Los Angeles Times on the "New Generation" in the West Village

The conflict between the residents of New York City's West Village (myself included) and the many young black and Latin gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender visitors has been frequently debated on these pages. It's even more of a buzz item nowadays, with merchants attempting to move the after-PRIDEfest to Eighth Avenue and Chelsea. The Los Angeles Times publishes a spot-on analysis of the changing demographics and social scene in what was once home of the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and '70s:

They come to this Manhattan pier at night from Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, New Jersey. The black and Latino gays and lesbians say this is the only place where they can be themselves. Here, boys in Timberland boots and fluorescent sweatshirts know they won't get beaten up for kissing each other, and girls with cornrows beneath backward baseball caps are not embarrassed to cuddle other girls.

"This was like the first place I could really be exposed to people of my kind, without having to worry about getting bashed," said Cliff Jones, 20, of Harlem, whose neighbors don't know he is gay.

In the other corner are many longtime residents who oppose the crowds, noise and fights:

Jay Jeffries, 65, is white and gay. He has lived for 40 years in the West Village, where he participated in the first gay rights marches. From his second-floor window, he watches the roller-skating boys with boomboxes pressed to their ears and the fistfighting girls wearing do-rags and jerseys.

He has never felt so out of place.

Residents like Jeffries say they want the gays of the hip-hop generation to take their rowdiness elsewhere. They have demanded stricter curfews at the pier. They have lobbied to close a train stop on weekends to make it more difficult for people from New Jersey to travel to the West Village, and to ban loitering in their neighborhood. They have suggested that park patrol officers—who police the pier—carry guns.

In several earlier posts, some readers took issue with our empathy with many of the neighbors, which should not be surprising, given the fact that we're just steps from West Street and have seen more than our share of fights and rowdiness right under the bedroom window. (Let's not forget the tranny prostitutes using the doorway as an "office.") But, this is life in the city and one of the perks of living in this particular location.

That middle ground is crystallized by Bob Kohler, an 80-year-old gay rights advocate who has lived in the West Village for 60 years. He says the discrimination young visitors to "the Vill" face is no different from decades ago when gays could not hold hands in public—many neighbors simply "don't want black faces on Christopher Street."

"It's life. It changes, and we have to change with it."

A New Generation in the West Village [LA Times]
City Nixes Pride Street Fair Move [NY Blade]

Some Background:

Pier Kids [R20]
Homeless Gay Youth an "Epidemic" [R20]
GLAAD's Ad Targets Black Families [R20]
Would You Stop Loving Him? [R20]
(Virtual) Sex and the City [R20]

Comments

[taylor Siluwé]

Well Amen, Bob Kohler, I can't say it better than that.

[Andy in Seattle]

It sounds like there are two issues here--both relating to comfort. The presence of LGBT youth of color, and the behavior of said youth. Some residents may have a problem with both of these (though only willing to cop to one), but regardless of the color of skin, anti-social or disrepectful behavior is no fun in ones own hood, hence your empathy, Rod. The solution, I would posit, lies in dealing with both issues--the residents' possible racist discomfort, and the noise and disruption caused by the kids who weren't raised right.

[Luther]

Andy, its that line that makes so many in this country uncomfortable, race and class. That intersection is always a tinder box of emotion. The kids I'm sure are a nuisance with the all week habit of having fun, but, I find it silly that someone who lives in NYC thinks they are going to have peaceful nights as if they are out in the Hampton's. These kids have had rough lives, and this is an outlet, annoying yes, but, where else are they going to go? Gay bars in NYC? Somehow, I doubt if they would be welcomed there either, so, the streets is where they will congregate.

I've seen the loud, over the top kids in LA, the way aggressive, in your face panhandlers in San Francisco who can scare the daylights out of you and even aggressive panhandlers out side of gay clubs in Vegas, its all part of life in cities, and that old coot/bigot Jay Jeffries needs to retire to Florida for his sleep in an old folks home. Or, like the 80 year old said, dal with it as things chage all the time in this thing called life.

[Crown Jewelz]

Kids are going to be kids! By nature, when youth congregate, they are noisy. It's the unbridled energy they possess.

I work in the field of community outreach, and one of our target areas is Christopher Street and the Piers. Honestly, I have to say that the loudest area is ON the Pier. I doubt that anyone is being disturbed by noise from the Pier itself, especially with the West Side Highway between the Pier and the residences.

But where are the noisiest spots on the residential side? Right in front of the bars. And who goes into (and hangs out in front of) the bars? The grown, legal age adults, NOT the underage "kids". Sure, the kids walk up and down the block, noisy as all can get, but so do the adults.

If Jay Jeffries wants to be rid of a nuisance, why doesn't he harness the energy of the youth for something positive. A lot of them lack guidance and definitely know very little of the historic implications of the Village. He can go to the LGBT Center and teach some of the history that he's witnessed. He can go to the community program "The Door", which is a safe haven for GLBT youth, and help them do something positive with their time and energy.

This seems to be a rehash of the same problem from previous generations... LGBT youth need somewhere to go where they can feel safe and not be targeted or ostracized. Has Jeffries forgotten all that he learned during the struggle in the 60's and 70's?

[rod mccullom]

This is Rod McCullom.

Living in the neighborhood, and being black and gay, I can understand both points of view. However, I never said I was disturbed by noise from the pier, which is four or five blocks away. I've said repeatedly on this blog that I'm disturbed by kids tricking off in my doorway, having fights under the window, screaming and fighting every night in the summer, and, threatening and harassing people who live in the neighborhood.

There is no "right" roam the streets at 3, 4 or 5am, and cause disturbances. Also, it's difficult for someone who doesn't live in the target area to say where the loudest noise and biggest problems are, no?

