City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Gov. David Paterson hold a
press conference at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, the start of the
Pride March. Paterson is the first governor to participate in the
39th-annual event. Photo: Trenton Straube.
For the fifth year, advocates marched across Brooklyn Bridge for Marriage Equality. Yet this event was different.
Majority Leader Dean Skelos attended Log Cabin’s fall fundraiser, where he backed the first openly gay Senate hopeful, John Chromczak.
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By Joelle L. Quartini
Friday, June 27, 2008
Though it did, literally, rain on our parade, the late-afternoon flash downpour did not dampen the spirits of Sunday’s Pride celebrations. Nor did police raids at several clubs on Friday and an alleged LGBT bias attack on the subway.
Gov. David Paterson became the state’s first governor to join the march, held June 29. Openly gay City Council Speaker Christine Quinn introduced the chief executive to reporters and an appreciate crowd before the march officially kicked off at noon at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street.
Paterson has been a longtime and vocal ally of LGBT community (read his Pride interview with The Blade here). In May, he directed state agencies to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed out of state.
“What he did ... sends a message that leadership isn’t about waiting. It’s about finding the opportunity. It’s about finding the way to move progress and civil rights forward,” said Quinn, the city’s most powerful openly gay elected official.
Paterson took part even though he had surgery to remove a cataract on Saturday.
“The doctors told me I couldn’t march today,” he said. “I ran 8 1/2 miles Friday. I can march today. And I will.”
The march, which ends in Greenwich Village, drew more than 1.2 million participants and spectators. This year’s grand marshals were transgender comedian and actress Candis Cayne, rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker and The LGBT Community Center, which celebrates 25 years throughout 2008.
Heritage of Pride is the umbrella group that organizes the march and other related events, such as the Dance on the Pier and the PrideFest, a street fair held Sunday afternoon after the march.
This year, Pridefest moved to a new location: in the Meatpacking District, on Hudson and 14th streets. Other than the minor setup issues that usually go along with the debut of any event, the new site worked out perfectly, said HOP business manager Anthony Dean.
By 11 a.m., the streets were packed, and the rain didn’t dampen any of the week’s events. Sunday night’s closing event Dance on the Pier sold out (“Dreamgirls” Jennifer Hudson was the surprise performer), and Saturday’s women’s event Rapture on the River drew a significantly larger crowd from last year.
The rain did have one negative impact. Traditionally a fireworks display caps the Pride events, going off at 10 p.m. from a barge near Pier 54 to coincide with the end of Dance on the Pier.
Storms and the river’s water level kept the barge from moving more quickly up the Hudson River after its start near Battery Park. As a result, when the fireworks went off, they weren’t visible to all the revelers on the pier because the barge was still too far away.
POLICE RAIDS
The NYPD forced two clubs to close Friday, June 27, and momentarily stunned others when city officials went on a rampage of raids, just in time to displace some Pride festivities.
Pacha and Marquee, two west-side nightclubs that often host gay parties, were both shut down after months of undercover police investigations of drug dealings.
The official after-party of Dance on the Pier was to be held at Pacha Sunday night, but the shutterings left promoter Steven Pevner searching for another venue at the last minute.
Pevner found out about the closure Friday at 11 p.m., and held out hope while Pacha's attorneys tried to get the club reopened on Saturday to no avail. “As the clock kept ticking, I realized this was not going to happen,” said Pevner, who lost the $10,000 lighting rig and $20,000 worth of materials that had been locked inside Pacha for the Heritage of Pride benefit.
At the last minute, he relocated to Capitale in The Bowery, and the party went on until 2 p.m. Monday.
Police, fire and health officials also stopped the line at Splash on Friday night for half an hour while they raided the club in search of a violation. One of the city’s most popular gay venues since 1991, located in the heart of Chelsea, Splash received one citation—for having milk in a refrigerator with no thermometer.
“All of the clubs that would have been big venues for gay Pride seemed to be hit,” Pevner said.
Party promoter and former HX owner Marc Berkley said the police prefer to raid clubs on Fridays because if they’re shut down, they rarely can re-open until Monday, which imposes a tremendous financial hit, especially on Pride weekend.
Berkley speculates that the raids weren’t focused on gay clubs, but rather were part of the city’s continuing fight against nightlife in general.
HATE CRIME REPORTED
After volunteering at a Pride event on Saturday, a man was allegedly attacked on the subway from Christopher Street by a heterosexual couple. The Gothamist reported that the victim suffered two black eyes, chipped teeth and broken glasses and needed seven stitches at St. Vincent's Hospital, where he filed a police report.
Later in the week, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, State Sen. Tom Duane and City Council member Alan Gerson released a statement about the incident. Quinn’s office had been alerted of the attack and connected the victim to the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP).
The release said, “Homophobia must never be tolerated, but it is especially surprising and hurtful that such an attack could occur in the West Village so near to the birthplace of the LGBT movement, and the day before the LGBT Pride March. June is the month that we celebrate the LGBT community in New York City and advocate for equal rights and the elimination of intolerance and prejudice, and this attack only goes to show that we still have a long way to go.”
AVP’s Kim Fountain said that attacks are, in fact, more common during events such as Pride because of the heightened visibility. “Increased exposure of LGBT anything increases violence,” she said.
The city’s hate crimes spike in July. Factor in the blazing heat, tourist overcrowding and scores of youngsters off from school, and summer in New York becomes a pressure cooker.
Youths often comprise a significant number of perpetrators, a situation Fountain called a “societal shortcoming” for not keeping them off the streets.
LGBT hate crimes reported to AVP continue to go up, both a good and bad sign. Either there are more incidents of violence, or more victims are seeking help.
"A lot of people experience so much violence in their lives so often, especially trans folks, that they don't recognize it as violence," Fountain said.
In November, the FBI found that of 7,722 hate crimes submitted locally in the nation, 1,195 stemmed from perceived or actual sexual orientation, which is up 18 percent since its 2005 report.
For the same year though, AVP recorded 486 incidents in the New York metropolitan area whereas the FBI included only 86 incidents in all of New York State in its report.
From 2006 to 2007, the number of LGBT-related crime victims, incidents and offenders all went up, and the number of known anti-LGBT murders in the United States doubled from 10 to 21.
For more information or for help, call the Anti-Violence Project 24-hour bilingual hotline at 212-714-1141. Anyone with information about the subway attack can call 1-800-577-TIPS.
Additional reporting by Trenton Straube and The Associated Press.
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