CHELSEA NOW, JUN 19, 2013

VOLUME 5, NUMBER 21

THE WEST SIDE’S COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

JUNE 19 - JULY 2, 2013

Yes, Virginia, Lesbians Live in Chelsea

Photo by Yanan Wang

The LGBTQ advocacy groups at 147 West 24th Street raise their fists in the name of community — and family.

Five in One, on 24th: LGBTQ Activism Thrives

BY YANAN WANG From the outside, there’s nothing remarkable about 147 West 24th Street. Walk the block between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, and you’re more likely to notice the 99 Cent store or the Hampton Inn hotel. Those looking for a sense of purpose and community, however, will find it — and not just at XES Lounge (a gay bar, at 157, with a similarly nondescript façade that belies the activity within).

A quick elevator trip at 147 reveals that the building is home to a unique community of activists. From the third floor to the sixth, the facilities are dedicated — in one way or another — to advocating for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, two spirit, trans and gender non-conforming people.

With the elevator providing direct access to each of the organizations’ offices, there is a constant flow — of people and ideas — throughout the building. Many of the groups have overlapping membership, and some of them are collaborating on city-wide projects (a building meeting is held each month so the organizations can stay abreast of each other’s activities).

But at its core, the community at 147 West 24th Street extends beyond individual and collective organizing.

“The building’s like my family,” said Chris Bilal, a member of the campaign

staff at Streetwise and Safe, an advocacy group on the fifth floor. “It’s a lot of people’s families.”

This family started as just one organization in 2006 — when Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment (FIERCE) became the first LGBTQ project to move into the building. Then, little by little, other groups joined them. The growth has allowed them to take on larger projects, said John Blasco, FIERCE’s lead organizer since 2009.

When big events are happening, noted Blasco, the building’s groups mobilize as a single contingent. On June 11, representatives from each of the building’s five LGBTQ groups (The Audre Lorde Project, Streetwise and Safe, Queers for Economic Justice, The Sylvia Rivera Law Project and FIERCE) spoke in solidarity at a press conference addressing police brutality against three gay young men in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn.

A few of the building’s groups host Know Your Rights training workshops to educate LGBTQ youth of color and lowincome LGBTQ youth about how to protect themselves during police encounters.

FIERCE, Streetwise and Safe and the Audre Lorde Project are members of Communities United for Police Reform — a city-wide campaign against discriminatory policing practices such as stop

and frisk. For LGBTQ individuals who are also homeless, low-income or people of color, the risk of being mistreated by authority figures only multiplies, said Amber Hollibaugh, the executive director of Queers for Economic Justice. She noted that all of the organizations in the building advocate for LGBTQ peoples who also belong to other marginalized groups.

“We’re not here by accident. We’re here because we share an agenda,” Hollibaugh said. “We often see the same people, and we care about similar, overlapping issues even though we work in different constituencies.”

As she put it, “We are the ones who see what it’s like to be part of a community and not be invited to the table.”

ENVISIONING LIBERATION, COLLECTIVELY The Audre Lorde Project alp.org @audrelorde 718-596-0342

Over the course of her life, Audre Lorde held many jobs: factory worker, librarian, medical clerk. But she is best remembered by her admirers as a lifelong poet and writer — an activist who

BY WINNIE McCROY The New York City that you come to know is different from the one your friends and neighbors see.

Each of us holds on to the imprint Gotham has made in our consciousness, be it the era of Studio 54 or the post-9/11 lockdown.

This nostalgic myopia also extends to neighborhoods. You may lay claim to living in Chelsea — but depending on when you arrived, that could be the gritty Chelsea of Hispanic families and mom and pop

shops, the 1990s gay wonderland (when all your friends flocked to the Big Cup on Eighth Avenue to cruise) or even the Chelsea of today — where straight families and single women have changed the neighborhood’s residential identity.

In the late '80s, Chelsea was just beginning to become a haven for adventurous gay men looking for cheap rents, among other things. Eons before walking the High Line, locals would

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Alongside Gains, Unhealed Homophobia Lurks

BY ANDY HUMM Two years ago, a marriage equality bill was enacted in New York State — and Governor Andrew Cuomo, who had bulled it through in his unique way, was greeted at the pride march on Fifth Avenue by an explosion of joy bigger than any I had ever witnessed in participating in and covering this annual commemoration of the Stonewall Rebellion since 1974.

As a longtime activist, I

was surprised by the sheer intensity of it. We have had much to celebrate in past decades — from our own courage in just stepping out publicly into the sunshine (a giddy feeling the first time you do it) to passage of our City’s Gay Rights Bill in 1986 to the coming out of allies, from our parents to celebrities. We could celebrate our very survival in 1996 when the advent of prote-

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Pretty in Pride Special Pride Issue, pages 1 - 15

Continued on page 2

5 15 CANAL ST., U N IT 1C • MAN H ATTA N , N Y 10 013 • C OPYRIG HT © 2013 N YC COM M U N ITY M ED IA , LLC

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

A Safe Space on West 24th Street

Photo courtesy of Queers for Economic Justice

QEJ walks in the Pride March with a contingent of shelter, low-income and labor LGBTQ individuals.

Continued from page 1

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embraced multiplicity, in action and in identity.

Lorde once declared, “I am defined as other in every group I’m part of…Yet without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression.”

It is this spirit of standing at the periphery and longing to be on the inside that has spawned a range of projects in Lorde’s honor since her death in 1992. Today, the Audre Lorde Project (ALP) offers its members precisely the kind of community and common ground for LGBTQ people that Lorde sought out in her lifetime.

In her discussion of the group’s mission statement, Executive Director Cara Page spoke of their duty to uphold Lorde’s memory. “We are about understanding all the multiplicities we have to hold to survive,” Page said. “Understanding that action comes with reflection, comes with safety comes with transformation.”

ALP operates through three different initiatives, all of which promote political education: Safe OUTSide the System, TransJustice and 3rd Space Support. The West 24th Street space is its second location in the city (ALP started 16 years ago in Brooklyn, at the Lafayette Presbyterian Avenue Church). Using the resources of its members to help them help one another, “ALP’s vision is always a collective vision,” Page said, noting that 3rd Space Support provides a framework for LGBTQ people to mobilize within their communities and support each other in matters surrounding employment, education, healthcare and immigration. The program involves not only referrals to useful outside resources, but also a health and wellness collective (called 3rd Space Healing) which is comprised of wellness practitioners trained in acupuncture and grief and trauma interventions.

All in all, ALP strives to help LGBTQ people put the resources that they already possess into helping the collective. This is true of their immigrant rights programming, which also

functions as an opportunity for people who are skilled in interpreting to create a multilingual space for the organization.

According to Page, it is especially important for ALP to exist because of its place in a society that has completely dismissed the history of LGBTQ movements. “We’re still not seen as a major voice,” she said. “With the increased gentrification and poverty in this city, it feels at times impossible. But spaces like [the one] ALP offers makes it feel absolutely possible.”

A SCHOOL FOR THE STUDY OF STREET SMARTS Streetwise and Safe (SAS) sreetwiseandsafe.org @SASYOUTHNYC 212-929-0562

The third time that Chris Bilal was stopand-frisked, his transgression was dancing.

While in Marcus Garvey Park along with two friends, Bilal was stopped by a group of police officers who asked them what they were doing standing on the amphitheater.

They suspected, said Bilal, that the youth were performing a sexual act — when in truth, the only thing they were guilty of was “being gay and in a park.”

And while Bilal knew that they were violating his rights by questioning him without just cause, he said, he and his friends relented and allowed the officials to search their bags. The 25-year-old, an African-American queer youth, has become accustomed to being scrutinized for the way he looks.

“I’ve had six negative police encounters,” Bilal said. “That’s in addition to the looks I get every day because of the way that I dress.”

Over two years ago, Bilal saw an advertisement that would change his life. It was a flyer for Streetwise and Safe (SAS), an initiative aimed at instructing LGBTQ youth of color on how to exercise their rights when confronted by police officials. Through a 15-week intensive

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

What Draws Women to Chelsea Continued from page 1 cruise the Meatpacking District on their way to the notorious Anvil Club, or dish dirt with the trannie hookers on Eleventh Avenue.

Back then, lesbians were not a visible presence in the neighborhood.

“Women lived in the city, but not in Chelsea,” recalls longtime lesbian activist Linda Gottlieb. “We were more in the Village, where the bars were. Boys started the trend, and moved into Chelsea in droves.

I remember looking at an apartment in the Chelsea Mercantile Building that was $700,000, and passing on it because a friend said it ‘wasn’t a great neighborhood.’ That place is now worth millions of dollars — and that person is no longer a friend.”

Penny Landau has lived on the border of Chelsea, on 13th Street and Seventh Avenue, for almost 19 years. For her, the neighborhood has always been a place for gay men, and, to a lesser extent, lesbians — although she believes the women in Chelsea just tend to be more private.

Far from a wallflower is Chelsea lesbian and attorney Yetta Kurland, who is currently running for City Council to represent District 3. She has lived on Seventh Avenue and 16th Street for about 15 years, with her Italian greyhounds Salvatore and Luca. Kurland said she was drawn to the area for its strong LGBT presence, progres-

Photo by Winnie McCroy

City Council candidate Yetta Kurland (to the left of District 2 councilmember Rosie Mendez) has been a Chelsea resident for 15 years.

sive open-mindedness, appreciation for arts and culture and the historical landmarks, such as the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She particularly appreciates the diversity of the area.

“I definitely think there are other lesbians who live in Chelsea,” said Kurland. “It is not as black and white as just gay men and lesbians, though. There are people who are

straight, and people in marginalized communities within larger communities of power.”

It is this diversity that prompted her to run for City Council. Kurland noted that, “I think even within the LGBT community we need to represent the full diversity, including race and gender expression. We also have to ensure we have policies that promote everybody. In the 21st century, we have to think

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beyond just gay and straight and think about the community. It’s important to get outside yourself and connect the dots.”

