05/18/2007
The War Over Christopher Street
The L.A. Times ran an article today on the changing face of New York's West Village, the piers, and Christopher Street, where today youths congregate on a nightly basis, drawn from all parts of the city. Some longtime residents don't like it, and the issue reflects a clash in both age and race.
One perspective:
"Jay Jeffries, 65, is white and gay. He has lived for 40 years in the West Village, where he participated in the first gay rights marches. From his second-floor window, he watches the roller-skating boys with boomboxes pressed to their ears and the fistfighting girls wearing do-rags and jerseys. He has never felt so out of place. Residents like Jeffries say they want the gays of the hip-hop generation to take their rowdiness elsewhere. They have demanded stricter curfews at the pier. They have lobbied to close a train stop on weekends to make it more difficult for people from New Jersey to travel to the West Village, and to ban loitering in their neighborhood. They have suggested that park patrol officers — who police the pier — carry guns...Most of the gay teens and 20-somethings who flirt, kiss, smoke, dance and gossip on the pier, across the street from apartments and brownstones, don't know about the Stonewall riots, Jeffries said. 'They're another generation. These are the people who got the rights' because his generation fought for them. 'There's no willingness to interact,' Jeffries said, 'or to really treat us with the respect we deserve.'"
The other perspective:
"It takes 19-year-old Danny Watson an hour and a half — catching a bus, to a ferry, to a train — to get to the West Village from Staten Island. On this evening, he arrived in a Ralph Lauren shirt and jeans, and Gucci slip-on canvas shoes. He wore his hair in a low-cut Mohawk, and kept a Bluetooth device on his ear to talk on his cellphone. Surveying the chic crowd, he said, 'This area is monumental.' Watson discovered the pier after attending the gay pride parade three years ago. It was the first time he felt proud of his sexuality. In Staten Island, his neighbors and friends are mostly heterosexual Italians and Catholics, he said. There is a gay scene there, but Watson said he doesn't fit in because he is black. He has eight sisters and he lives with his mother. They accept his orientation, he said, 'as long as I don't throw it in their face.' People need to understand, he said, that the face of the gay movement has changed, and the West Village should not be scared of it. 'You have to look at the person inside and not just view them as 'oh, these kids have all these crazy colors on, they're always loud and laughing,' ' Watson said. 'You don't know what they go through in their lives or what they come here for. This is where they feel like they have to be.' Decades ago, white gays settled in the West Village because it was safe, said Rickke Mananzala, co-director of FIERCE, a gay youth advocacy organization. He said young people tell him that they come for the same reason, and that they have a right to hang out in the West Village even if they can't afford to live here."
Certainly a complex issue, which begs a third perspective from one resident, 80-year-old Bob Kohler: "The young gays' behavior can be irritating, said Kohler, who participated in the Stonewall protests, watched his neighbors die from AIDS and refused to move when the neighborhood became straighter and wealthier. 'Do we crucify people because they're a nuisance? Do we go up to them and say, 'You don't belong here for being young and loud, and being people of color? 'It's life," he said. "It changes, and we have to change with it.'"
A new generation in the West Village [la times]
Posted 11:30 AM EST by Andy Towle in Gay Rights, Gay Youth, New York, News | Permalink
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I say to the young gays, go for it and do it your way! To the ones of color, be as loud and proud as you want! I'm much older, and only wish I could have had the freedom to be me when I was a young man, the future, even with all the bigots running the country is bright for the gay youth, and for those who don't like the way the out, loud and proud young gays "act" too bad, stay cooped up in your apartments longing for the, umm, "good old days," which oddly enough sounds like some of the same anti-gay bigots out there, since I assume most of the kids are of color, and that just doesn't work for the locals. And, no, this isn't a race baiting quip, just a question.
Posted by: Anthony | May 18, 2007 11:43:19 AM
But why would it be primarily young gays-of-color attracted to the area, rather than just young gays period, Caucasian-included, from different parts of New York City?
Posted by: Joe T. | May 18, 2007 11:46:15 AM
Jay Jeffries can suck my dick. I hate to tell him but the rats he is referring to are from right there in the 5 boroughs - not New Jersey.
Posted by: shane | May 18, 2007 12:00:26 PM
Anthony, you can suck it too. Have you been through there at night? It's a f-ing nightmare!
Posted by: shane | May 18, 2007 12:02:17 PM
"There's no willingness to interact,' Jeffries said, 'or to really treat us with the respect we deserve.'"
Tired. You don't do good work because it will get some respect as you age. You do it because it's the right thing to do.
Posted by: James | May 18, 2007 12:05:10 PM
I think the kids are sort of annoying too (far from being 'out, loud, and proud'-their fighting can get ugly), but who lives in the West Village seeking or expecting peace and quiet on the weekends?
