issue 1
Contents:
- GAY NEW YORK
- GAY NEW YORK: GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKG OF THE GAY MALE WORLD 1890-1940
- A NEW NOVEL REVENTS E.M. FORSTER’S CLASSIC GAY LOVE STORY ‘MRICE’
- GAY NEW YORK:
- A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
- THE GAY MEN FREQUENTED MANHATTAN PIANO BARS. SO DID THEIR KILLER.
- GAY NEW YORK : GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKGS OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890-1940
- GAY NEW YORK, REVIEWED BY BILLY GLOVER
- GAY NEW YORK
- BOOK REVIEW OF GEE CHNCEY, "GAY NEW YORK: GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKG OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890- 1940"
- GAY NEW YORK SUMMARY
- GEORGE CHAUNCEY'S GAY NEW YORK: A VIEW FROM 25 YEARS LATER
- GAY LERATURE IS OUT OF THE CLOSET. SO WHY IS DECEPTN A BIG THEME?
GAY NEW YORK
Historian Chncey (Univ. of Chigo) brilliantly maps out the plex gay world of turn-of-the-century New York Cy. * gay new york book review *
Lgbtq-history655 reviews965 followersApril 20, 2020Wrten rponse to the notn that the 'closet' always has existed for Amerin gay men and lbians, as well as the ncept that genr and sexualy always have been distct domas of personhood, Chncey's Gay New York argu that gay people were not isolated, visible, and self-hatg durg the first s of the twentieth century. Chncey has jt fished discsg the many ruals by which the sailors, dockworkers, hobo/seasonal laborers and homosocial immigrants of early 1900s New York affirmed manls and male stat (you're physilly strong; you do hard and dangero work; you domate sexual partners, be they female prostut or the pated rent boys loungg every saloon; you drk a lot, and buy drks for your pals); he's about to lnch his argument that our ironclad hetero-homosexual barism evolved as the only way for the skbound, domtited middle class men to fe manls. Gay self referred to female prostut before referred to gay men; tra and trick referred to prostut’ ctomers before they referred to gay men’s partners; and cisg referred to a streetwalker’s search for partners before referred to a gay man’s—and were policed, surveilled and supprsed alongsi the other forms of rough mascule amement—prostutn, drkg, gamblg, burlque shows—gredient to that world.
GAY NEW YORK: GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKG OF THE GAY MALE WORLD 1890-1940
Forster’s novel featured a rare happy endg for gay characters. William di Canz’s new book, “Alec,” picks up and ntu their story. * gay new york book review *
” The mastreamg of workg-class sociabily meant the heightened visibily of gay men, long faiar figur on the streets and vville stag of rougher neighborhoods (and on the park bench and rooftops where workg-class upl, straight and gay, sought a ltle darkened privacy away om their crowd fay tenements); and wh the wang of the Harlem craze, the “Negro vogue” for elaborate plantatn- and jungle-themed floor shows, nightspots began phg a new transgrsive novelty, the “pansy show. Prohibn spread rather than eradited saloon culture, mgled rather than separated gay and straight, bourgeois and prole; the post-repeal New York State Liquor Authory was more effective regulatg social life, and led the charge excludg homosexualy om the mastream entertament world which had bee so visible durg the 1920s.
My outle of this first volume is muddled and skimpy, and n’t possibly suggt the vast human edy Chncey has unearthed—Harlem’s popular and highly veloped drag circu, or the bold pickup subculture worshipfully voted to policemen, or the eply discreet gay middle class worlds; the subway washrooms, the social world of the baths, the hundreds of heartbreakg arrts, jailgs, beatgs and bashgs, the hilar rrponnce of Parker Tyler—Jul, beg dnk, mped wh them [a bunch of “straight” men:] too, and they tried to date him—even after feelg his mcle: he uld have laid them all low: really ’s as wi as this paper. Armed wh a mounta of rearch drawn om urt dockets, arrt rerds, vice society rerds, journals, scrapbooks, newspapers, tabloids, and terviews, he unearths a lorful history smoothed-over by post-WWII cultural retaliatn, makg clear that New York Cy was home to a plex and sophistited gay world the first half of the 20th past is a funhoe mirror, filled wh thgs at once faiar and strange. I regret nothgso this review is jt gog to be random quot, thgs i found tertg, and some mentaryntent/trigger warngs; queerphobia, homophobia, lbophobia, anti-gay vlence, misogyny, anti-sex work, uncensored e of anti-gay slurs/rogatory terms, uncensored e of racist slurs, racism, scriptns of queerphobia om police/doctors/legal profsnals, ableist language, g out/the closet— “g out” like a lot of mpy gay termology was a play on the language of women’s culture; referrg to butante balls where girls are troduced, or e out, to society.