She points to the controversy over stopand-frisk as an example, noting that while some view this as a policy that targets communities of color, statistics also show that it impacts LGBT people — specifically, transgender youth.

The fact that an openly lesbian candidate can run a credible campaign for a City Council seat representing Chelsea speaks volumes to the neighborhood’s political leanings. But should she win, who will Kurland be representing? Do lesbians live in Chelsea?

Real estate magnate Gil Neary, president of D.G. Neary Realty, has lived in Chelsea for 30 years, and his gay-owned company is responsible for securing housing for a large number of those migrating to the area.

Over the past decade, said Neary, lesbians have moved, “in, out and over,” mostly to Brooklyn, Harlem or New Jersey.

“There is not an influx of gay women coming into the neighborhood,” said Neary.

“When we have an open house, it used to be 65 percent gay men and 10 percent lesbians.

Now it is 75 percent straights, and the balance is divided among LGBTs.” Although he has sold apartments to lesbians who were eager to live in Chelsea, Neary said that the neighborhood sociology is more

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

Policing Discrimination, with SAS Continued from page 2 training program, SAS teaches its members strategies to protect themselves against discriminatory policing tactics.

Research conducted by the City University of New York found that LGBTQ youth reported experiencing verbal and sexual harassment from the police at twice the rate of non-queer youth, said SAS Co-Coordinator and Founding Member Andrea Ritchie. She added that while LGBTQ people of color face some of the same challenges as non-queer individuals of their ethnicity, they also encounter abuse that targets their sexual identity.

“If you’re a young gay man standing on the corner looking a particular way, even if you’re just hanging out with your friends, it’s immediately assumed that you are guilty of lewd conduct,” Ritchie said. “Or, if someone’s identification document is marked male or female in a way that the cop thinks is wrong, they will literally say to the person on the street, ‘Are you a boy or girl?’ and lift up their shirts to verify.”

The list of violations doesn’t stop there.

“Cops will arrest LGBTQ youth, call them names like ‘faggot’ or ‘trannies,’ try to get their phone number and sexually harass them by grabbing their ass,” said Ritchie.

Although these kinds of searches are very much illegal under the constitution, she noted, many young people are unaware of how to assert their rights. The program trains them in

Photo courtesy of FIERCE

No one takes the Fabulous out of FIERCE.

simple strategies, such as avoiding dark corners or asking police officers for the cause of the search, that can save them from harassment.

On the policy front, SAS has been successful in pushing reforms on police conduct. In addition to advocating for legislation that would ban a range of discriminatory tactics, the organization was involved in changing the language in police conduct guides to reflect new rules for interacting with LGBTQ people.

Just two weeks ago, Bilal and his friend were driving when a police officer asked them to pull

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over. This time, Bilal didn’t let the encounter slip by. Instead, he recorded the police officer’s verbally abusive speech on his phone and used an app that sent the audio file directly to the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Actions like these demonstrate the impact of SAS. “We want to show youth that they can change the legal framework in which these encounters take place, so that later a lawyer can fight for them,” said Ritchie.

MAKING POVERTY A PRIORITY Queers for Economic Justice q4ej.org 212-564-3608

“Often, there’s the assumption that we’re all wealthy, white and male,” said Queers for Economic Justice (QEJ) Director Amber Hollibaugh, referring to the lack of data on the financial status of LGBTQ people.

When the gay liberation movement first emerged out of the Stonewall riots in 1969, Hollibaugh explained, no demographic information had been gathered to determine “who is LGBTQ, where they were or whether they were wealthy.” The only data that had been collected was drawn from bookstore customers and magazines subscribers — both groups which reflected a white, wealthy clientele. As a result, most of the

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statistics of that era concerning LGBTQ people are hypothetical, she pointed out.

And while Hollibaugh acknowledged that things have certainly improved, she noted that LGBTQ people are still not recognized by most economic survey tools. In the census, for instance, someone may mark that they have a partner of the same sex, but they cannot identify themselves as a queer individual.

QEJ was founded as a response to this gap in recognition. It is built on the understanding that, perhaps more so than marriage equality, a healthy welfare system is essential to ensuring that LGBTQ people are able to survive and thrive.

“Even though we appear to be invisible in [economic] crises, this is our issue,” Hollibaugh remarked. “We can’t separate our sexual orientation or our gender identity from the way we live out our reality.” This reality includes practical matters, such as the tangible differences between living in a homeless shelter with a curfew, and having your own apartment to bring someone home to, she observed.

In earlier decades, queers may have found it appealing to support the mythos of wealth in their community, Hollibaugh guessed, because it made them appear more “useful” to society. This attitude has caused many LGBTQ movements to ignore the severity of the economic problems they face. In most establishments across the country, it is still impossible to be hired as someone who is openly queer, she said.

QEJ’s goal is to apply economic analysis to the financial problems facing LGBTQ people today.

“We pay a price for appearing wealthy when we’re not, so that marriage becomes the leading issue rather than questions of economic justice,” Hollibaugh said. “For many of us, marriage doesn’t change our situation: it doesn’t change whether we can get jobs, or whether we’re on the streets.”

April Dunlop, a Hampshire College student who is interning at QEJ this summer, has helped to establish an Indiegogo (an international crowdfunding platform) campaign to raise funds for the organization’s annual shelter, low-income and labor contingent in the Pride March.

With a goal to raise $3,000 before July 1 (the day after the parade), Dunlop said they hope

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Assembly Member Dick Gottfried

Wishes You a Safe & Happy PRIDE

Dick Gottfried’s Community Office: 242 West 27th St., ground floor Ph: 212-807-7900, E-mail: gottfrr@assembly.state.ny.us

June 19 - July 2, 2013

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Keeping the Spirit of Stonewall Alive each other,” she said, noting that the trick is to find a common ground, despite the differences in their past.

Continued from page 4 to garner enough money to not only cover the costs of food and transportation for that day’s projected 120 participants, but also to pay for T-shirt-making supplies.

“Ideally we would like to buy supplies for them to decorate a T-shirt,” said Dunlop, “because that’s what everyone does at Pride. You put on your fanciest glittery clothing, and we want them to be able to take part in that too.”

Beyond spreading awareness for the plight of financially-needy LGBTQ people, QEJ has worked to ensure that their policy reforms in this regard are followed.

Hollibaugh noted, for instance, that while they successfully pushed the Department of Homeless Services to accept homosexual families into their family shelters, they have struggled to regulate employees’ adherence to this change. Due to a lack of oversight and a fast rate of turnover in welfare staff, she said, there are very few resources available to keep staff informed about new regulations.

“It’s one thing to get these important structural changes into the system,” said Hollibaugh.

“It’s another to get implementation. That’s the comma in the sentence.”

LEGAL SOLUTIONS TO INSTITUTIONAL PROBLEMS The Sylvia Rivera Law Project srlp.prg 212-337-8550

Founded in 2002, the establishment of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) stemmed from a recognition that LGBTQ people were not receiving the legal services they needed to assert their right to determine their own identities.

Since 2003, the group has been a collectively-run organization, with a non-hierarchical structure that enables all of the group’s seven staff members to pass the budget and future plans.

“All of us are executive directors of the organization,” said Reina Gossett, SRLP’s director of membership.

This collective structure is reflected in the group’s programming, which advocates for equality through a legal framework. At the forefront of SRLP’s initiatives are the free legal

BUILDING SAFE SPACES FIERCE fiercenyc.org @FIERCENYC 646-336-6789

Photo courtesy of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project

Smiles all around at SRLP.

services it provides to its community members.

The staff includes three lawyers who help LGBTQ people work through legal networks that may be particularly challenging given their sexual orientation, low-income status or ethnic background. In order to ensure that all individuals are free to express their gender, for instance, SRLP provides guidance for going through the paperwork of changing one’s gender marker.

Before Gossett came on board as a member of the group’s movement building team, she was one of its legal clients. Remarking that SRLP has made a name for itself in its constituent communities, Gosset recalled, “I had always heard amazing things about it from trans people in my community.”

Now, along with Gabriel Foster, she works to reach out to people who have been left behind by the systems they inhabit. For years, Foster has been active in engaging New York’s community of incarcerated LGBTQ people.

Through a prisoner advisory committee, Foster coordinates activities designed to help LGBTQ people find each other within the prison industrial complex.

With a pen pal program, postcard mailings and a newsletter (called “In Solidarity”) showcasing the artistic work of incarcerated LGBTQ people, Foster has worked to break down the walls

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of isolation that enclose queer people in prison.

In contrast to the groups within the building that cater to young people, SRLP plays host to a wide range of age groups, with many older individuals amongst their clientele. One of SRLP’s biggest challenges, Gossett said, has been to create a safe space where the degree of people’s struggles may be radically different.

“People face trauma in disproportionate numbers, and that affects our relationships with

In 1969, the Stonewall Inn was known to most as the gay bar in the city, and its location on Christopher Street only made it an even more attractive venue for New York’s burgeoning LBGTQ community. When the Stonewall riots occurred in September, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the district — and its openly colorful character — would become representative of that first monumental victory for many generations to come.

Today, the Christopher Street Pier is where FIERCE has decided to focus its organizing.

While it continues to be a safe haven for LGBTQ youth, much like other areas of the queer activity across the city, the venue has been threatened by increased gentrification in recent years.

Lead organizer John Blasco said there has always been tension between West Village residents and the LGBTQ youth who frequent the

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

Women and Families Change the Face of Chelsea Continued from page 3 supportive of gay men, with a dwindling but still-ample number of gay bars for men, as well as many businesses owned by (and catering to) gay men.

Renee Richardson looked at many neighborhoods before she bought a home in Chelsea in 2006. Although it wasn’t her original choice, she feels that the area continues to get better and better.

“There are always 24-hour places to go.

There are a lot more restaurants, and the High Line brings more and more tourists coming through,” she said. “I don’t need to leave the area too much, and find it incredibly friendly, with people from all walks of life. There are a ton of gay men, a few lesbians, some families and a lot of old people who were living here when Chelsea wasn’t the best place to live.”