Posted by: Charles | May 18, 2007 12:06:32 PM
Joe T.:
Actually, I read that many of the young folks are from New Jersey--that a lot of the New York City young gays have created "gay areas" to hang out in their own boroughs. But still your question in interesting...where do the young white gays from Jersey, or those that don't feel comfortable in their own communities--where do they go? They oughtta' come back to the pier, they're welcomed--atleast 'till midnight (2 a.m. on weekends, I believe).
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | May 18, 2007 12:07:03 PM
Why, Joe? Because our pale brothers in arms have vowed to have nothing in common with us, even the obvious similarities like sexual orientation and youth. As Danny said, the Staten Island gays would rather turn away from him. Voluntary segregation, if you will. But you can assess that from the gay media's reinforcement of that norm. I haven't been to the piers regularly in several years, but how ironic is it that the stigma I felt for being the undesirable -other- has now changed so considerably and made the white folks nervous? I'm more worried about how their delusional standard of living has turned once tranquil areas of the city into unaffordable shrines to commerce. God forbid you seek peace of mind on their turf for a few hours. Soon they'll be charging for that too.
Posted by: 000000 | May 18, 2007 12:09:27 PM
This story is really getting old. Anyone who has been around these kids knows they act like a bunch a rude animals. Gay or straight, they should probably have been smacked around by their parents a bit more when they were kids. When I was 15 I was respectful enough to go to Christopher street and enjoy the neighborhood without having to run screaming down the street at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday. If they want respect, they should act respectable.
Posted by: MT | May 18, 2007 12:09:36 PM
This is really interesting in the context of generations. Christopher Street has always had this situation since the seventies. If a newspaper had been allowed to write a gay story on Christopher Street back then, the locals would have been moaning to the reporter about the lack of respect of all the clones.( And I do remember a friend who lived on one of the little side streets complaining to high heaven every week about all the guys pissing on his geraniums) And boy was it a zoo there on the weekends! Loads of fun. But it was still kinda dicey late at night. It's transitioned now into gay youth of color and I do think that's great. I really hope Christopher Street will always be a place for gay and lesbians to gravitate to. It really is our history.
It seems it would be nice if there could be more community outreach, letting the kids know what is and isn't appropriate. Just yelling at them and putting up imaginary roadblocks won't do anything.
People have to remember that they live in New York City. If they want serenity, move to the Berkshires.
Posted by: Todd | May 18, 2007 12:11:07 PM
Thnx, Derrick.
Posted by: Joe T. | May 18, 2007 12:14:10 PM
christopher street (and the piers) always attracted a trash element, that's part of its charm... chelsea never had an edge and is certainly not a place to hang around. besides, new york's gay scene is entirely segregated so this is a natural default.
Posted by: A.J. | May 18, 2007 12:16:24 PM
Thnx, 0000
Posted by: Joe T. | May 18, 2007 12:17:33 PM
But now that it's kids of color, Todd, no one else wants to be in the area. That's not progress.
Posted by: 000000 | May 18, 2007 12:18:18 PM
I've been through there on weekends. It's not that roudy. The bars are what attract the kids of course. There are few gay bars in NJ or SI and they are generally white or hispanic. Newark and Jersey City are too religious for gay bars and Hoboken is too uptight.
Posted by: anon | May 18, 2007 12:20:09 PM
I think the article simply sensationalizes the reality that Christopher Street and the piers attract some loud rowdy people, and some locals just want a little peace and quiet.
'Twas ever thus.
The article throws in race, class, and generations by interviewing a few folks to get a rise out of readers.
That's all that this is.
Posted by: Alan | May 18, 2007 12:24:04 PM
Hmmm, so far they're "animals" and "trash." If only they could be good negroes like RuPaul. A.J., the piers are not in Chelsea. I find it very hard to believe that a neighborhood with pricy condos galore would have tolerated the terror of these kids for so long.
Posted by: 000000 | May 18, 2007 12:25:55 PM
Its a different time now and the West side Highway and Christopher street is a much different place. There has always been "the youth element" on the stretch of the Highway at the old piers. In the 70's, 80's, and 90's. the only difference now is that that section of the Villagae has been so Gentrified and so cleaned up that they "youth culture" is still there because they have no place else to go and they keep coming back.
Mr. jeffries is old enough to remember that area from days gone by, I am sure that he didn't complain when Badlands, The Cockring, The Hotel Christopher, Peter Rabbits, The Trucks, and the Piers themseleves were open and the area was literally wall to wall at nights filled with gay men cruising and on the make. The youth were there at that time and lived side by side with his generation. And there were no problems. Its just more noticeable now that the area had been gentrified. bars, Clubs, Bookstores, and Porn Thr=eatres have been pushed out by the City and Developers. The Peirs and Crusing Area where men crusied 24/7 closed and replaced by a park. The Bars and The Theatres gone and the Condo's and families moved in. Where was Mr. Jeffries when the Homosexual Community and Underground was quietly pushed out of that area. by zoning Laws, new Health codesm and Developers?
