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Gay life in New York has too often been rendered in a stark dichotomy that portrays or assumes the long darkness
of "the closet" before liberation in 1969. Many depictions of lesbian and gay history begin with the 1969
Stonewall Rebellion when a police raid on a gay bar turned into a riot in which gay men and
lesbians fought back against hostile police intrusion. This version of the history of gay life obscures
histories of resistance as well as vital homosexual communities in the past.
A generation of lesbian and gay historians have been working to present a richer vision of gay life "before the closet." George Chauncey's Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 has remapped the traditional urban landscape by portraying the half-century before the onset of World War II as an era when gay men, and to some extent lesbians, were exceptionally well integrated and evident in the life of New York City. Chauncey's study, winner of the Los Angeles Times Prize for History, delineates the city's gay life at the turn of the century. It was most visible in the working-class parts of New York, centered in African-American, Irish and Italian immigrant neighborhoods and along the city's waterfront. By the second decade of the twentieth century, New York's gay world included several neighborhood enclaves, widely publicized dances and other social events, and a host of commercial establishments. Gay men and lesbians gathered in places ranging from saloons, speakeasies and bars to cheap cafeterias and elegant restaurants. Gay men organized beauty contests at Coney Island and drag balls in Harlem; they performed at gay clubs in Greenwich Village and at tourist traps in Times Square. Although having less access to commercial venues, lesbians also created public identities in Greenwich Village tea rooms and Harlem speakeasies. Gay and lesbian writers and performers produced gay literature and theater in the 1920s and early 1930s; gay impresarios organized cultural events that sustained and enhanced communal ties and group identity. But, by mid-century, repression finally drove New York's gay world underground. Homosexuals were always under the scrutiny and harassment of moral crusaders, licensing authorities, and the police. A flurry of anti-gay ordinances, the enforcement of anti-sodomy laws, censorship, and violence finally closed down many establishments and suppressed public gay expression. Inspired by Chauncey's acclaimed historical text as well as recent scholarship that has focused on the particular struggles of women in this formative period before World War II, the American Social History Project will produce a feature-length video documentary that recaptures the forgotten time when gay men and lesbians played an expansive role in the city's society and popular culture. Combining the latest scholarship with innovative documentary techniques, Gay New York: Lesbians and Gay Men and the Making of the City will expand public awareness of this largely unknown story and bring lesbian and gay history out of "the closet." This reinterpretation of the past will transform public understanding of the development and life of New York City, and at the same time will provoke a reconsideration of the historical evolution of the modern gay and lesbian liberation movement. The documentary will transport viewers back in time to visit the early twentieth-century city. Standing the fashionable turn-of-the-century pastime of "slumming" on its head, this feature-length guided tour explores the changing sites and experiences of the city's lesbians and gay men. It is a past whose visual record has been obscured or lost, a past that can only be successfully presented to a popular audience through the exercise of historical imagination and the creative expansion of traditional documentary techniques. A multimedia approach that merges performance, computer graphics and animation with archival imagery will convey to viewers a uniquely vivid portrait of the city:
Archival photographs and graphics of the geographic sites of New York
lesbian and gay life - Bowery streets and saloons, Greenwich Village restaurants and apartments, Times Square
cabarets and theaters, Harlem speakeasies and drag balls, and Central Park benches and paths - will reveal
forgotten experiences through computer-aided enhancements and animation.
Oral history reminiscences will be reenacted in performance vignettes that capture the range of personas or
"types" - the so-called fairies, mannish lesbians, trade, husbands, and wolves - that defined the community.
Visual and sound montages that meld paintings, popular illustration, film clips, and theatrical posters with
dramatic passages, literary readings, and musical interludes will convey the impact of lesbian and gay expression
on the city's cultural history.
Many of these approaches have been used in other American Social History Project programs, including the
award-winning documentaries in its Who Built America? series (which have found a broad viewership in
classrooms, libraries, festivals, and on cable television).
A grant from the New York Council for the Humanities to research and draft the documentary script and to
produce a ten-minute demonstration reel allows the American Social History Project to bring together a team of
filmmakers and historians:
Stephen Brier, Executive Producer (Director, ASHP)
When finally produced, Gay New York's evocative portrait of a
multi-dimensional and exhilarating past will draw a wide and diverse audience. Its viewership will be reached via
broadcast on public and/or cable television and through potential commercial release in media arts and alternative
theaters in major American cities. As in its previous productions, the American Social History Project will also
attract viewers through domestic and international festival showings, as well as cablecast and classroom distribution.
Watch this space for news about the progress of Gay New York and presentations of program features. |