Richardson said that she walks her dog around the neighborhood every day, and finds it to be a safe, friendly place to live.

“One thing hasn’t changed; this is still very much a neighborhood,” Landau affirmed. “It is a very chill place to live — very safe and homey. There isn’t a lot of traffic or big trucks, and there are homes — not the high rises of most of the city, though those are springing up more and more. I think that’s why more women and families are moving here.”

FAMILIES AND FOODIES JOIN THE MIX

When stuntwoman Heidi Germaine Schnappauf left Los Angeles earlier this year for the Big Apple, she wanted to live in a place that was gay friendly, and accessible to lots of amenities and public transportation.

“I’m a big foodie, so I love the fact that there’s so many great places like that old Spanish restaurant on Eighth Avenue that has different specials each day, or Elmo, which has the best strawberry shortcake I’ve ever eaten in my life,” she said.

Schnappauf has found that in addition to an LGBT presence, children are now a mainstay on the sidewalks of Chelsea. She tools around town on her Razor Scooter, and is “constantly racing kids in the neighborhood on their scooters.”

“Some parents might not like me talking to their kids, but most say it’s awesome,” said Schnappauf. “I try to stay as childlike as possible.”

Kurland embraces the changes that have happened in her neighborhood throughout the years, bemoaning only the lack of public resources for things like dog runs.

Richardson has seen the influx of both dogs and kids grow at a constant pace.

“There are always a ton of kids in the park, and when I drop my dog off for doggie day care, I see lots of kids being dropped off for their day care,” said Richardson. “In my building there are more and more strollers, although the majority of apartments are one-

DIVERSITY BREEDS A STRONGER NEIGHBORHOOD

Photo by Scott Stiffler

New in town, already a fan of Elmo: Heidi Germaine Schnappauf.

bedrooms. They tend to move out when the children get older.”

Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) Chief Operating Officer Janet Weinberg admits that the neighborhood has gone through some drastic changes since she moved into her place on 23rd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues in 1991. Back then, said Weinberg, “Chelsea was not what it is today; it was just starting to build up, but a lot of Latinos and Latinas lived here, and we watched it slowly turn.”

Weinberg’s spouse was running for judge, and needed to reside in Manhattan per the election requirements. The two picked the area because they were priced out of the Village and the Upper West Side, and, as she noted, “We knew we were not quite the Upper East Side type.”

They bought their place, and after the real estate crash in 1997 began to uptick, were surprised to see a sudden influx of gay men who “wanted to move to the Village, but couldn’t afford it.” Said Weinberg, “We were fortunate enough to purchase our apartment in the '90s, before rents became what they are, because today, I couldn’t afford to live in Chelsea!”

Rents began to rise, and so did the number of families. When Weinberg and her partner first moved in, her building had only a few children in it. Today, she said, “It’s rare to get in the elevator without seeing a stroller or a kid, and I have watched a few kids literally grow up.”

She celebrates the close proximity of her home to the theater district, museums, restaurants, culture, her doctors and her job.

Weinberg uses a wheelchair to get around, and said that she never has a bad day when she wheels to the Chelsea Market, takes the elevator to the High Line and rolls across town right to her job at GMHC’s new headquarters on West 33rd Street. When people ask her how she’ll spend her golden years, she tells them she plans to retire right where she is, on 23rd Street.

With the recent rash of anti-gay bias attacks, having a breeding ground for diversity in the heart of the city is not a bad thing. Gays have always been among the first wave of gentrifiers for up-and-coming neighborhoods, and discovering now that they are cheek-by-jowl with straight families is not all bad. Most say they look forward to the next generation of kids growing up with a matter-of-fact acceptance of gay people and, by extension, a supportive perspective on their continuing human rights struggles.

“I think it’s good for kids to grow up with gay role models around them, and to learn that not all gay men are predators, and not all lesbians are stevedores,” said Landau. “That way they won’t grow up prejudiced. They can see all different kinds of families, and learn that there are good and bad gay and straight relationships.”

Schnappauf said that gay boys constantly walk down the street holding hands and kissing, and hopes that the exposure will help build tolerance, remarking, “That’s actually a great thing, and I hope it will end the bias crimes. It shouldn’t matter if there are straight or gay families here.”

For as many different Chelseas as there are — Landau’s uncle’s old neighborhood, Kurland’s proving ground or Schnappauf’s urban oasis — all agree on one thing: Chelsea is a great place to hang your hat.

“I have seen the neighborhood unfold into what is it now, and that is a nice place to live,” said Neary. “It has certainly changed a lot, but mostly for the better.”

Weinberg echoed this sentiment, celebrating the diversity of a neighborhood that has “loads of gay folks, some lesbians and a lot of families. It is a bit more diversified than it was, and I think breaking down barriers and integration of all types is a good thing, and how we learn to live side by side.”

As is the case with many Chelsea residents, Weinberg is pleased that she shares a neighborhood with a mixture of upperincome folks and those in Section 8 housing, saying, “That’s what a neighborhood should be. Homogony is not necessarily a good thing.”

Like Greenwich Village, Chelsea will most likely remain a “gayborhood” for the foreseeable future. But some posit that, with the LGBT community’s growing rights and social acceptance, the era of the “gay ghetto” might be reaching an end.

“When I look at gay marriage and the visibility of gay people in the larger culture, I think people feel less compelled to have to live in a gay neighborhood, especially in New York City,” said Neary. “It is not as necessary to be among comrades, not as uncomfortable to be in mixed circumstances. But Chelsea is still a neighborhood that gay people enjoy living in, because there’s a framework there for an easy life — to grab a beer with friends, go to a restaurant, run a business. That’s what’s keeping gay people in Chelsea.”

June 19 - July 2, 2013

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The Persistence of Homophobia lives where they most need to be taught that there is nothing wrong with being gay.

Of course, there is something wrong with being gay. The major religions represented in our town — Catholic, Evangelical Christian, Orthodox Jewish, Muslim — all teach that homosexuality is sinful and evil and that people who practice it are headed for some form of hell. It sounds absolutely medieval, but that is the current state of enlightenment on gay issues in these faiths.

Do responsible leaders challenge this bigoted nonsense? No. They cater to it.

The City gives millions of dollars in contracts to faith-based institutions affiliated with these anti-gay religions to provide social services that are supposed to be available to all New Yorkers.

The Mormon Church had to give up on its firmly held belief that black people were inferior and unworthy of leadership positions — and it did not do so until 1978. Though it was once a tenet of their faith, it was becoming too embarrassing for Mormons trying to do business in the modern world to cling to such crap.

Yet when it comes to condemning gay people (and keeping women from certain leadership posts for that matter), these religions are given a pass. It is not socially unacceptable to belong to an anti-gay religion, unless it is the Westboro Baptist

Continued from page 1 ase inhibitors turned the death sentence of AIDS into a most unwelcome, but a relatively manageable, condition — deliverance won as much by the intense activism of ACT UP as advancing science.

But the marriage win, also the product of decades of activism, seemed to be the ultimate validation for many in the crowd — a validation of not just our entitlement to equal rights, but of homosexual love itself. And while those marriages will not be accorded equal recognition until the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is repealed or struck down by the Supreme Court this month, the feeling of winning it in New York put the pride back in the pride march for many — even though thousands of same-sex couples in New York had gone elsewhere to get legally married and had virtually all the rights New York could give them already (including Edie Windsor and the late Thea Spyer, whose federal rights are in the balance in the Supreme Court’s DOMA decision).

There is much else that makes LGBT people proud this pride month.

Many are proud that the leading candidate for mayor of New York, Chelsea’s own Christine Quinn, is an out lesbian, and that no serious candidate for mayor would think of opposing basic LGBT rights. We have come so far that many proud LGBT activists such as Cynthia Nixon don't feel obliged to support the out candidate. She’s with Bill de Blasio.

You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting somebody LGBT on Broadway, from the drag queen in “Kinky Boots” to Vanya in “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” — not to mention on TV, from “Modern Family” to “America’s Got Talent.”

In the wake of President Obama’s coming around on same-sex marriage and the pending court cases, a majority of U.S. Senators came out for it.

Anyone who thinks we’re not making progress is not reading the papers — but in the midst of all these things to applaud, we are being reminded in no uncertain terms that not everyone is celebrating.

The starkest reminder is the current wave of anti-gay violence, some of it in Chelsea. People have come into neighborhoods where gay people (for the most part) feel safe, free and open — and used violence to show us we’re not.

This May’s murder, in Greenwich Village, of Mark Carson (an African American gay young man) got us away from our computers long enough to hit the streets and demonstrate our outrage at the wave of anti-gay violence. Thousands marched. Speakers proclaimed that we would not stand for it, only to have more of it happen in subsequent nights.

Government leaders are trying to be responsive. More police are supposed to be out there in the areas where these attacks have taken place. Schools are supposed to do emergency programs on hate

Photo by Donna Acceto

What it takes to get us off the computer and into the street: an impromptu memorial sprang up, at the site of Mark Carson’s murder.

crimes. But these are band aids.

We are not facing up to the fact that despite better laws and better poll numbers in terms of how most people view LGBT people, there are stubborn swaths of the population dedicated to the proposition that gay people are sick, evil, and need to be kept in our place.

Yes, most of those who perpetrate these  hate crimes are young males, often acting out on their warped ideas of what it means to be a man, i.e., not someone who would share intimate love with another man.

The sister of the alleged perpetrator in the Mark Carson murder told the papers that a) her brother was not homophobic and had gay friends and family members and b) that he doesn’t even remember committing the crime, probably because he was hopped up on something. But the evidence is that whatever state of sobriety he was in, he was acting out all over the Village threatening people with a gun and anti-gay slurs.

That kind of bigotry was never removed from the reptilian part of his brain that took over when he was acting out.

I can’t claim to know exactly where this alleged perpetrator’s bigotry came from. It is often reinforced in young male peer culture. But the messages also come from a big part of our society that has yet to embrace the principle that, as the late gay activist Franklin Kameny said, “Gay is Good.”

