PIER PRESSURE

The GAY CITY NEWS' headline grabbed my attention last month: "PIERS FEARS GO RACIAL. With No Christopher Street Solution, Community Board Faults LGBT of Color". I think Gay City sensationalized the issue a little, and didn't analyze it much. Though this may not interest readers outside of NYC, the piers are very near and dear to this trashy cocksucker's poppers-addled heart. So let's back up 20 years and several cases of venereal disease ago.

I arrived in NYC in '84, so I missed the most extreme years of the West Side piers as an outdoor sex club. But I do recall marvelling at the nude sunbathing, group sex, and one dilapidated pier which even had a hole broken in the boards which you could sort of go down (pun intended) in to engage in some seriously depraved practices including Crisco, gourds, and amyl nitrate-infused rags. I guess I'm not as hardcore as I thought---I never could figure out exactly what and how the amyl nitrate got into the rags, but I'd see those emptied spray cans littered about, and knew that the big boys were at play. I once ambled out on the pier and surprised an embarassed friend, who promptly pulled his dick out the mouth of his trick. Out of respect, I turned back, but not before noticing that the sucker appeared to have relations in Mongolia, if you know what I mean. Some crazy shit went down on those broken-down piers. One day my hustler roommate came home with Special K for my other roommate, a pre-Supermodel of the World RuPaul, to try out. Completely disoriented by the drug, we shuffled down to the pier circa 1992 with videographer/roommate Nelson Sullivan's dog Blackout. Big, black, sweet, and literally wrapped around my finger for years, old "Blackie" was the closest thing I've ever had to a boyfriend in NY. Sitting around in our large, shabby living room, I had Blackout trained to where by wiggling my finger slightly from across the room, the dog would even bite his owner! I rank this unique, mystical talent right up there with my ability to call Miss Guy's answering machine with a squeal so high-pitched that I could set off the machine and depending on the pitch of my squeal, either listen to her messages or monitor whatever sound was being made in her apartment at that moment. I once caught her in a lover's quarrel! Aren’t I a great friend?

Anyway, the hustler, Ru and I walked out to the pier on Special K at a time when our favorite saying was "Oh bitch", which was particularly retarded when delivered in a concerned tone, as if you were insulting someone by calling them a bitch, but in a senselessly loving way. It was in this manner that Ru greeted a bunch of black and hispanic pier kids who went berserk and began throwing bottles at us. Dag nab it, there wasn't a drop of alcohol in one of them bottles, neither! We sluggishliy realized we needed a getaway plan as one vicious brat screamed "I'll stab your motherfucking dog!" Feeling it a poor time to explain that Blackout had only fucked my father, we fled.

But to the piers I'd return regularly and I watched in dismay as the area got spruced up and the most decrepit pier with the hole in it was finally closed off. The first omen was when they did away with the parking in the 80’s. Parking by the piers enabled “fresh meat" from Jersey to come in so you could engage in more secluded action inside their cars. For a few years in the late ‘90’s we held WIgstock at Pier 54, but a massive redevelopment plan had begun by 9/11. Though I sorely missed the sound systems in the trunks of cars blaring voguing anthems like LOVE IS THE MESSAGE and Soft House Company's keyboard masterpiece A LITTLE PIANO and the dancers who, heads cocked with attitude and arms flailing with knife-like precision, brought those tracks to life, I gradually was forced to admit that the developers knew what they were doing. The rawness was gone, but at least it was replaced with pleasant landscaping and picnic tables. But the pier kids still claimed it as their own.

Having dj'ed several times for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the NYC high school where you are sent if you're too gay to attend regular school without getting your ass kicked, I knew a little about what some of these kids go through. When asked to stay after school for some extra-curricular activities, the kids refused--unless they were allowed to carry weapons. Taking public transportation at night increased the chances of them getting beaten on their way home, in the rougher areas in which they lived. Like the Hetrick-Martin students, the pier children can't always "act gay" in their own neighborhoods, and the piers provide a necessary pressure valve where they can queen it up to their hearts content, hook up for sex, or work fashions which might not be appreciated on their thugged-out home turfs. The procession of teenage trannies is stunning, and an occasional legend like Octavia St. Laurent from PARIS IS BURNING or Jose from Madonna's Jose and Luis will put in an appearance, strutting proudly. If a designer were seeking inspiration from the streets, necessity is the mother of invention and these kids come up with some genius effects--of course every silhouette works when you're 17 with perfect proportions and the natural grace of a voguer. I've clocked top stylist Phillip Bloch on the stroll down there more than once--though I have no clue whether he's hunting the kids' fashions or what's underneath them. (I know which one I’m hunting!) But then a top “bottom” stylist would pride themselves on their knowledge of where to “pick up” any and everything, wouldn’t they? As Chelsea became the center for more affluent, body-building, white gay men, the once nationwide gay capital Christopher Street and the piers were claimed by older leather queens and the pier kids. So the pier area is basically an outdoor club with no age restrictions or cover charge.