A NEW NOVEL REVENTS E.M. FORSTER’S CLASSIC GAY LOVE STORY ‘MRICE’
In his new memoir, “Gay Bar,” Jeremy Atherton L documents his personal history and the history of queer inty by explorg gay bars around the world. * gay new york book review *
“the cril dience to which one me out had shifted om the gay world to the straight world”— “gay people the prewar years did not speak of g out of what we ll the ‘gay closet’ but rather of g out to what they lled ‘homosexual society’ or the ‘gay world, ’ a world neher so small, nor so isolated, nor, often, so hidn as ‘closet’ impli. ” one man who moved om germany to new york 1927 remembered fairy and queer beg the most mon terms ed for and by gay new yokers— queer men’s efforts to fe an inty and cultural stance that distguish them om fairi and “normal” men alike marked the growg differentiatn and isolatn of sexualy om genr middle-class amerin culture.
GAY NEW YORK:
“Last Call,” by Elon Green, retrac the murrs of four men by a serial killer the 1990s, at a time when gay men felt prsured to hi their sexualy and were often the victims of homophobia. * gay new york book review *
?— self-intified queer men were so good at velopg s that only fellow queer men wh the subculture were telligible to that doctors at the turn of the century were baffled by their abily to intify each other and talked about like was a sixth 1900s “gaydar” rise— the late 1800s and early 1900s, terms for gay men om anti-gay folks cludg law enforcement and doctors were “generate, ” “pervert, ” “sexual pervert, ” and “vert. — effemate gay men were “tolerated bee they were regard as women, ” which meant they were “subjected to the same ntempt, vlence, and sexual exploatn regularly directed agast women” so “participatg the llective sexualizatn and objectifitn of women was one of the ruals by which they tablished themselv as men” women, amiright?
— gotta acknowledge how the homophobia scribed throughout the book is so pletely tied up misogyny/hatred for female sex work— misogynistic queerphob dismissed any woman who wanted to be treated equal to men as hairy, unattractive, man-like lbian weak— so what i’ve gathered is that heterosexualy basilly beme a ncept and inty bee straight men were so threatened by the existence of gay men and also women standg up for ’ve always been the weakt lk— “moral reformers” and police were so termed to ntrol female sex workers that they threatened hotels to banng women, only to be like “wa what” when those hotels started to bee hotspots for gay men lmaorandom— the stonewall rebelln was “wily and accurately regard as the begng of the lgbt movement, ” as opposed to the “talyst for a new wave of radil ancy gay polics. — “gay men turned many rtrants to plac where they uld gather wh gay iends, gossip, ridicule the domant culture that ridiculed them, and nstct an alternative culture” so makg fun of heteros has always been gay culture— “greenwich village’s reputatn as a gay mec eclipsed harlem's only bee was a whe, middle-class world”— the thor says straight actors mimickg and ridiculg gay men by puttg on shows where they do drag or stereotypil thgs is the “gay equivalent to blackface” i— tailg queerbag and lack of (good) reprentatn the early we’re still alg wh that sh over a century ol ol olgenre-nonfictn physilly-own queer-as--fuck-you Author 1 book138 followersFebary 12, 2015This is one of the more remarkable history books I've read a while.
A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
Fd helpful ctomer reviews and review ratgs for Gay New York at Read hont and unbiased product reviews om our ers. * gay new york book review *
I remend this book wholeheartedly to anyone lookg for a new take on urban, Amerin, genr, or gay reviews50 followersJuly 3, 2017this book is an encyclopedic, hugely rmative, and very accsible — the fact that took me two years to fd the time to fish is a reflectn of how by the last two years have been for me, not of the qualy of the book.