I’ve worked for decades trying to get our schools to integrate LGBT issues into curricula. I have failed with about five different chancellors. Gay issues are hot potatoes in schools due to the perception on the part of most teachers and administrators that raising them in an integrated fashion will somehow spark a backlash from parents.

While gay and lesbian teachers have had employment protections since even before the gay rights bill passed in 1986, few teachers are out to their colleagues, and almost none to their students. They

feel they would lose control of their classrooms if students had the knowledge of who they were — and they feel administrators would not back them up if they did come out. They could be an enormous resource to their schools if they were out.

But instead, the issue remains shrouded in silence at a time in the students’ young

Continued on page 10

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  

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   

     

  

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Acknowledging the Grief AIDS Still Holds

BY PAUL SCHINDLER For Alan Klein, a breaking point of sorts came last December with the death of longtime AIDS activist Spencer Cox due to complications related to the virus. The same was true for many others who fought alongside Cox and Klein in ACT UP during the late 1980s and into the ‘90s.

“Some people are markers that stand for so many other people that we lost,” Klein said this week. “If you talk to people at ACT UP, there are always seminal deaths that stand for the deaths of so many others. There is no way for a 20-something’s mind to absorb all those deaths.”

During a weekend early this year in which ACT UP veterans and other friends and family of Cox came together to honor his life and achievements, particularly in the area of treatment advances, Klein and others recognized a powerful bond of shared grief.

“We realized we missed each other,” he said. “We missed our sense of shared community. It was a healing experience.”

Klein and others talked about those feelings then and have continued doing so since.

One result of that dialogue will be a June 22 event at 49 Grove — the ACT UP/NY (Just Don’t Call It a Reunion) Reunion.

The “(Just Don’t Call It a Reunion)” business, Klein explained, has several different

meanings. First, ACT UP/NY is still around — and with HIV transmission rates up among gay and bisexual men, the epidemic is not over nor, at least in terms of infections if not survival, is it even in retreat.

Just as importantly, the word “reunion” — especially one that takes place in as slick a venue as 49 Grove — suggests a fleeting social moment in people’s lives, perhaps on par with the evening the aging Weismann Girls shared in Sondheim’s “Follies.”

Klein, who chairs the planning committee for the event, struggled to say specifically what the (Just Don’t Call It a Reunion) Reunion will be and mean, but he and others clearly are thinking about it as something more than simply a bunch of old friends hanging out for an evening.

“In the wake of Spencer’s death, a lot of us from ACT UP realized we were growing apart, moving into middle age,” he said. “It wasn’t only that we were mourning the death of Spencer, but also mourning the loss of this community, and in many cases it was more than a community, but also a family.”

Klein suspects that the emotions stirred by Cox’s death are part of a process few would have suspected 20 or more years ago.

“It’s something we went through as young people,” he said. “People in their 20s who had this hope that we could end the AIDS crisis

as our friends were dying around us. And suddenly it was gone. We didn’t know we had to deal with this. We didn’t know it would come back.”

Sometimes these sorts of issues are talked about in terms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Sometimes, depression. Sometimes, anxiety disorder.

In fact, eight years ago, Cox himself began to focus in on the aftermath of so much tragedy in the lives of so many young gay men. Founding the Medius Institute for Gay Men’s Health, he sought to examine the role depression, HIV and aging play in the lives of post-plague gay men and how a holistic response can be crafted. Lack of funding and his own struggles with HIV, depression and crystal meth use got in the way, but others today hope to pick up the Cox’s research torch. His friend John Voelker wrote “perhaps now is the time to resuscitate the research that Medius advocated for,” and last month hundreds turned out for a Manhattan town hall meeting to discuss what science can teach gay men about the issues they face.

Klein applauded those efforts, but said they represent “the science side of the coin.”

The June 22 event, he said, “is about the feelings themselves.” In discussing an event not steeped in research and empirical results,

Klein said he was eager not to offer any pat theories that “pathologize” the emotional experiences of his peers.

“Medius is trying to define what that is,” he said. “I will leave it to the experts.”

Klein needs no expert, however, to tell him that what he has experienced in recent months is profound. “What we’re feeling inside is not a passing emotional pang,” he said, his voice leaving no doubt about the intensity of the feelings.

The goal of the June 22 event is “to create a safe space for people to talk about these serious issues or about what they’ve been doing for the past number of years,” he said.

“Maybe it will be a reboot of our experience in ACT UP.” As a “community building event,” Klein could not say where the reunion might lead.

There could be similar events going forward.

Or smaller events focused on specific ideas.

Or maybe just movie nights out or dinner parties.

But, after a kick-off event that he expects will draw ACT UP veterans from across the country, “We’re going to keep people posted.

It’s really exciting in that sense.”

For more information on the ACT UP/NY (Just Don’t Call It a Reunion) Reunion, visit actupnyalumni.org.

Early Years of AIDS Remembered at New-York Historical Society "The past is neither dead nor past," said Louise Mirrer, the president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society, paraphrasing the character Gavin Stevens in the William Faulkner novel "Requiem for a Nun.” "We see its effects everywhere."

Mirrer made her remarks on May 31 at a press preview for a new exhibition at the Society’s Museum & Library, “AIDS in New York: The First Five Years.”

The exhibition, which covers the period immediately after the onslaught of the epidemic in 1981, includes critical early documents, such as Dr. Lawrence Mass’ coverage in the New York Native that predated the first story in the New York Times by almost two months as well as the first safe-sex pamphlet ever distributed, which was created by Michael Callen, Richard Berkowitz and Dr. Joseph Sonnabend.

The years chronicled, Society officials emphasized, preceded the explosion of mass activism that began with ACT UP in 1987.

"You've all seen silence equals death and this is essentially the years of the silence," said Jean Ashton, the exhibition’s curator.

The materials on display were assembled from New-York Historical’s archives as well as those of the New York Public Library, New York University and the National Archive of LGBT History at Manhattan’s LGBT Community Center.

The New-York Historical Society Museum & Library (nyhistory.org) is located at 170 Central Park West at 76th Street. The

Photos Courtesy of New-York Historical Museum & Library

Only slowly did the silence end: the flyer for the first AIDS vigils, the crowd assembled in Manhattan in May 1983 and the appearance of the quilt in Washington.

exhibition runs June 7 through September 15. The later period of AIDS activism will be the subject of a New York Public Library exhibition, “Why We Fight: AIDS Activism and American Culture,” which will run from October 4 through April 6 of next year.

10

June 19 - July 2, 2013

Challenges Remain for the LGBT Movement Continued from page 7 Church that runs the God Hates Fags Ministry.

Yes, there are well-meaning Catholics, Jews and Muslims who personally disagree with their religious leaders on gay and women’s issues. Some have left over the recalcitrance of their leaders. But all of us need to challenge any group that puts into people’s heads the idea that gay people are, as the Catholic Church officially teaches, “intrinsically disordered” and that gay love is “evil.”

Where, after all, do you think the warped people who commit acts of violence against gay people get their ideas?

Every time the issue of gay marriage comes up religious leaders — from Cardinal Dolan to Agudath Israel — are out there condemning it as a fraud and saying that it will lead to the destruction of the family.

Them’s fighting words as far as I am concerned. They are no less than a blood libel against gay people that inspires violence.

You will not hear any of the candidates for mayor talking this way. Indeed, most of the candidates are fine with the destruction of the wall between church and state.

They oppose a City policy that bars religious groups from using school buildings virtually free of charge from holding regular weekly worship there. This is one issue where Mayor

Bloomberg (who has not always stood with us) and Speaker Quinn have taken a principled stand against this encroachment on the constitution — yet all but 11 Council Members voted for a resolution to change state law to allow this kind of municipal subsidized worship. The only reason now that these religious groups can meet in our schools — including right here in Chelsea — is because one federal judge keeps giving them injunctions to permit it (even though the first ten-year case on the issue ended with the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal of the City’s win on it).

The persistence, and thriving, of antigay religions isn’t the only cloud over full inclusion of LGBT people in society. From Bill Maher to Jay Leno, most of the latenight talk show comics still indulge in the casual bigotry of fag jokes. None of these men think of themselves as anti-gay, and several support gay rights. But when a cheap joke is needed, they are still too lazy to resist those at our expense.

There is also, we learned from a study that came out this month, a myth of gay affluence. It is easy to believe, walking around Chelsea, that a lot of gays and lesbians have hit the jackpot and have money to burn on the best apartments, restaurants and clothes. Many gay people even believe this myth — but the Williams Institute just reported, again, that there is a wealth gap between LGBT people and

our non-gay counterparts that it is not being closed by the advances in our rights.

Poverty is a gay issue. It is not going to be resolved by achieving equal rights, no more than the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended African American poverty. We who claim to care about social justice have to recognize that it does not end with legal equality. We have an obligation to make this a fairer, full-employment society where all the wealth is not concentrated in the one percent.

And I have only been talking about the United States here. While Western Europe has gotten ahead of us on most LGBT issues, it has not been without incident there. France just opened marriage to same-sex couples, but it was met with massive anti-gay marches by secular people who started embracing their lapsed Catholicism when it came to us.

Eastern Europe, Africa and the Muslim world are far worse. As we all know from Iran’s Ahmadinejad, there is no homosexuality there — though young gay men have been publicly hanged for it. The Russian Duma just voted 436-to-0 to pass a new law that effectively bans any public discussion of homosexuality. The Nigerian parliament just passed a set of anti-gay laws that include sentences of more than a decade in prison for showing same-sex affection in public.

Our State Department is trying to

make LGBT rights an international human rights issue. The European parliament is trying to stand up to the Russians on their anti-gay excesses. But the Winter Olympics are still in Sochi, Russia next year, despite the enactment of this viciously anti-gay law.

So despite all our gains, our fast-shrinking world has a long way to go on LGBT issues. But as much as we have to celebrate in terms of advances here in New York, particularly in Chelsea, let’s not pretend we are done with our work — especially when a lot of unhealed homophobia lurks right around the corner.