These kids no matter how rowdy they are are literally one of the only links left to the history of this area. They refused to be moved and in a way thats a good thing. I only wish that the gay men of that area in the 90's did the same thing.
Posted by: Wolf | May 18, 2007 12:34:23 PM
0000000... i never said the piers were in chelsea, i said west village... and by trash i meant for decades it's been the scene for streetlife. as for the influx of pricey condos, money can't always erase an established history.
Posted by: A.J. | May 18, 2007 12:34:29 PM
I'll just bet the people living in the neighborhood at the time of Stonewall had the same things to say about all the "sexual deviants" appearing in their neighborhood (thus the MIB suits?...). This is a problem of the young vs old - a problem as old as the ancient Greeks.
It's what the village has been about for decades. To a lesser extent this is happening in West Hollywood as fabulous older fags invest in real estate and they want what attracted them to the neighborhood in the first place to go away.
It's really gross that some people are too stupid to see that and go for race...
Posted by: BeeDee | May 18, 2007 12:35:04 PM
Lived in the West Village for a long time, and basically what everyone has said (good and bad) is true. It's a free city, and these kids have a right to be here - no one has to like it. It's also true that a lot of these kids are stunningly rude and abusive. I saw three girls bully an elderly woman who asked them to stop drinking beer on her steps. These are not good-hearted kids who will respond kindly to a respectful request. They've been treated rudely and hurt, and now they just want to be rude and hurt someone else. The seventies had some nasty sleaze, to be sure, but this seems worse to me.
What's the answer? The same as it always is: the straight people with money (pouring into the neigborhood and north along the highline) will demand change, and they'll probably get it, and the neigborhood will ultitmately be safer and quieter and a lot less interesting.
Posted by: Zlexar | May 18, 2007 12:39:44 PM
No thanks Shane, I'll leave that sucking of your tiny weenie for you and the old bigot in that area. Don't have to get catty because you don't agree. They live in NYC, peace and quiet isn't ever that easy to come by, live in SF, Castro on weekends, loud and filled with partiers, fact of life in any gay area in any large city, but, since they are black and Hispanic, the rules change, the tired, played out hypocrisy of some gay men is a joke, and a bad one at that.
Posted by: Anthony | May 18, 2007 12:50:02 PM
How DARE these kids have fun and flaunt their sexuality in the West Village. Good heavens. We don't need THOSE people in the West Village of all places. Next they'll start applying for jobs at - gasp - Abercrombie & Fitch and, God forbid, trying to MOVE to the West Village. THEN what will we do. Forget about closing the train stop on weekends - close it all together. And build a wall. That will certainly keep THOSE people out!
Posted by: Cyd | May 18, 2007 1:10:46 PM
Very well said, Zlexar
Posted by: A | May 18, 2007 1:13:29 PM
This has been the war cry forever in the West Village. I am a man of colour who made the "pilgrimage" to the West Village from the borough of Queens circa 1975 through the 1980s(to that exact same area) back in the day.....I am now 50. The natives were as always not crazy about the boisterousness that came with throngs of young ones(16- 20+ yrs old)usually starting at Hudson Street all the way down to Christopher and 12th or West Side Highway. Furthermore that stretch of the West Side Highway was dotted with Gay bars from Christopher up to 14 Street(the MineShaft, the Toilet, 12 West)later (the Lure, the Spike).....on the other side of the Highway were the Piers(or more accurately the ruins of the former Piers) that was a haven for sex..day or night. This has never, ever been an area of peace and quiet....EVER!!!!!
Fast forward 2007 that whole area as been sanitized, homogonized dare I say almost disneyfied and now quaintly called, Hudson River Park with multiple Richard Meir designed highrises. This area has never been exactly low rent but now it is truly, truly considered the new GOLD COAST.
Gays and Lesbians now have to fight mightily not to be outnumbered by breeders and their prolambulators on any weekday or ESP. weekend.
I say all this to say every generation thinks they are not venerated for the past and the newbies think the oldsters need to chill and try and remember when they were rabblerousers themsleves.
BTW, the ratio of gays of color wax and waned depending on weekend or weekday.
A better byline would have been the WAR ON CHRISTOPHER BETWEEN THE NEW STRAIGHT INFLUX AND OLD GAY GUARD.
Take a trip through the old West Village these days and you'd think you were on the Upper West Side, Upper Eastside or Brooklyn Heights. It is now overrun by Straight couples and their kids.
Posted by: Mack | May 18, 2007 1:14:29 PM