My ia was that, if you were gay (and y, I know at the time the word gay had a different meang, but bear wh me), you were also probably fated to be unhappily married, or pletely alone; some exceptn were allowed to the very wealthy men that sheltered themselv some isolated paradise, far om the society ey and judgement. But other than tidbs about the men, you will read also about the Harlem’s drag balls wh the qutsentia of Harlem Renaissance poets like Langston Hugh and Richard Bce Nugent, but also wh, among the attendants, Broadway gay celebri like Beatrice Lillie, Clifton Webb, Jay Brennan and Tallulah Bankhead (’s a cince that most of the nam are almost fotten? For example, Chncey suggts that many aspects of how gays prented themselv society and acted amongst themselv had to do wh societal attus towards manls, rather than societal attus towards homosexualy; if this is the se, I would expect this to manift markedly differently among lbians of the era — which is unfortunately outsi of the spe of the book.
THE GAY MEN FREQUENTED MANHATTAN PIANO BARS. SO DID THEIR KILLER.
* gay new york book review *
While gay people hardly had a walk the part the 1910s and 1920s, one would image, based on the polil and social ameworks of the pre-Stonewall s, that this would have been the worst time of all to be a member of "the third sex, " as they were often lled (along wh "verts, " suggtg that they weren't so much men terted men as secret women trapped a man's body, hence their sire for men). Through a thorough rearchg of police rerds, first-hand ttimony, newspaper reportage, and other primary sourc, Chncey mak the nvcg se that this was a rare time our untry's history where gay people were buildg their own society and culture amidst the domant society and culture wh a b ls difficulty than would e later years. Chncey vers the mor of the time, the plac where gays and lbians met (not jt bars, but also feterias, tomats, parks, public rtrooms, and the newly popularized bathho), but also the shiftg attus both wh and outsi the gay and lbian cultur, the fluence of Prohibn (the mass crimalizatn of any form of night life ma a lot of straight people more cled to look on all sorts of vic they might not have otherwise been terted , such as drag balls), the changg attus of g immigrants, and the cultur surroundg Greenwich Village and Harlem, two of the most vibrant gay cultur New York.
GAY NEW YORK : GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKGS OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890-1940
Both homosexualy and polygamy were targeted and attacked by the feral ernment on the grounds that each practice “disturbed public orr, ” but the former was only prohibed public whereas the latter was eradited graduate school now for Amerin Studi, I read the entire book for my troductn to the Lerature of Amerin Studi class. " Whereas most Amerin histori foc on the visibily of a Gay muny wh the begng of the Gay Rights movement rponse to the Stonewall Rts of 1969, Gee Chncey crafts together evince om police rerds, medil studi, and rtoon imag om popular magaz and newspapers to monstrate how visible and well tablished gay muni New York were even before the 1960s.
History, as is lived, is a reelg spiral of flight and return; the erative reawakeng of new selv faiar plac; a never-endg terrogatn of our own nfed and nfg motiv; a msy slather of dots on a graph where the center n be plotted only Atherton L’s betiful, lyril memoir, “Gay Bar: Why We Went Out, ” cloaks this lived history that learned history, examg an objective subject — gay bars — to create a highly subjective object: a book about his life, flensed down to jt the bs that ma past the chapter foc on one particular gay bar (jumpg om London to Los Angel to San Francis and back), s history and s place the trajectory of Atherton L’s life. When he discs an important 1966 prott at the historic Greenwich Village gay bar Juli’, he c a New York Tim article to talk about the “tr of activists” volved — not realizg that the article left out a fourth man, Randy Wicker (the only one still alive, cintally enough) a half page later, though, Atherton L warns that spe the activist claim that gay bars “should be kept open to facilate knowledge passg between generatns, ” he himself had never really received gay wisdom “on a barstool. Both victims — olr, whe-llar profsnal men, wh the heterosexual vtments of marriag and children — had last been seen at an upsle Midtown Manhattan gay piano bar lled the begs Elon Green’s terrific, harrowg, te-crime acunt of an elive serial killer who preyed upon gay men the 1990s, perfidly turng the safe havens of gay bars to huntg grounds, and semi-anonymo late-night hookups to an opportuny to kill wh impuny.