Longtime Chelsea resident Andy Humm has been a gay activist since 1974. He was a leader of the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights that passed the City’s lesbian and gay rights bill in 1986. He is a former City Human Rights Commissioner. He was director of education of the HetrickMartin Institute for LGBT youth for nine years. He is a regular contributor to our sister publication, Gay City News. And he has been co-host of the weekly national “Gay USA” cable show since 1985, founded by the late Lou Maletta of Chelsea and co-hosted with Chelsea’s Ann Northrop since 1996. This article is the basis of a talk he will give to the Chelsea Reform Democratic Club (on June 20, 7pm, at the Hudson Guild).

Let Freedom Ring

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

11

CHELSEA: arts & eNtertaiNMeNt Put Me on Your Pride Plate Sexy and Soulful LGBTQ Arts Events

on the bill. Don’t forget to drink up, as you go down…to Gotham!

Wed., July 3, at 7:30pm. At Gotham Comedy Club (208 W. 23rd St., btw. Seventh & Eighth Aves.) $20 cover, 2-beverage minimum. For reservations, call 212-367-9000.

Visit homocomicus.com.

BY SCOTT STIFFLER

HOMO COMICUS

Host Bob Montgomery’s long-running showcase of queer, questioning and lavender-friendly stand-up comedy comes — to Gotham Comedy Club — on the first Wednesday of every month. So don’t feel left out just because you missed the ultra-out Pride edition of “Homo Comicus.” Yes, it’s true, you’ve blown that June opportunity to catch “funny that way” comics Curt Upton and Janine Brito. But they’ll likely be back doing their “Homo” thing soon enough (a soft touch with high standards, Montgomery always books those who kill for repeat offenses). Next up, however, a fresh crop of cocksure comics will get their Yankee Doodles on — in a star-spangled July 3 celebration… of July 4! Erin Foley (from “Chelsea Lately”), Claudia Cogan (from NBC’s “Last Comic Standing”) and Justin Sayre (creator/host of the hit Downtown show “The Meeting”) are

BLUESTOCKINGS BOOKSTORE

Photo courtesy of the artist

Dudes in drag, dykes on bikes and queer contingents of every conceivable configuration make their way down Fifth Avenue (in parade form, at least) but once a year.

But just below Houston, Bluestockings Bookstore has your rainbow back covered on a regular basis. Now celebrating its 14th year of literature, feminism, activism and community, the ultra-inclusive Safer Space hosts social justice, cultural criticism and queer identity events nearly every night of the week.

Still standing: “Last Comic” vet Claudia Cogan is among the gaggle of gay (and openminded) humorists on the next “Homo Comicus” bill.

Continued on page 12

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

Events So Gay They Make a Picnic Basket Look Butch explore, absorb and endure the “wide world of immigration, cancer treatment, mental illness, gender dynamics, drug addiction, domestic violence and a vast array of Italian American characters.” Lanzillotto, who certainly gets around, will migrate from Bluestockings to Housing Works Bookstore Cafe for another reading on Thurs., June 27.

At Bluestockings Bookstore (172 Allen St., at Stanton St.). Suggested donation: $5 (nobody is turned away for lack of funds, and the space is wheelchair accessible). For more info, visit bluestockings.com or call 212777-6028. Join them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter (@bluestockings).

Continued from page 11 Once a month (along with events like the Feminist Book Club and the Dyke Knitting Circle), Bluestockings is home to a Women’s/Trans’ Poetry Jam & Open Mike. This month’s edition takes place on Tues., June 25, at 7pm (the start time of most Bluestockings events). Vittoria Repetto — “the hardest working guinea butch dyke poet on the Lower East Side” — hosts, inviting you to deliver up to eight minutes of your own poetry, prose, songs and spoken word. The featured writers are LuLu LoLo (who will perform excerpts from two of her plays) and Tammy Remington (reading her new story “Giving Ground”). Visit vittoriarepetto.wordpress.com for more info.

On Wed., June 26, lesbian storyteller and performance artist Annie Lanzillotto (along with special guests) will read from “L is for Lion: An Italian Bronx Butch Freedom Memoir.” Born into a “brutal but humorous” Italian family, the 1960s tomboy makes the great leap from the stoops of her home borough to crossdressing on the streets of Egypt and haunting the 1980s NYC gay club scene — with stops along the way to

PRIDE WEEK READING AT HOUSING WORKS BOOKSTORE CAFE

Image courtesy of SUNY Press

Image courtesy of Chelsea Station Editions

“L is for Lion” author Annie Lanzillotto reads at Bluestockings (June 26) and Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (June 27).

A swashbuckler, with swish: Gil Cole reads from “Fortune’s Bastard or Love’s Pains Recounted,” June 27, at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.

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The Housing Works mission, to end homelessness and AIDS, is made possible in part by the proceeds from a dozen funky (in the best sense of the word) thrift shops located, among other places, in the Village, Soho, Tribeca and Chelsea.

But apart from racking up sales (from the sales rack) to fund the

Continued on page 13

June 19 - July 2, 2013

The Art of Pride Continued from page 12 provision of lifesaving services to those in need, the organization recognizes the need for brick and mortar community.

That’s where the volunteer-run Housing Works Bookstore Cafe comes into play.

In addition to providing a great place to meet friends, relax and shop, “the best book, movie and music selection in New York City” has great live events (including author readings and in-store concerts).

On June 27, the Pride Week Reading features Charlie Vasquez, Gil Cole and “L is for Lion” author Annie Lanzillotto (hot off her June 26 Bluestockings Bookstore appearance). Vasquez’s latest collection of poetry, “Hustler Rave XXX,” examines the lives of the boys of the night — and the generous older men who patronize them, in every sense of the word (by providing financial support, while objectifying their bodies).

Gil Cole will read from “Fortune’s Bastard or Love’s Pains Recounted.” Published by local imprint Chelsea Station Editions, the Shakespeare-inspired novel puts a gay spin on the swashbuckling romance/adventure genre, with a palpable whiff of the pain and suffering endured by a Lifetime movie lead.

Lusting for broader horizons (and other men), young Antonio flees the religious hysteria of Renaissance Florence and eventually becomes a notable merchant of Venice (after traversing the Mediterranean as a pirate, an itinerant actor and a fugitive).

Free. Thurs., June 27, at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe (126 Crosby St., btw.

Houston & Prince Sts.). For info, call 212334-3324 or visit housingworks.org.

Image courtesy of Pavel Zoubok Gallery

Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt’s “Twinky as a Gypsy Maiden (Self Portrait)” (1967-69.

Foil, printed material, linoleum, glitter, cellophane, staples, acrylic paint, found objects and other media. 10 x 8 x 5 inches).

ECCE HOMO: THOMAS LANIGANSCHMIDT AND THE ART OF REBELLION

If every sister who swore she threw a brick at Stonewall were standing in her truth (as Suze Orman likes to say), they’d still be cleaning the debris from Christopher Street. He’s not claiming to have gone all Ignatz on the fuzz that night, but Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt was definitely part of the 1969 rebellion — as evidenced by the late Fred W. McDarrah’s photo (which is part of the exhibit at Pavel Zoubok Gallery).

“Ecce Homo” pays tribute to the ripple effects of contributions made by LaniganSchmidt — but not for his role in LGBT rights (the Obamas already covered that base, when the artist was invited to the White House, along with other Stonewall veterans). Subtitled “The Art of Rebellion,” the exhibit celebrates Thomas LaniganSchmidt as well as those whose aesthetic bears his imprint (including Nayland Blake, Arch Connelly, Tony Feher, Oliver Herring, Christian Holstad, Greer Lankton, Hunter Reynolds and Christopher Tanner).

Foil, glitter, cellophane and found objects are among the building blocks of LaniganSchmidt’s work — but despite this kitschy collage treatment, the use of religious iconography imbues the tragic suffering of his subjects with a transcendent dignity.

Courtesy of Steven Kasher Gallery, NY

Fred W. McDarrah (1926-2007): “Celebration After Riots Outside Stonewall Inn, Nelly (Betsy Mae Koolo), Chris (Drag Queen Chris), Roger Davis, Michelle and Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt.”

(RC Print, 1969. 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches).

As Pontius Pilate said when he presented a bound, beaten and crowned-with-thorns Jesus Christ to a mob of angry onlookers just prior to the Crucifixion: “Ecce Homo.”

In other words, “Behold the man!”

Through July 19, at Pavel Zoubok Gallery (531 W. 26th St., btw.10th & 11th Aves.).

Hours: Tues.-Sat., 10am-6pm. For info, call 212-675-7490 or visit pavelzoubok.com.

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

Are you a gay-owned business or professional?

The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce LGBT-2-B Committee

Salute to Gay Pride Find out how the Chamber supports LGBT owned businesses and professionals through its Business Accelerator Program, professional networking, member benefits, business advocacy and other programs.

LGBT Professional Networking July 23, 2013 • 6 -8 PM Sign Up To Toot Your Own Horn & Promote Your Business Make New Contacts • Raffle Of Great Prizes Free Appetizers • Drink Specials Hosted by Heartland Brewery Times Square location, 127 W. 43rd St. • 646.366.0235 RSVP to events@manhattancc.org

c s e o o s p r H o for LGBTQIAA People

Aries Chelsea boys are like tea dances — the most delicious ones have migrated to Hell’s Kitchen. Head Uptown…then go West, young man!

Taurus Tame your suspicious nature, Taurus. Not every queer ally is a closeted bisexual. Graciously accept their support, and go about your own business.

Gemini Don’t let her dislike of Indigo Girls become a first date deal breaker. Romance can thrive, despite differing musical tastes — and it will!

Cancer A pride parade twink whose body belongs to the world only has eyes for you. Follow that float, and claim your rightful place on his arm.

Leo Glitter and glamour blind you to the incompatibility of a clubland cutie. Back to online dating…and this time, use your own picture!

Virgo Tarot-reading trans kids are this summer’s lemonade stand

entrepreneurs. The second one you see will provide useful advice regarding travel plans.

