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August 03, 2004
Out nabes
While New York is legendary as a place where gays and lesbians can live openly
and free from prejudice, Mr. Briggs's story reveals a great deal about what might
be called the other gay New York. Life in this New York unfolds far from the
chiseled Chelsea boys, funky Village bars and relatively gay-friendly
neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Park Slope, Brooklyn, that
represent the public image of gay life in the city.
In the farther reaches of the boroughs outside Manhattan, gay life is often harder
and nearly always more complicated. In these neighborhoods, the national
debate over gay marriage can be much less important than the search for a
doctor who does not squirm when talking about homosexual sex.
Cohabitating gay couples are more common in Manhattan than in the other
boroughs, according to the Gay and Lesbian Atlas, which was published this year
by the Urban Institute Press in Washington and used 2000 Census data to
determine where same-sex American couples live. But while burgeoning gay
enclaves exist in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and in Queens neighborhoods like
Jackson Heights, Astoria and Long Island City - all of which have above-average
concentrations of same-sex couples living together, according to the atlas - they
are more the exception than the rule.
For every neighborhood like Williamsburg, there are many more, like Howard
Beach in Queens, Pelham Parkway in the Bronx and Flatbush in Brooklyn, that
have relatively few gay couples living together, according to the atlas. (The data
do not account for single gays.) A map that shows concentrations of gay couples
in the city can be found at www.urban.org/pubs/gayatlas.
The difference plays out even in public celebrations. Hundreds of thousands of
people attended the 35th Annual Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride
March in Manhattan last month, and the Queens Pride and Brooklyn Pride
festivals drew their fair share of crowds. By contrast, events in the Bronx and
Staten Island were far more muted. The kickoff night of the Out Like That
Festival at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance drew only about 30 people. In
Staten Island, the main observance was a gathering at a Stapleton cafe.
Posted by dc at August 3, 2004 12:18 AM
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