It would be bt read at the vlet hour wh a snifter of brandy a wood-paneled library, one of those wh a rollg ladr to brg down some of the fad midcentury bt-sellers rurfaced the pag, like Vidal’s “The Cy and the Pillar” — the narrative perks up nsirably whenever this ntent, urbane wrer arriv on the premis — “Washgton Confintial, ” by Jack La and Lee Mortimer (1951), wh s fabled “Garn of Pansi”; and “Advise and Consent, ” by Allen Dry (1959), which won a Pulzer and was ma to a movie by Otto ’s also a Baeker of important plac (map clud): the rollickg Chicken Hut bar where Teboe met his murrers; the “F Loop” of the Dupont Circle pickup scene that veloped the 1960s; the Cema Folli, the pornographic theater where ne men died a 1977 fire; the “gay rner” of the Congrsnal Cemetery; and, more hopefully, the Lambda Risg is overwhelmgly a gallery of the whe male gaytriarchy, wh lbians and people of lor mostly on the sil. Aga, when Wtt di 1987, Monroe followed soon after 1 year and half later (on a sad note, seems that to Monroe Wheeler was prohibed to live the untry hoe he had always shared wh Glenway; tth be told, the hoe was not of Glenway, but of his brother who had married a wealthy heirs who apparently mataed for all her life both her hband than Glenway and Monroe) other than tidbs about the men, you will read also about the Harlem's drag balls wh the qutsentia of Harlem Renaissance poets like Langston Hugh and Richard Bce Nugent, but also wh, among the attendants, Broadway gay celebri like Beatrice Lillie, Clifton Webb, Jay Brennan and Tallulah Bankhead ('s a cince that most of the nam are almost fotten?
GAY NEW YORK, REVIEWED BY BILLY GLOVER
1996): 506CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Plummer, Ken, Contemporary Soclogy 24:3 (May 1995): 355CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Elr, Glen, “Readg the Spac Gee Chncey's Gay New York, ” Environment and Planng D: Society and Space 14:6 (1996): 758CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knopp, Lawrence, “Space(s) lost Gee Chncey's Gay New York, ” Environment and Planng D: Society and Space 14:6 (1996): 759Google Scholar; Brown, Michael, “Closet Geography, ” Environment and Planng D: Society and Space 14:6 (1996): 762Google Scholar; Farman, Lillian, Journal of the History of Sexualy 6:2 (Oct. 1995): 340Google Scholar; Tmbach, Randolph, “The Third Genr Twentieth-Century Ameri, ” Journal of Social History 30:2 (Wter 1996): 500CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Miron, Ja, “The Queerg of History: A Review Essay, ” Maryland Historian 27:1 (1996): 28Google Scholar; and Kopp, Clayton R., “A Goln Age Gay Gotham, ” Reviews Amerin History 24:2 (Jun. See Hood, Clifton, “New Studi Gay and Lbian History, ” Journal of Urban History 24:6 (1998): 782–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strange, Carolyn, “Bad Girls and Masked Men: Recent Works on Sexualy US History, ” Labour / Le Travail 39 (Sprg 1997): 261–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Miron, “The Queerg of History, ” 27–51.
8 Newton, Esther, Cherry Grove, Fire Island: Sixty Years Ameri's First Gay and Lbian Town (Boston: Bean Prs, 1993)Google Scholar; Kennedy, Elizabeth Lapovsky and Davis, Male D., Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lbian Communy (New York: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar; D'E, John, Sexual Polics, Sexual Communi: The Makg of a Homosexual Mory the Uned Stat (Chigo: Universy of Chigo Prs, 1983)Google Scholar; Bébé, Allan, Comg Out Unr Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women World War Two (New York: Free Prs, 1990)Google Scholar; Weeks, Jefey, Comg Out: Homosexual Polics Bra om the Neteenth Century to the Prent (London: Quartet Books, 1977)Google Scholar; Weeks, Jefey, Sexualy (Chichter, UK: Ellis Horwood, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Epistemology of the Closet (Berkeley: Universy of California Prs, 1990)Google Scholar; Katz, Jonathan Ned, Gay Amerin History: Lbians and Gay Men the U. 9 Atks, Gary, Gay Seattle: Stori of Exile and Belongg (Seattle: Universy of Washgton Prs, 2003)Google Scholar; Kaiser, Charl, The Gay Metropolis: 1940–1966 (Boston: Houghton Miffl, 1997)Google Scholar; Beachy, Robert, Gay Berl: Birthplace of a Morn Inty (New York: Vtage Books, 2014)Google Scholar; Farman, Lillian and Timmons, Stuart, Gay L. : A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Polics, and Lipstick Lbians (New York: Basic Books, 2006)Google Scholar; Burg, Daneel, Lbian and Gay Memphis: Buildg Communi Behd the Magnolia Curt (New York: Garland Prs, 1997)Google Scholar; and Tw Ci GLBT Oral History Project, Queer Tw Ci (Mneapolis: Universy of Mnota Prs, 2010)Google Scholar.