Libra A fun July fling begins when a lipstick lesbian flutters her flirty

lashes and compliments your bowling shirt. Try for a strike, but be happy picking up the spare.

Scorpio A straight male friend confesses his desire to clean house

while wearing a frilly negligée. Be supportive, by suggesting a color that compliments his eyes.

Sagittarius The third person you see staring at the next full moon will be amenable to your overtures, but only after enticing conversation at an outdoor café. Patience!

Capricorn Tempers flare when a Fire Island house share roomie insists your personality parallels that of the Golden Girl you least identify with. www.gaycitynews.com

www.manhattancclgbt.org

www.heartlandbrewery.com

212 473 7875 • manhattancclgbt.org

Aquarius Desperate to break your dry spell, a Grindr guy’s close proximity tempts you to explore that thing you swore you’d never do. Branch out, girl!

Pisces A double dare overheard while in the stalls of a unisex bathroom will be the precursor for a summer of expanded horizons. You don’t ask, you won’t get.

June 19 - July 2, 2013

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

editorial Speak to Us, Governor There can be little doubt that for marriage equality in New York State in 2011, Andrew Cuomo was the indispensable man.

A short 18 months before he signed legislation giving same-sex couples the right to marry, the issue had gone down to a staggering 38-24 defeat in the State Senate.

Within weeks of his taking office in January 2011, the new governor rallied advocates while also making clear that the path to victory was one he would forge. He expected hard work and persistence from the team he assembled but he also demanded discretion, faith, and allegiance to his leadership.

It all worked. With one vote to spare.

When he spoke about the victory, Cuomo, being his father’s son, cast it in the proud tradition of the state’s progressivism.

“New York at its finest has always been a beacon of social justice,” the governor said as he signed the legislation shortly after it won Senate approval the evening of June 24.

And Cuomo’s leadership did not only inure to the benefit of New York. It is surely no accident that Democratic governors across the nation — not to mention nearly every US senator from that party — have jumped on the gay marriage bandwagon after seeing all the lovin’ our governor got in the wake of our victory.

Sure, some cynics have sneered that Cuomo saw the lovin’ comin’ as he met with wealthy gay men and attended their lavish political fundraisers. But that doesn’t change the fact that “New York at its finest has always been a beacon of social justice.”

Then how come 16 states offer their transgender residents protections based on gender identity and expression and New York does not?

Why has more than a decade passed since New York enacted a gay rights law with no further statewide action taken to extend those same protections to transgender and gender non-conforming residents who face harassment, violence, discrimination and poverty?

And why, despite the governor’s repeated promises he would sign the long-stalled Gender Expression NonDiscrimination Act, have we not seen him put any visible political capital into making certain such a bill reaches his desk?

Surely that has nothing to do with the fact that there are no political fundraisers filled with wealthy transgender New Yorkers with checkbooks in hand. Or so Andrew Cuomo could prove by leaning in to the fight. The New York State Senate will simply not budge on this bill this session unless the governor leans in.

He is leaning in on women’s rights in a big way this month. In fact, Cuomo has never shown the least bit of reticence about leaning in on issues that matter to him.

As a gay man who just married my longtime partner, I am frankly embarrassed that GENDA is not yet the law of New York State. We left the transgender community behind when we passed the hate crimes law in 2000. We doubled down on that failure with the gay rights law in 2002. We said that marriage equality needed to go first in 2011 because it affected far more members of our community than would GENDA. What excuse is left to us? This Pride Month, we owe it to our transgender brothers and sisters to tell Governor Cuomo that their lives matter to us — and they should to him, as well. It’s time to pass GENDA. It’s time for the governor to insist that the Senate do so.

It’s time to make New York a beacon again.

This editorial first appeared in the June 5 issue of our sister publication, Gay City News.

letters to the editor Radon reaction is ‘just ignorant’ To The Editor: Re “Pipeline Radon Fear Starting to Catch Fire” (news article, May 29): Basements in parts of the country have continuous and serious levels of naturally occurring radon isotope Rn222 that is an alpha emitter, has a half-life of 3.8 days and has been linked to an increase in lung cancer rates.

These homeowners live day in and day out for dozens of years in a condition where the radon is constantly entering their homes and, most importantly, they breathe it into their lungs, which is the only way it can harm you before a statistical significance of lung cancer can be attributed to the radioactive gas. Comparing that condition to the trace amounts that will be part of the natural gas delivered in a steel pipe that blocks alpha particles, as does air and skin, never to be inhaled in your home, is just ignorant. Unfortunately, the well-meaning devotees of so-called environmental protection reach for their torches once again.

the placement of a massive Citi Bike rental station in SoHo’s tiny Lt. Petrosino Park, where it has expropriated an area specifically dedicated to public art exhibitions? How would you feel if DOT [Department of Transportation] planted 43 bike rentals on the High Line?

Is this a case of “do as I say and not do as I do?” or is it simply “Hypocrite” — a more suiting appellation for you who dare brand those with whom you disagree as Nellies?

Sean Sweeney E-mail letters, not longer than 250 words in length, to scott@chelseanow.com or fax to 212-229-2790 or mail to Chelsea Now, Letters to the Editor, 515 Canal St., Suite 1C, NY, NY 10013. Please include phone number for confirmation purposes. Chelsea Now reserves the right to edit letters for space, grammar, clarity and libel.

Chelsea Now does not publish anonymous letters.

Michael Bernstein

Reporter rebuts on radon Eileen Stukane, author of the article Michael Bernstein references in the above letter, offers this response: The Environmental Protection Agency’s safe level for radon in homes is 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/l), and no one should be living in a home that has a higher level.

To know the radon levels in their homes, homeowners can purchase radon monitors. Many homeowners do this since they do not want to inhale cancer-causing levels of this colorless, odorless, tasteless gas. If levels are high in homes, there are fan systems for radon removal that can be purchased to vent the radon-filled air outdoors where it dissipates.

I do not understand why Mr. Bernstein is okay with homeowners breathing in possibly high levels of radon for years. The longer one inhales radon that is in the air, the greater the risk of lung cancer. According to the EPA, radon currently causes 21,000 deaths from lung cancer a year. Yes, it does take years for lung cancer to be diagnosed from radon inhalation, but many people live in the same home for decades.

It is true that radon is naturally occurring in all natural gas. But the gas hydrofracked from the Marcellus Shale has a higher radon content and shorter transport time (hours as opposed to four to six days for half-life decay) than the gas from sources in the Gulf Coast — the usual source of gas for New Yorkers. It seems wise to legislate a radon monitoring system at the city gates rather than wait until levels above 4 pCi/l may be detected in the air of New York City kitchens.

The New & Improved

OKER FAOCWE.NBEO N WSPAP O S U /CHELSEA.N ADbD m ook.co face

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Bike Share naysayers are not Nellies Re “Up with Bike Share (and exclamation points!)”

(Letters, June 12): To The Editor: You call those who question the placement of some Citi Bike franchises as “Negative Nellies,” while extolling the virtues of the program. Then why do you not permit cycling — or even walking a bike — on the High Line, your urban park project?

Why, on the other hand, do you apparently support

Check out our new website! www.ChelseaNow.com

June 19 - July 2, 2013

Will We Let the Future of LGBTQ Youth Go Up in Smoke? talKiNG PoiNt

BY ERIN McCARRON Lesbians and gay men may be able to look forward to marrying in several states — but they can also look forward to higher rates of smoking. Tobacco use remains the number one cause of preventable death, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community in the United States continues to be disproportionately impacted by smoking.

People who identify as LGBTQ are up to 70 percent more likely to smoke, often turning to cigarettes to relieve stress caused by the risk of homelessness, bullying, poverty, discrimination, peer pressure and rejection

by family and friends.

LGBTQ people must often confront homophobia and hostility in their daily lives, and that stress can lead to higher smoking rates. Among LGBTQ youth, smoking rates are estimated to be considerably higher than those among adolescents in general.

As the LGBT SmokeFree Project Coordinator at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, I work to educate and engage the LGBTQ community about the dangers of smoking. Additionally, I work with the Manhattan Smoke-Free Partnership to educate the community on tobacco control issues.

Big Tobacco is very aware of high smoking rates among sexual minorities, and their marketing exploits the LGBTQ community, particularly lesbian

Community Contacts To be listed, email info to scott@chelseanow.com.

COMMUNITY BOARD 4 (CB4) CB4 serves Manhattan’s West Side neighborhoods of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell’s Kitchen. Its boundaries are 14th St. on the south, 59/60th St. on the north, the Hudson River on the west, 6th Ave. on the east (south of 26th St.) and 8th Ave. on the east (north of 26th St.). The board meeting, open to the public, is the first Wednesday of the month.

The next meeting is Wed., July 31, 6:30pm, at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital (1000 10th Ave., btw. 58th & 59th Sts.). Call 212-736-4536, visit nyc.gov/mcb4 or email them at info@manhattancb4.org.

COMMUNITY BOARD 5 (CB5) CB5 represents the central business district of New York City.

It includes midtown Manhattan, the Fashion, Flower, Flatiron and Diamond districts, as well as Bryant Park and Union Square Park. The district is at the center of New York’s tourism industry. The Theatre

THE 300 WEST 23RD, 22ND & 21ST STREETS BLOCK ASSOCIATION Contact them at 300westblockassoc@prodigy.net.

THE WEST 400 BLOCK ASSOCIATION Contact them at w400ba@gmail. com.

CHELSEA GARDEN CLUB Chelsea Garden Club cares for the bike lane tree pits in Chelsea. If you want to adopt a tree pit or join the group, please contact them at

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he 2004 federal budget proposed by the Bush administration on February 3 is drawing both praise and criticism from gay and AIDS groups.

“Generally, we have a mixed reaction to it,” said Winnie Stachelberg, political director at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), even as some leading AIDS groups, including the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), were more critical.

The proposal includes a $100 million increase for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), a $5 million dollar increase in the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS

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and gay youth. The tobacco industry targets gays and lesbians through advertising in LGBTQ publications, community promotions (such as LGBTQ bar nights featuring specific cigarette brands) and event sponsorships. As a community, we need to stand up to Big Tobacco and let them know that we’ve seen enough of tobacco marketing that normalizes smoking and works to lure LGBTQ youth into a lifetime of addiction.

