This particular topic is one that is so near and dear to my heart, that I really don't know where to start.
The piers are central to my identity as a gay man, as they are for many gay men of my generation and background. That's where we first felt liberated. Where I was propositioned by Grace Jones and her bi-sexual boyfriend at the age of 18. Where we kissed a boy for the first time. Where I sucked a dick for the first time. Where we learned about gay culture from the "gay mothers" and "gay fathers" who adopted us. Where I learned to vogue. Where we learned the local gay vernacular. Where we found ourselves and the courage to take our newfound identities anywhere that life took us, because if you couldn't hold your own on that slice of the Hudson waterfront, you just couldn't hold your own at all. Coming out on that "pier" was more than just coming out. It was coming out and living out. Once you set foot on the West Side Highway there was no going back. You tasted gayness in all it's richness and perversity and you either knew that you were finally found or that you were finally lost, but you KNEW!
I've been following this issue here for quite some time now. I'm a "graduate" of those piers. The original ones, way back in the early 80s, long before the neighborhood went co-op crazy and when the piers were real rotting wooden relics of a by-gone era.
Back then, the numbers of young gays of all colors was astounding. Today's scene, while still young, gay and predominantly non-white, is tame by comparison. Today's gay youth are not the product of the derelict 70s or the drug binging, self-obssessed 80s. They are way more sedate. Most are not not cast out by their families and homeless as was the case back then.
The current residents' complaints are really quite basic...back then most people rented their apartments in the Village and the majority of those people were gay men of every ethnic background. Most of those gay men succumbed in the AIDS decimation of the neighborhood in the 80s. Today, most people own their apartments and the increasing majority is made up of straight couples with young children. The yuppie influx of the 80s swamped Greenwhich Village. Gay men were dying and vacancies were soaring (something unheard of in Manhattan). These yuppies made a killing in a white-hot stock market throughout the 90s and now want a little slice of suburbia in Manhattan. They originally moved to "the Vill" because of its "bohemian" chic. That bohemian chic has now become too hard to bear on their newly acquired arriviste mentalities and their property values. They don't understand the haven that those "piers" have played in the lives of black and Latino gay men in New York for several generations. Young gays from neighborhoods where being out was not an option had no other option but to take the long subway ride to Christopher Street and walk the blocks down to the riverfront and breathe the rarified air that only comes when you know you're finally comfortable in your own skin, your own clothes, your own particular way of walking, your own particular way of talking...out, loud, proud and unabashedly gay. It was (and still remains for some) a costume change of the highest order. Once out of the subway, your voice raises a couple of octaves, your stride becomes less stiff, your hands less constrained...you begin to smile. The analogy between the inner darkness of the subway tunnel and the outside brightness of a Christopher Street afternoon is too real to be contrived.
Yet, I understand too well that in many respects we can point fingers at the Vill's new residents, but ultimately it is our community here in New York that bears the responsibility and the blame for the constant harrassment of gay youths in the birthplace of the gay liberation movement. We still do not know how to bridge the gap between being a proud gay adult and a questioning gay youth. Our people are the only people on the planet that do not have the luxury of passing on our values, history, traditions and culture directly to the next generation. The next generation must search for it, just like I searched for it.
And search for it I did. I had read in a library book about a magical place called Greenwich Village when I was still in junior high. I had no clue where it was but I got a sense from reading the book that it lay somewhere below 14th Street. I conned my cousin and his best friend to get on the subway and take a ride downtown with me (something forbidden for us at that age). We secretly went down there on a bright summer afternoon. They had no idea where I was trying to take them...only I knew I wanted to find Christopher Street. In truth I never did find it that afternoon. I walked all the way down 14th Street in the direction of the Hudson River and ended up in the Meat Market District. Back then this area was still the center of NY's meat distribution. It reaked of rotting blood and leftover bits of animal carcasses. At the very end of 14th Street I found something close to what I was seeking...an assorted gaggle of transgenders, drag queens and their johns and pimps plying their trade. We were cat-called, whistled at and reprimanded for being so young and hanging out in such a dangerous area. Amazingly, I still recall exactly what the area looked like back then, but I couldn't be able to even begin to tell you what it looks like now. So much has been ripped up and demolished.
I did eventually find Christopher Street with the help of two high school friends who came out of the closet the same day I did. And to celebrate, Jose (who lived blocks away from the Vill), got us drunk and high and we ended up stopping traffic to a dead halt as we sang "I Am What I Am" straight (or gay) down the middle of Christopher Street...the same route the Gay Pride March takes on its last leg.
When my gay mother, Willi Ninja, died of AIDS-related complications last year, I decided that I wanted that little intersection where Christopher Street meets the piers to be renamed in his honor. It's something I still need to do some work on and a whole lot of support for.
For many gays and lesbians, Greenwich Village is their "spiritual" home. For may Latino and black gays and lesbians in New York, the piers are our spiritual home.
Those piers may be nothing more than a brief break from the day to day pressures of work and child-rearing for some. But, to us, they represent not only our young adulthoods, but the place where we began to love our gay selves.