So where's the problem? No, besides my long-windedness! The local business association and community board aren't too fond of the pier children. Though the kids desperately need a home away from home on the West Side highway, the youngsters do import unsavory elements from their rougher neighborhoods including male and tranny prostitution, drug sales (uh, I’m told), drug use, and theft, to name a few. Actually, the only time I've been mugged in NYC was by a young black fag on the corner of Christopher and the West Side Highway. On gay pride day, no less! And I was once shocked by over-hearing a teenage black boy knocking over garbage cans and swinging a big metal pipe saying "They gonna kick my ass if I don't come home with some money." Had his big pipe been flesh and his attitude less gnarly he might have made some hooking, but I couldn't help but think, "This is a much more dangerous pier today." Imagine how you'd feel if you'd plunked down a fortune on a prestigious West Village condo only to find that not only was the noise of the very loud gay youths keeping you up late at night, but you were scared to access your home--much as the youths are afraid to be themselves in their nabes. Basically, the wealthy condo-owners are going to have more say. The whole gist of America is favor the rich over the average individual, and this situation is not much different. But even if corporate ass-kissing scum like Bush weren’t in office, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a society which valued the rights of loud and sometimes crime-linked kids who aren’t even from that neighborhood over well-off homeowners who do deserve peace and quiet in their pricey digs. (Not that anyone should really move to the Big Apple for total peace and quiet!).

The West Village is increasingly gentrified, For chrissakes, the delapidated house Rupaul, Lahoma, Larry Tee, Nelson and Blackout inhabited is now a chi-chi tapas bar. If they only could fathom that location’s debauchery when we held the lease, they might shy away from that gourmet menu! Do you think the city cleaned up those rotting meat juices in the meat-packing district when our motley crew of club kids, Restaurant Florent and Jackie 60 were the tenants? Hell no! But once the fancy boutiques and boites arrived, the meat juice stank evaporated. Money=clout. One 1990's night, a tranny-hooker murdered a tenant from a more upscale building than ours. The neighborhood association banded together and set up a roadblock to intimidate both the johns who drove threw and the prostitutes themselves. Lahoma and I returned from work in the wee hours one morning and this roadblock forced us to get out of our cab blocks away from our shanty and pass the purveyors of the road block. Angry and scared over the death of their neighbor at the hands of a tranny-hooker which I guess they assumed we were, they began screeching at us: "Get out of the neighborhood!" and even "Die of AIDS!" Well, howdi to you too, neighbor! I got home, changed into streetwear and walked Blackout, encountering the irate bunch again. One of them was a friendly black guy who I knew from the Pyramid Club eons ago. I told him "You've known me for 10 years--why did you just wish AIDS on me? Because another drag queen killed someone and you can't tell the difference between clown-drag and a street-walker? As a member of a minority yourself, can't you see the prejudice in that? He apologized, but complaints from neighbors eventually drove the 14th St. queens further towards Christopher. And I can't deny that my peculiar fascination with tranny-hookers shouldn't cancel out the fact that they occasionally murder people and that scares locals just a wee bit.

Fast Forward to last month. Here are some excerpts from the GAY CITY NEWS article by Duncan Osborne.

Piers Fears Go Racial

After months of discussion and three public meetings about late night crowds and noise in the West Village, a committee of Manhattan’s Community Board 2 effectively chose to take no action in response either to resident complaints or to a proposed solution from the queer youth of color who for many years have gathered in the Hudson River Park at the end of Christopher Street.

“I don’t think we have a solution that’s going to make anyone happy,” said Richard Stewart, a member of the Committee on Waterfront, Parks, Recreation, and Open Space, during a March 6 meeting, that was marked by rancor because of an official statement from the committee that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered youth of color are at the root of the problems.