Erin McCarron, LMSW is the LGBT SmokeFree Project Coordinator at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (208 W. 13th St., btw.

Seventh & Eight Aves.). For more information, visit gaycenter.org.

cgc.nyc@gmail.com or like them on Facebook. Also visit chelseagardenclub.blogspot.com.

District, Times Square, Carnegie Hall, the Empire State Building and two of the region’s transportation hubs (Grand Central Station and Penn Station) fall within CB5. The board meeting, open to the public, happens on the second Thursday of the month. The next meeting is Thurs., July 11, 6pm, at Xavier High School (30 W. 16th St., btw.

5th and 6th Aves., 2nd fl.). Call 212-465-0907, visit cb5.org or email them at office@cb5.org.

Member of the National Newspaper Association Chelsea Now is published biweekly by NYC Community Media LLC, 515 Canal St., Unit 1C, New York, NY 10013.

(212) 229-1890. Annual subscription by mail in Manhattan and Brooklyn $75. Single copy price at office and newsstands is 50 cents. The entire contents of newspaper, including advertising, are copyrighted and no part may be reproduced without the express permission of the publisher - © 2010 NYC Community Media LLC, Postmaster: Send address changes to Chelsea Now, 145 Sixth Ave., First Fl., New York, N.Y. 10013.

PUBLISHER’S LIABILITY FOR ERROR

The Publisher shall not be liable for slight changes or typographical errors that do not lessen the value of an advertisement. The publisher’s liability for other errors or omissions in connection with an advertisement is strictly limited to publication of the advertisement in any subsequent issue.

PENN SOUTH The Penn South Program for Seniors provides recreation, education and social services — and welcomes volunteers. For info, call 212-2433670 or visit pennsouthlive.com.

THE BOWERY RESIDENTS’ COMMITTEE: HOMELESS HELPLINE If you know of anyone who is in need of their services, call the Homeless Helpline at 212-533-5151, and the BRC will send someone to make contact. This number is staffed by outreach team leaders 24 hours a day. Callers may remain anonymous. For more info, visit brc.org.

THE LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL & TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY CENTER At 208 W. 13th St. (btw. 7th & 8th Aves.). Visit gaycenter.org or call 212620-7310.

GAY MEN’S HEALTH CRISIS (GMHC) At 446 W. 33rd St. btw. 9th & 10th Aves.

Visit gmhc.org. Call 212-367-1000.

PUBLISHER Jennifer Goodstein ASSOCIATE EDITOR / ARTS EDITOR Scott Stiffler REPORTERS Lincoln Anderson EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS

Sean Egan Maeve Gately Yanan Wang

PUBLISHER EMERITUS John W. Sutter

17

HUDSON GUILD Founded in 1895, Hudson Guild is a multi-service, multi-generational community serving approximately 14,000 people annually with daycare, hot meals for senior citizens, low-cost professional counseling, community arts programs and recreational programming for teens. Visit them at hudsonguild.org. Email them at info@ hudsonguild.org. For the John Lovejoy Elliott Center (441 W. 26th St.), call 212-760-9800. For the Children’s Center (459 W. 26th St.), call 212-7609830. For the Education Center (447 W. 25th St.), call 212-760-9843. For the Fulton Center for Adult Services (119 9th Ave.), call 212-924-6710.

CHELSEA COALITION ON HOUSING Tenant assistance every Thursday night at 7pm, at Hudson Guild (119 9th Ave.). Email them at chelseacoalition.cch@gmail.com.

CITY COUNCIL SPEAKER CHRISTINE QUINN Call 212-564-7757 or visit council.nyc. gov/d3/html/members/home.shtml.

STATE SENATOR BRAD HOYLMAN Call 212-633-8052 or visit bradhoylman.com.

SR. V.P. OF SALES AND MARKETING Francesco Regini

ART / PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Troy Masters

RETAIL AD MANAGER Colin Gregory

SENIOR DESIGNER

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES Allison Greaker Julius Harrison Alex Morris Julio Tumbaco Andrew Regier Rebecca Rosenthal

GRAPHIC DESIGNER

Michael Shirey Arnold Rozon CIRCULATION SALES MNGR. Marvin Rock DISTRIBUTION & CIRCULATION Cheryl Williamson

CONTRIBUTORS Martin Denton Maeve Gately Duncan Osborne Paul Schindler Yanan Wang PHOTOGRAPHERS Milo Hess J. B. Nicholas Jefferson Siegel

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

19

City Issues Battle Plan to Fight Superstorms, Rising Waters

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER When Superstorm Sandy struck Manhattan on October 29, 2012, the storm flooded Chelsea Piers with about five feet of water. The water surged through Chelsea’s art galleries — damaging and destroying artwork, cutting off heat and electricity and leaving many galleries closed for months. The water spread as far inland as 10th Avenue.

But this may have been a mere prelude to far worse destruction.

“As bad as Sandy was, future storms could be even worse,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg on June 11, as he spoke at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. There, in the place where battleships were once built, he introduced a plan to protect New York City. “In fact, because of rising temperatures and sea levels, even a storm that’s not as large as Sandy could — down the road — be even more destructive.”

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, as the City addressed the urgent need to help restore services, shelter the homeless, aid devastated communities and get businesses open again, it began to address another urgent need — how to protect New York City from climate.

Its effects could include not only storms and storm surges, but heat waves, droughts and intense downpours.

In December 2012, Mayor Bloomberg announced the formation of the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency, charging it with creating a plan to shield New York’s infrastructure, buildings and communities in the medium term (2020s) and the long term (2050s).

The mayor asked the committee to pay special attention to the City’s five hardest-hit neighborhoods — one of which was southern Manhattan, including Chelsea. At the June 11 event, Bloomberg introduced the Initiative’s plan. In a 440-page report called “A Stronger, More Resilient New York,” the City identified 15 critical areas that must be addressed. These include coastal defenses, buildings, utilities, food and fuel supply, healthcare, transportation and telecommunications.

New York City has 520 miles of coastline.

In a June 10 report, the New York City Panel on Climate Change, comprised of climatologists from leading universities in New York and New Jersey, predicts that sea levels in New York City could rise by more than two-and-

Photo by Terese Loeb Kreuzer

On June 11, Mayor Bloomberg outlined ideas to prepare the city for future storms.

a-half feet by mid-century. This would mean that up to one-quarter of the city’s land area, where 800,000 people live today, would be in the floodplain.

“If we do nothing, more than 40 miles of our waterfront could see flooding on a regular basis, just during normal high tides,” Bloomberg said.

Sandy cost the city $19 billion in damages and lost economic activity. According to forecasts, by mid-century a storm like Sandy would cost the city $90 billion.

“This leaves us with a few clear choices,” said Bloomberg. “We can do nothing and expose ourselves to an increasing frequency of Sandy-like storms that do more and more damage, or we can abandon the waterfront. Or, we can make the investments necessary to build a stronger, more resilient New York — investments that will pay for themselves many times over in the years to come.”

Bloomberg has said repeatedly that the city

cannot — and will not — abandon the waterfront. Some of the protective work has already begun, while other parts of it will require further study and significant financing.

Sandy showed that the entire shorefront of southern Manhattan is vulnerable to coastal flooding. This vulnerability is expected to increase rapidly.

The mayor proposes to create an integrated flood protection system comprised of temporary and permanent features and landscaping and drainage improvements in Chelsea, Tribeca, the West Village, Stuyvesant Town and Kips Bay. This would be fully deployed only during pre-storm conditions. At other times, it would be as inconspicuous as possible.

As with many other proposals in the report, it would be “subject to available funding.”

In southern Manhattan, there are more than 170 landmarked buildings in the floodplain, including buildings in portions of 19

historic districts. Chelsea has two historic districts. One extends from 10th Avenue almost to Eighth Avenue and from West 23rd Street almost to 19th Street. The second one lies between the Hudson River and Tenth Avenue and between West 24th Street and West 28th Street, bordering the High Line.

The report states that regulations will be issued in 2013 clarifying how landmarked structures in the 100-year floodplain can and should be retrofitted.

It also says that planned and ongoing investments by the City and private partners in the High Line will continue despite many other demands on the City’s coffers. Construction of the final section of the park will bring it to 34th Street, and is supposed to be completed in 2014.

The City also plans to reconstruct and resurface key streets damaged by Sandy, including some in Chelsea. Citywide, there

Continued on page 21

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June 19 - July 2, 2013

21

Plan Won’t Abandon Waterfront, Will Retrofit Landmarked Buildings Continued from page 19 are 60 lane miles of streets severely damaged

by Sandy that the New York City Department of Transportation has to reconstruct. It will repave approximately 500 lane miles of streets with damaged surfaces. Where possible, the reconstructed streets will include resiliency measures to minimize further damage. This work will begin in 2013 with funding from federal and city sources.

The report notes that one-quarter of the City’s parks are in the 100-year flood plain.

Hudson River Park, which runs in part along the Chelsea waterfront, is among them. As sea levels rise, the 100-year floodplain is expected to take in more residential and commercial areas. The parks act as a buffer to flooding and are, themselves, in need of protection.

Strategies could include hardening or elevating park infrastructure, construction of levees or floodwalls to minimize flooding and attenuate waves and using flood-tolerant materials in the construction of parks. The City plans to study the possibilities and to complete that study in 2014.

On another front, local commercial corridors such as 10th and 11th Avenues and 23rd Street in Chelsea were devastated by Sandy. The City is asking the Public Service Commission and Con Edison to amend the preferential Business Incentive Rate (BIR) program, which discounts Con Edison’s elec-

tric delivery charges, to allow it to be extended to small businesses in southern Manhattan and the other four communities hardest hit

by Sandy.

