Erasing Your Legacy
Gentrification is alive and well in many cities across this country. New seem to have it most rampantly spread like a wild fire. But let's take a microscope and zoom in on a specific area. Now, this may come off a bit "pointed" because I am focusing on a space that has an historic significance to me on two fronts: as a gay black man, I am a minority that is also a minority within a minority (try to keep up). Having brown skin in America is something that sets me apart from the mainstream from birth; following that, the coming out process as a gay man added a whole other level to the cards in my hand.
The question then becomes: Where is my tribe? Historically, in the US, you seek out like minded, like-living people that you identify with. That is how "_____ neighborhood" became a thing (still with me..?). In NYC, that was the West Village. Peppered with all facets and avenues of colorful creatures. After the Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969, it was a haven, a "Mecca," even for what is now called the LGBTQ+ Community (Got to love those acronyms!)
So what does this have to do with gentrification, you ask? Well, let's start at the beginning.... One of the "lovely" euphemisms for the "gays" that people like(d) to use is "Fairy" because of a perceived "airy, effeminate behavior" BUT, also the innate seemingly magic ability we have to leave things better than we left them. So, as the West Village became one of the first "gayborhoods"(another euphemism) is was like stepping through the looking glass to Wonderland. A swirl of free expression, art, sex, drugs, and all the things mainstream society said was taboo and wrong, but secretly listed after. Boys were girls, girls were boys, rent was cheap, parties never ended, people literally "got their life": starting their journeys to become fashion designer, taste makers, and the visionaries we idolize today.
An extension of this "Avalon" as it were, was the Christopher Street end of the Chelsea Pier (or just "The Pier" as it was called). Many of the children, (more on this later) looking for their tribe, were not legally old enough to attend the fab parties, so they found their "families" in the streets and made their "home" on the Pier. The Pier previously had a history as a secret place for gay men to meet, Pre-Stonewall, for anonymous liaisons away from prying eyes. This area was also known for prostitution in all its flavors and styles. Having already having this connection to the blossoming community, it shifted from a place of secrets and shadows to a beacon of hope for young people finding themselves and looking for their place in the world.
Now the evolution begins….
Part 2
Circa the Early 1980s... Those affiliated and ballroom culture (ex. Paris is Burning.....Look it up) began to use the Pier as a meeting place and stomping ground to hone their skills in the dance form of Vogue and train to walk "Balls" and build up the names of their "Houses," usually named for fashion designers or concepts they admired. The Pier was alive during the day with boom boxes blasting the latest beat blend with the sounds of voices calling out " yesssss huney!", "ovahness!!", and "werkkkkkk!!!". At night, it became dark and mysterious. A shadowy Wall Street of transactions of flesh and "pharmaceuticals" that some, who the mainstream world could not accept, had to turn to for survival.
The streets of the West Village after dark was splatter painted with the club kids, the night worker, House Mothers (Leaders of the Ballroom Houses) with their "children" on their way to compete for their "10s" and legendary status…
Sadly, with evolution there are things that get sacrificed. Those same "kids" that came here to get their life, found them (and money). HIV/AIDS was given a name and shot fear through a once fearless community. All the art and beauty that was created by the lost children, that gravitated through this real life "Neverland," was now marketable (and profitable) to the mainstream that once rejected it.
People that at once roamed those streets looking for a home, now found their rent stabilized. Apartments with their partner they met 15 years ago at a party when they were underage are bothered by the next generation come to fill the labyrinth that they once occupied. They want to "clean up" the neighborhood they worked so hard to build so it is a nice place to live, not realizing that they are displacing their own "people;" their "sisters and brothers" who are still finding their way; and those still living "the life". Places that were once safe havens are now Starbucks and Gourmet-whatever shops. The Pier has become an extended park and playground for families and children to safely play, and shuts done at a "community sanctioned" hour for safety. What about the families that called the Pier their home; now scattered to the wind, becoming we-have-become-better-than-that’s.
These same people that now have multimillion dollar condos and co-ops have taken the arena that gave them the strength to become who they are and made it an amusement park for the same "people" that pushed them away. Where will those kids with nothing now learn something about life? Where will that next creative meet that "mother" that they were missing to guide them until they have their destiny in their grasp? And those folks looking down their nose at the streets that they once called home… don't even realize they are erasing their own legacy.