Some residents have complained that when the park closes at 1 a.m., the people in the park move into the West Village on Christopher Street. Residents have complained about the noise. At an earlier meeting, some residents proposed closing the park at 11 p.m. and allowing people to exit only at 14th Street or Houston Street.

The youth, represented by Fabulous Independent Educated Radicals for Community Empowerment (FIERCE!), proposed closing the park at 4 a.m. to allow people to exit the park gradually over a longer period of time and in smaller groups.

The youth group said it would increase its outreach in the park “to alleviate noise and overcrowding,” establish a complaint system for residents and youth, and create an advisory group of youth and residents to monitor the effectiveness of these efforts. The FIERCE! proposal was endorsed by 21 gay, AIDS, social services, and political groups that serve the queer community.

On March 6, the committee offered a draft resolution to close a portion of the park at Christopher Street, or Pier 45, at midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. Park enforcement patrol officers would start the closing at 11:30 p.m. and people would be “encouraged” to head north to Pier 54, which is across the West Side Highway from 13th Street. Pier 54 would close at 2:00 a.m., when people would be “encouraged” to exit the park onto 14th Street.

While earlier committee proposals have been rejected by residents and youth, this latest proposal won support from residents.
“We think it’s a great idea,” said David Poster, president of the Christopher Street Patrol and a longtime West Village resident. “The only thing I would suggest, if I may, is instead of just on weekends, it be seven days a week.”

Melissa Sklarz, a community board member, transgender activist, and past president of the Gay and Lesbian Independent Democrats, a political club, said the board’s proposal would create “a safe space for LGBT youth of all colors.”

These were two of a small number of endorsements. Roughly 200 people packed the room, most of them youth organized by FIERCE!, and speakers consistently knocked down the committee’s proposal.

“They’re not going to be effective if they are on a pier that nobody wants to use,” said Rickke Mananzala, the FIERCE! campaign coordinator, referring to the amenities proposed for Pier 54.

In contrast to earlier meetings, where race was in the background, it was thrust to the forefront on March 6 by the committee’s proposal. The third paragraph read, “Whereas problems have arisen involving noise and also involving some rowdyism resulting from large crowds of young people, mostly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth of African-American and Hispanic origin leaving Pier 45 at 1:00 am on Friday and Saturday nights.”

The 50-member community board has just one African-American member and represents neighborhoods that are predominantly white. The youth who spend time on Pier 45 are a mix of races and ethnicities, including African-American, Latino, Asian, and white. Opponents pounced on the paragraph.

“The fact that that was even thought to be put in there shows what the problem really is,” said Ashley McKenzie, a FIERCE! member. Another speaker said of the committee’s proposal, “You’re talking about segregation” while another called it “blatant racism.”

An African-American man and father of two, who used to hang out on the piers in the ’80s, said of the committee’s proposal, “I’m getting a little sick of hearing that we have to leave to make it better for somebody else.”

While one committee member said the offending language would be removed, Schwartz, who drafted the proposal, was unapologetic. While the language was “inartful,” it should not be “depicted to be hostile, to segregate people,” he said.

“For anybody to say that’s racism, that’s absurd,” Schwartz said. “I have been a civil rights attorney in this city for 35 years.”

After the meeting, Mananzala said that liberals will often say they are “not racist or homophobic,” but, he said of the language, “It’s hard to think of it any other way.”

WHOLE ARTICLE:

GAYCITYNEWS

Racist? Simply because the noisemakers were identified as African-American and Hispanic? Get real--most of them are! And how could this possibly be homophobic since many of the local residents and community board members are gay themselves? Even the ones which aren't probably didn't move to Christopher Street, the faggiest address on the planet, if they had issues with homos. THEY DON'T LIKE NOISE AND CRIME! If I were on the piers at 4:00AM causing a ruckus nightly, they'd complain about me too and that wouldn't be racist, would it? Ooh, but it could make it age-ist, or trans-phobic or fat-phobic or what about even trans-fatty-acids-phobic? Give me a break! The residents don't give a damn who or what is causing the disturbance. Using the race card when it’s not needed, defuses that card for the many times when it’s actually needed. Just like Cynthia McKinney’s crazy ass hitting a cop who wanted to ID her because he didn’t recognize her in her new hairstyle. As someone who might be mistaken for John Candy if I were to remove my trademark wig, I’m well aware of the transforming effects of hairdos. But for Cynthia McKinney to claim it was racial profiling because she didn’t want to comply with security protocol is pathetic, hence her almost immediate retraction. The sad thing is that lots of racial profiling does exist and it should be denounced. Statements like the one bythe formerly impressive but now Congresswoman-who-is-crying-wolf-to-cover-her-own-mistake McKinney, who seemed to be having some sort of psychiatric melt-down on Larry King, only remove the zing of legitimate calls to address the profiling when it actually occurs.