Businesses and nonprofits with 10 or fewer employees that have received support from City-sponsored loan and grant programs will be eligible for the discount for five years up to a maximum of $50,000 per business or nonprofit. The maximum aggregate benefit available in southern Manhattan will be $1 million.

In addition to Chelsea, this money will go to businesses and nonprofits in lower Manhattan (Water Street, the South Street Seaport and Greenwich Street); Chinatown (East Broadway and Madison Street); the Lower East Side (Avenues B, C and D); Tribeca (Canal Street, West Street and Greenwich Street); and the West Village (West Street and Washington Street).

All of these initiatives for Chelsea and other parts of southern Manhattan will have to compete for funding and engineering resources that must be deployed citywide.

For instance, Mayor Bloomberg said that beaches are being restored on Staten Island, and that protective barriers are being built.

At Breezy Point and in the Rockaways, dunes have been proposed. The restoration of natural wetlands will lessen waves on the South Shore of Staten Island and throughout Jamaica Bay. Massive storm surge barriers have been suggested by some marine scientists to protect New York City. Bloomberg said, “Even though

Five, on 24th Continued from page 5 area. There have been noise complaints, Blasco said, and attempts to shorten the amount of time for which the pier is open.

FIERCE is working to ensure that this kind of resistance does not take away a valuable haven for LGBTQ youth.

“It’s always been a space where LGBTQ youth go to be themselves,” he said. “It’s a safe space in which they can express themselves.”

According to Blasco, one of the largest threats to the community is the call by some residents to increase police presence. This would not help LGBTQ youth, he said, as they are among the prime victims of harassment at the hands of police officers.

Blasco has spoken out against increased policing at the Christopher Street Pier at several press conferences and meetings, iterating the need to give LGBTQ youth a place where they are free from scrutiny.

“Increased policing doesn’t create safety for our folks,” he said. “Often times, it creates fear. It makes them vulnerable to more harassment.”

David Poster, president of a neighborhood civilian policing task force called the

Christopher Street Patrole, has been the leading voice for closing down the pier at an earlier hour each night. But Blasco expressed gratitude that through their years of advocacy work, FIERCE has found other allies in the community.

FIERCE works closely with the Hudson River Park Trust, a committee that manages operations across the park, to plan events catering to the interests of LGBTQ youth.

In the past, the trust has been supportive of FIERCE’s proposals.

Blasco stressed the importance of finding community allies who understand the challenges faced by LGBTQ youth. Once these relationships have been forged, Blasco explained, it becomes easier to plan events such as screenings of LGBTQ-oriented films.

Among its range of programming, FIERCE also organizes a three-month political education internship comprised of a series of workshops designed to help LGBTQ youth of color assert their rights in a variety of settings. The sessions are designed to be collaborative rather than merely instructive, Blasco said.

“Facilitators are not the only ones with answers,” Blasco remarked. “Everyone has answers. Everyone brings something to the table.”

a giant barrier across our entire harbor is not practical or affordable, smaller surge barriers are feasible, and they could have prevented a lot of the flooding we saw during Sandy.”

He said that one such barrier could be at Newtown Creek to protect Greenpoint and Long Island City, and another could be at Coney Island Creek. He also proposed a surge barrier at the mouth of Jamaica Bay. He admitted that such a barrier would be “very complicated” and take years to build, requiring “real study so we can determine if it’s worthwhile,” but that “analysis can begin today.”

The Army Corps of Engineers will be enlisted to do much of this work.

One of the most ambitious plans Bloomberg put forward was for something he called “Seaport City” that could be built along the East River between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Battery Maritime terminal. He described it as a wall of levees built into the East River, on top of which apartment buildings and office space could be erected, helping to offset the construction costs. This would be a blue-sky proposition, requiring much study and a realistic financing plan.

“This is a long-term proposal,” said Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, and the head of the team that developed the report on the city’s response to climate change.

“It would require significant input from the community,” he said. “The goal is to create new development opportunities and to do it

in a way like with Battery Park City where we can not only pay for it, but protect the land behind.” He said that none of this building would impact the old structures in the Seaport.

“It would be built on new land in the East River,” he said. “It would be fully compatible with all the plans that are currently out there for the Seaport.”

Without including what this might cost, Bloomberg pegged the cost of what the city was proposing at $19.5 billion.

“Approximately $10 billion of that is covered by a combination of City capital funding that’s already been allocated and federal relief and other moneys already designated for the City,” he said. “Another $5 billion should come from the federal government in subsequent rounds of Sandy relief that has been appropriated by Congress, as well as through FEMA risk mitigation funding and other sources.”

He added, “We’ll press the federal government to cover as much of the remaining costs as possible.”

As of June 11, when he introduced his plan to protect New York City, Bloomberg had 203 days left in his term as mayor. Clearly, the climate-change protection work will only have just begun by the time he leaves office. But, he said, the work is urgent “and it must begin now. So we will use every one of the next 203 days to get as much work as possible under way and to lock in commitments wherever we can.”

22

June 19 - July 2, 2013

Police BLOTTER Arrest Made in 18th St. Assault

Assault: After soccer, hockey-like rumble

An arrest was made in the assault of a 92-year-old man who was returning to his residence (on the W. 200 block of 18th St.) during the evening of Mon., June 10. The 40-year-old suspect, who lives just blocks from the victim, has been charged with robbery as well as criminal possession of stolen property. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated for a broken hip. The suspect, who took the victim’s bible and reading glasses, was caught on surveillance video as he fled the crime scene. A link to that video was part of an email alert sent by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and subsequently forwarded by several Chelsea block associations to their own email lists. A June 15 post on myfoxny. com speculated that as a result of the widely distributed video (which was shown in heavy rotation on NY1, among other media outlets), “the pressure of the situation may have gotten to him.

He apparently collapsed during the week and was found by police at Brookdale Hospital on Friday [June 13].” Fox also noted (citing a Daily News report) that an area merchant recovered the victim’s bible and turned it over to police.

How is America ever going to cultivate a love of soccer if our players can’t learn to transfer their violent impulses from the field house to the field? If that had been the case at Chelsea Piers on the evening of Thurs., June 6, then maybe the man on the receiving end of a cowardly two-pronged attack would have seen the first punch coming. The 28-year-old victim told police that he was preparing to leave after “an aggressive soccer game.” That’s when one of the disgruntled players approached him from behind, and punched him in the back of the head. As the victim turned to see his attacker, a second man began punching him in the nose, causing lacerations and swelling.

Grand Larceny: Her come on was a set up First he got felt up, then he felt used. A 40-year-old Brooklyn man learned the hard way that Manhattan is no place to trust a strange but friendly face while out for a midnight stroll. The middle-aged man learned this valuable life lesson at 12:01am on Mon., June 10 — when he was walking southbound on the west side of Ninth Ave. & W. 38th St. A female approached him and began to

fondle his front and rear, asking “Want to buy me a drink?” The man declined, and kept walking. Approximately 30 minutes later, he realized his wallet was missing from his back pocket. The wallet contained no cash, so at least the grabby, gabby gal didn’t turn an immediate profit from her cruel trick. The back pocket billfold did, however, house the man’s New York state ID card and his Social Security card — a virtual starter kit for identity theft.

Grand Larceny: Pool fool and money, soon parted Left unattended, it only takes a moment for opportunistic thieves to seize the moment and walk away with your belongings. That word to the wise could have saved one stupid swimmer $35 cash, plus the trouble of cancelling his credit cards and replacing his $40 wallet — all of which were taken when the 31-year-old victim left them unattended (for 20 minutes!) on a beach chair by the pool area of the Dream Hotel (355 W. 16th St.). The staff was unable to provide footage of the theft, which took place somewhere between 7pm and 7:20pm on Sun., June 9 — because, according to police, “video surveillance was blocked by cabanas.”

THE 10th PRECINCT Located at 230 W. 20th St. (btw. 7th & 8th Aves.). Commander: Captain David S. Miller. Main number: 212-741-8211.

Community Affairs: 212-741-8226. Crime Prevention: 212-741-8226. Domestic Violence: 212-741-8216. Youth Officer: 212-741-8211. Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-741-8210. Detective Squad: 212741-8245. The Community Council meeting, open to the public, takes place at 7pm on the last Wed. of the month. The Council is currently on summer hiatus, and resumes on Sept. 25.

THE 13th PRECINCT Located at 230 E. 21st St. (btw. 2nd & 3rd Aves.). Deputy Inspector: Ted Bernsted. Call 212-477-7411. Community Affairs: 212-477-7427. Crime Prevention: 212-477-7427. Domestic Violence: 212477-3863. Youth Officer: 212-477-7411.

Auxiliary Coordinator: 212-477-4380.

Detective Squad: 212-477-7444. The Community Council meeting takes place at 6:30pm on the third Tues. of the month. The Council is on hiatus, and resumes Sept. 17.

—Scott Stiffler

CASH FOR GUNS

Men of Substance: From Sidewalk to Behind Bars • At 12:05am on Fri., June 7, uniformed officers of the 10th Precinct observed a 37-year-old male drinking from an open bottle of beer (a 12-ounce Corona) while standing on the northwest corner of Eight Ave. & W. 16th St. The man was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance — but not for the suds. During the course of the investigation, police found a bag of cocaine in the defendant’s wallet, as well as some Percocet pills (elsewhere on his person).

• Two peas in a pod — both male, both 19 years of age — ended up in the pokey, after they were arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance. At around 5:20pm on Sat., June 8, uniformed officers of the 10th Precinct observed the men in possession of marijuana, while standing “on a public sidewalk in public view” (specifically, in the rear of 460 W. 41st St.). One of the men had an open docket (aka, a pending court case), while the other was carrying two credit cards not in his name, along with one Ziplock bag of marijuana.

$100 cash will be given (no questions asked) for each handgun, assault weapon or sawedoff shotgun, up to a maximum payment of $300. Guns are accepted at any Police Precinct, PSA or Transit District.

CRIME STOPPERS If you have info regarding a crime committed or a wanted person, call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS, text “TIP577” (plus your message) to “CRIMES” (274637) or submit a tip online at nypdcrimestoppers.com.

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