Gay area in nyc

From Brooklyn to Queens, these are the top gay, queer, and lesbian neighborhoods in NYC, brimming with inclusive spaces, events, and a sense of belonging. Bushwick is currently the coolest neighborhood in NYC for art, great restaurants, creative small businesses, and so much queerness. The best gay bars, dance clubs, gay-rated hotels, gay saunas and gay cruise clubs in New York.

New York has played a major role in LGBTQ+ history and it’s no wonder there are a slew of bars that have been beacons for the community (and prime party spots) for decades. The best queer bars in. wolfyy's New York City gay travel guide to where to stay, things to do, restaurants, New York City gay neighborhoods, parties, clubs, & cruising. Gay New York City bars, clubs, parties, hotels, saunas, massages and more.

Queer-centric information. Your complete directory to LGBT life in NYC USA!. For over a century, the Greenwich Village waterfront along the Hudson River, including the Christopher Street Pier at West 10th and West Streets, has been a destination for the LGBT community that has evolved from a place for cruising and sex for gay men to an important safe haven for a marginalized queer community — mostly queer homeless youth of color.

David Wojnarowicz, age 25, at Pier 46, Photo by Leonard Fink. Photo by Peter Hujar. Sylvia Rivera, living on the waterfront, near her altar for Marsha P. Johnson, Photo by and courtesy of Valerie Shaff. Now demolished terminal of the Grace Line located at Pier 45 also known as the Christopher Street Pier in an undated photo. The area was surrounded by thousands of seamen of all nationalities and more than half a million unmarried and transient workers came into the port each year.

At least by World War I, the area had become a popular cruising area for gay men, and by the s the opening of the elevated Miller West Side Highway now demolished cut through the area. The concentration of men, numerous bars and warehouses, and nighttime isolation established the waterfront as one of the main centers for gay life that thrived well after World War II.

Changes in the maritime industry and the growth of the airlines made the piers and the large shipping terminals obsolete, leading them to be abandoned by the mids. This enabled the area to retain its popularity for gay men to cruise and have sex at night. They were used for commerce during the day, but were empty and unlocked at night, becoming a popular locale for public sex through the early years of the AIDS epidemic.

Around the time of the June Stonewall uprising, Christopher Street became an important gay thoroughfare and, thus, the main corridor to the waterfront. The dilapidated structures — including Pier 45 known as the Christopher Street Pier opposite West 10th Street, and piers 46, 48, and 51 — were reappropriated as a destination for gay men to sunbathe naked, cruise, and have public sex by the early s.

Gay bars replaced former waterfront taverns on the western end of Christopher Street and adjacent blocks. Six of the 14 buildings in the adjacent New York City Weehawken Street Historic District housed gay bars from the early s to the present, including the location of the former Ramrod. Waterfront hotels that once served seamen were converted to new uses. From to , Black photographer Alvin Baltrop took photos of gay men cruising among the ruined architecture.

Artist David Wojnarowicz regularly visited the piers beginning in the late s, creating artworks and taking photographs there over the next few years. The AIDS epidemic and planning for waterfront improvements began to impact the area in the s. By the time the Christopher Street Pier terminal was demolished in the mids, it had become a safe haven and first or second home for many marginalized queer youth of color, who to this day make up a significant percentage of the homeless youth population in New York City.

Trans activists of color Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera , founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries STAR in , established a presence in the area and provided food and clothing to the homeless queer youth living and congregating there. In , the intersection of Christopher and Hudson Streets, three blocks from the pier, was renamed Sylvia Rivera Way.

The documentary Paris is Burning documents the significance of the pier and this area for LGBT and questioning youth. In the early s, planning was underway for the rebuilding of the waterfront, including the Christopher Street Pier which would become Hudson River Park , stretching from the Battery to Chelsea.

The initial planning process did not address the presence and needs of the queer community, which catalyzed a grassroots effort.

The queer bar scene in

One goal was to assist with community organizing to ensure that the needs of queer youth would be addressed with the renovation of the Christopher Street Pier and the gentrification of the West Village. The pier was closed in and reopened in as part of the renovated section of the Greenwich Village waterfront. New restrictions were in place including a a.

Since then FIERCE has become a force helping queer youth advocate for later hours and better social services in the area.