Other book-length histori takg the lol, se study approach, clu Boag, Peter, Same-Sex Affairs: Constctg and Controllg Homosexualy the Pacific Northwt (Berkeley: Universy of California Prs, 2003)Google Scholar; Boyd, Nan, Wi Open Town: A History of Queer San Francis to 1965 (Berkeley: Universy of California Prs, 2003)Google Scholar; Hurewz, Daniel, Bohemian Los Angel and the Makg of Morn Polics (Berkeley: Universy of California Prs, 2008)Google Scholar; Ste, Marc, Cy of Sisterly and Brotherly Lov: Lbian and Gay Philalphia, 1945–1972 (Chigo: Universy of Chigo Prs, 2000)Google Scholar; Howard, John, Men Like That: A Southern Queer History (Chigo: Universy of Chigo Prs, 1999)Google Scholar; Johnson, David K., The Lavenr Sre: The Cold War Persecutn of Gays and Lbians the Feral Government (Chigo: Universy of Chigo Prs, 2004)Google Scholar; Project, The History, Improper Bostonians: Lbian and Gay History om the Purans to Playland (Boston: Bean Prs, 1998)Google Scholar; and Stewart-Wter, Timothy, Queer Clout: Chigo and the Rise of Gay Polics (Philalphia: Universy of Pennsylvania Prs, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Duberman, Mart, Vic, Martha, and Chncey, Gee (New York: New Amerin Library, 1989), 318–31Google Scholar; Duggan, Lisa, Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Vlence, and Amerin Morny (Durham, NC: De Universy Prs, 2001)Google Scholar; Mumford, Kev J., Interzon: Black/Whe Sex Districts Chigo and New York the Early Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia Universy Prs, 1997)Google Scholar; Shah, Stranger Intimacy; Somerville, Sbhan B., Queerg the Color Le: Race and the Inventn of Homosexualy Amerin Culture (Durham, NC: De Universy Prs, 2000)Google Scholar; and Thorpe, Rochella, “‘A Hoe Where Queers Go’: Ain-Amerin Lbian Nightlife Detro, 1940–1975” Inventg Lbian Cultur Ameri, ed.
GAY NEW YORK
And McCormack, Richard L., Progrsivism, The Amerin History Seri (Wheelg, IL: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1983), 110Google Scholar; Chncey, Gay New York, 141; Kennedy, David M., Over Here; The First World War and Amerin Society (New York: Oxford Universy Prs, 1980)Google Scholar; and Capozzola, Christopher Joseph Nim, Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Makg of the Morn Amerin Cizen (Oxford: Oxford Universy Prs, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
“Li are the natural food of boyhood, and he had eaten greedily, ” Forster wr of Mrice, who pledg no longer to feign an attractn to women, regnizg honty as his only chance for much of the 19th and 20th centuri, om Dorian Gray to Tom Ripley, the lie of the closet was the hge upon which queer lerature would pivot, reflectg what were then the often judicial or mortal sts of beg openly gay.
BOOK REVIEW OF GEE CHNCEY, "GAY NEW YORK: GENR, URBAN CULTURE, AND THE MAKG OF THE GAY MALE WORLD, 1890- 1940"
Inscery, “merely a method by which we n multiply our personali, ” as Dorian Gray put , was the mo of ngrs gay men had been tght to adopt for the sake of self-prervatn; manifted self as a kd of characterologil tradn, a means by which the psychologil theater of the closet uld be dramatized, om Dorian Gray’s rhetoril fabritns to Tom Ripley’s serialized the most part, the closet now is not the potentially termal fate once was, but rather a layover the long journey to the self, an enclosure om which tth emerg.
In much recent queer fictn are morn, mostly openly gay characters for whom self-nial and even outright ceptn have bee a way of is the guidg prciple of Peter Kispert’s new story llectn, “I Know You Know Who I Am, ” which gay men twist the tth by force of hab, often pursu of a mascule ial that feels otherwise out of reach. And when ’s eventually rebuffed, his self-loathg be an enge for the novel’s up grâce, an act of treachery that leraliz the notn of the closet as a place perpetually at risk of “Apartment, ” Jam Gregor’s 2019 novel “Gog Dutch” volv a graduate stunt wh an aversn to honty: Richard is openly gay, but when an unassumg classmate, Anne, helps him wre his dissertatn, eventually takg over the project entirely, he enjoys the plagiaristic nvenience of her pany too much to tell her he’s attracted to men.