CONGRESSWOMAN CYNTHIA MCKINNEY DOES BEYONCE: "GOT ME LOOKIN' SO CRAZY RIGHT NOW"



I wouldn’t doubt that there is racial, homo and transsexual profiling practiced by the police on Christopher Street, possibly even recommended by Community Board #2 and the local business association. And the police are profiling these groups because they are known to be causing problems. In a sense, the police have to profile in order to do their jobs—if they’re trying to bust prostitutes, they are going to focus on lone women hanging out on street corners for hours in revealing outfits. Just ask my mom if you don’t believe me! I was curious to see that Danny Glover was one of the few to rally behind McKinney when even the Black Caucus insisted on her apology/retraction. Danny made waves a few years ago because he was annoyed that NYC taxi drivers profile blacks and are hesitant to pick them up. Look, cabbies bust their fucking asses and will pick up anyone who pays the fare and gives them a fucking tip and no hassles. Most of them are ethnic themselves. If they shy away from picking up blacks, it’s because they’ve been burned by low tips (which waiters including--yes in a former life--myself will confirm are not uncommon in the African-American community) or by blacks who’ve jumped out of the cab without paying or caused some other problem. Taxis often shy away from picking up drag queens/transsexuals as well because they won’t tip, won’t pay or cause some other drama coming from a club fucked up out of their minds.. (I try to aim my vomit out of the window but my wigs are sometimes too large to permit it.) Or maybe it’s because the drags are perceived as prostitutes. Personally, I’m always flattered when an unoccupied cab whizzes past me because the driver from a faraway land believes I’m desirable enough to get paid to get laid. (I'm moving to India, folks! But whatever the cabbies’ reasons, I have to own up to the fact that many drags/trannies don’t respect the drivers and so the feeling is mutual. The problem is with my dragoon sisters, not the drivers, and I have to own up to my people’s shortcomings the same way Glover does. Danny is probably not going to screw a cabdriver out of a tip and neither am I—though I may have screwed a couple--but that doesn’t negate the fact that both of our peoples screw the drivers with sufficient frequency to cause them to avoid us. I might also mention the condition I once saw someone who looked exactly like Danny on a Miami street corner known for drug-vending and speculate that if I drove by in a taxi and witnessed this ientity unknown person’s agitated condition at a wickedly late hour, I wouldn’t stop for the cracked-out mess, either! Cabs not picking us up is the symptom, the problem lies with us.

FIERCE! Doesn't seem to be introspective enough to recognize this in their battle for the pier. It’s website claims "FIERCE! founded the Save Our Space campaign to counter the displacement and criminalization of queer and trans youth of color and homeless youth at the pier and in the Village, and reclaim it as a public space that should be controlled by and for us!" Sorry, but that ain't gone happen, kids. Unless FIERCE! is a lot fiercer than I imagine, no one’s gonna pick a youth to chaperone another youth--it's a simple conflict of interest. Does an infant babysit a baby? No. So why would any government give the control of public property to kids, some of whom are responsible for the problems in the first place? And to the African-American man and father of two" who is "getting a little sick of hearing that we have to leave to make it better for somebody else", the local residents are a little sick of being woken up at all hours and sometimes ripped off! How are you going to act up in someone else's neighborhood, ignore the generously late curfew and then whine about it? If I decide I'd like to hang in front of your doorstep in the Bronx and squeal all night, is it racist if you describe me as white in your complaint to police? HELL FUCKING NAW! No one in any neighborhood likes to be woken up by kids or old people or blacks or whites or latinos or asians or polish. This is about noise, whoever’s creating it. The pier kids are fascinating to me, I love their culture and I firmly believe that the embattled, budding queers need a safe space on the piers for their clubhouse al fresco. And they currently have one! But FIERCE! is behaving like brats who are asking to stay up late despite their misbehaving. And when a reasonable solution is reached and they play the race card based on one sentence which is true, if sensitive, they cloud the real issue at hand: NOISE AND CRIME. If FIERCE! were to demonstrate that they could effectively monitor the kids' noise and crime, then maybe later park closures would be a viable option. Maybe the committee’s and boards should let FIERCE! try their hand at policing the park themselves, but I think anyone with a brain should be skeptical of the results.

FLEETING FANTASY: Maybe FIERCE! should start pressuring the government to make the kids' home neighborhoods safe enough for gay young'uns to exist in without threat of bodily harm? Maybe the government could also make all neighborhoods safe havens from rape for women. (And men--well, except for me that is. I'm ready for ya, fellas! I’ve dosed myself with date rape drugs so come and get it, the more the merrier!) Maybe the government could attempt to make the whole country safer? Nah, never mind. It’s too absurd a notion. We need all of our financial resources and manpower to attack other countries, and are even contemplating a new attack on Iran, though we've failed to win either of the first two wars Bush started! Glad we’ve got our priorities straight and it isn't our own safety!!

Ah, bitter Bunny. Remember when you were young and begging the West Village community board for Wigstock permits? How I hated those stiff, long meetings! (And I generally enjoy anything that's stiff and long. Do I hear thick?) At one point, Wigstock's permit application was the 25th item down on the meetings lengthy agenda and we had to sit through dozens of disgruntled whiners who seemed to have little else to do but gripe about things like whether or not such and such cafe deserved the outdoor seating permit they'd requested. I gagged in disbelief as I heard one senior shitizen resident stand up and moan something like "The sidewalk is 8 feet wide and the cafe has requested an outdoor permit which would take up 4 of those 8 feet. In the remaining 4 feet of sidewalk space, if a baby stroller and a wheelchair were to try to pass at the same time, there might be congestion." I was screaming inside! Didn't these two-bit fuckers have anything better to do with their time?

Well, I now live in the West Village area governed by that same community bored (sic). And I've come to appreciate that kooky, old resident who sized up the sidewalk situation in that meeting years before. Not only have sidewalk cafes eaten up tons of sidewalk space which does cause congestion--and I'm not even in a wheelchair (yet) nor pushing a baby carriage--though I have been looking a little preggers lately!--but one eatery on my block features planters with foliage which sticks out an additional foot! And it's poison ivy--everyone is trying to get me! I'm kidding about the poison ivy, but after all these years of cussing community boards, I now agree with that old kook. She was right! Outdoor cafes are now constricting my walking space on many blocks in my neighborhood and somebody’s got to be monitoring this dull shit which though trifling, does affect the quality of our lives.

Back in the day, all I cared about, just like FIERCE! and the kids who hang on the piers, was to have this stuffy old community board condone the cultural significance of me and my drag sisters presence on the pier. We had to hold Wigstock on the pier on the Sunday before Labor Day rather than the requested Monday, because Labor Day itself would keep 9-5 working residents awake if we carried on until 10:00 with our huge sound system. We gladly conceded. FIERCE!, I think, should do the same. The pier kids don't have a huge sound system, but their carrying on is nightly, not once a year like Wigstock. And is 1:00AM, which has been suggested by the board, such an unreasonable closing time? I don’t think so. And if you really want your voices to be heard on that community board, join it! Don't jam the meetings with protestors accusing people of racism and homophobia which isn't even behind the board's decisions. There is only one black person on the 50 member board. So how are you going to have your ethnic voices heard if you aren't going to sit in these boards of stuffy, mainly white folks who dictate neighborhood policies? Community boards also don't like disturbances from nightclubs, so people who value NYC nightlife have to brave these meetings and show their hungover faces, too. No not AA meetings, the community boards, dammit!

Where am I really going with this? OK, so I'm over these kids cuz they won't let me suck them off anymore since I’ve aged. And there’s no more holes in the piers which feature that dimmer, flattering lighting which enabled me to score with such regularity in my own youth. Oh, and to the caucasian and Asian pier children? Y’all better start getting your fucking looks together cuz ain’t nobody noticing y’all’s asses on the piers!