[Michael-Vincent Crea, Pastor]

After seeing "The Wind That Shakes
the Barley," last week, I walked
on Christopher Street OUR 'fields of gold,' before going onto the pier, our 'fields of barley.'

It seemed like only yesterday, when I returned from D.C. in 1992, enjoying and seeing EVERYONE, most especially OUR own youth on the Hudson, where WE rollerskated at riverside on the pier and enjoyed drag shows to boomboxes. I saw my first Gay Pride March in 1992 not today's non-LGBT parade of corporate interests, keeping all of us herded in behind cow cordons along Christopher Street.

Guiliani first used these against African and Black vendors, driving them off 125th Street, that is, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in Harlem, with police on horseback. I first saw these steel stanchions upstate at a NY cattle auction!

I mention the movie because NYPD police state tactics seen today are passed down from Britain, seen not only in repressing Irish risings, full freedom and real
independence but also, the adults here against OUR youth, most especially Black Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transgendered children. Also, viscerally in the violence attacks
are seen against Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, and 'Katrinians,' as well, as Africans, slaughtered and dying daily in Darfur, Somalia and OUR LGBTs sisters and brothers on the continent and in Diaspora.

Money buys, pays and passes 'laws' in this country. 'Equally,' one is treated UNDER the law based on money. Such is fascism, putting corporate business interests ABOVE the individual and EVERY'sway'
people, like us. OUR revolution is not yet over!

This society has not shortchanged OUR youth. No, Dr. King's returned check marked 'insufficent funds'
for "Liberty & Justice for ALL," is, now, known to be issued by a society and government totally, morally and spiritually bankrupt, owning and loaning only lies, since its birth based on genocide to perfection in the 2000 Supreme Court Coup of you know [W]ho!

Racist, fascist village residents and others taking their ire out on OUR LGBT youth and others, like myself, are wrongly against their 'OWN,'in a misappropriation of 'ownership' of Christopher Street and the West village. Their inaction speaks louder than words in the night, as OUR kids wilt without 'fresh water' to drink in a desert of despair.

I and the kids have a right to wander along the waterside, until the sun comes up, as much as the so-called 'Stoned'-'Walled,' 'Gay-ted' community and generation. Wrong deeds, no, BUT who is, NOW, standing up, skating with and shashshaying alongside of OUR kids
for their RIGHTS, NOW, that MONEY & WORK [both of which OUR kids and youth have little to none] gives
settled LGBT adults more say?!

On the same day that Guiliani gave Central Park over for a Disney film, I walked with a drag queen to the precinct after some NYPD flat foot stopped her show, saying
some residents on the other side of West Street complained her boombox was too loud. Yeah, right!

OUR youth dj's tunes were turned off June 3, my birthday, around 1999 on a Saturday afternoon, and
replaced by a fence around OUR slab of cement where we skated for the last time since that day.

ALL adult LGBTs need to check y[our]selves and take the planks out of y[our] own eyes before the splinters from our kids 'AYES' for "LIBERTY & JUSTICE FOR ALL." A
people united can never be defeated.

LGBT adults ought not forget where from and why they have their 'bread.' Teach OUR OWN children with the patience, NOW, and with liberties, we never had walking and working in the 'fields of gold,' glitter and OUR Gay & Lesbian revolution of generations.

For those stuck-up, listen to OUR OWN's voices of OUR West village youth and OWN loves of yesteryear:

"You'll remember me when the west wind moves, Among the fields of barley. You can tell the sun in his jealous sky, When we walked in fields of gold.

"I never made promises lightly, And there have been some that I've broken, But I swear in the days still left, We will walk in fields of gold, We'll walk the fields of gold.

"Many years have passed since those summer days, Among the fields of barley. See the children run as the sun goes down,
As you lie in fields of gold.

"You'll remember me when the west wind moves, Among the fields of barley. You can tell the sun in his jealousy sky,
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold
When we walked in fields of gold."

Turn off your attitudes and TVs not OUR village and OUR youth:
OUR Revolution began and continues
on Christopher Street and the piers, OUR fields of barley, yes,
OUR fields of gold! Listen Up!:

"Will you stay with me, will you be my love, Among the fileds of barley, And you can tell the sun in his jealous sky, When we walked
in fields of gold."
["Fields of Gold," Eva Cassidy]

With peace, prayers, PRIDE & LOVE,
Steadfast in Spirit & in Truth

Michael-Vincent Crea, Pastor
One World Life Systems
owlsmvc@hotmail.com
21 May 2007

[Jan]

Powerful post Pastor Crea! While, I can kind of see where the residents are coming from as I don't want no loud, obnoxious kids running wild all hours of the day and night on my block, its still NYC, the city that supposedly never sleeps!

They residents and the city had better figure out a diplomatic way to "fix" this situation, because from what I've read from on other boards, the resident are fed up,and, some are angry, and a few made some pretty virulent racist remarks about it, and this is going to lead to a very nasty, violent confrontation.

[rex wash]

Sorry, I totally agree with Rod. It's very easy to instantly assume every outraged West Village neighbor is a racist or millionaire. Obviously, in Rod's case he is neither.

What does LGBT pride or racism have to do with kids fighting and screaming on sides streets at 4 or 5 AM? I've seen them carrying on and even having sex in doorways and even some people's hallways.

If you want to teach these young people "pride", it begins with how you carry yourself. Twirling and sashaying down someone else's neighborhood isn't "pride."

[T. Zac]

As a frequent visitor to NYC, (since 1987 I have visited NYC every year, and since 1997 at least 10 times per year). I can say that I've seen and heard the rowdy teenagers and of course I think they are problematic - but I think that about teenagers in general - lol.

However the real problem is not the teenagers, the real problem is the homophobia in the Black and Latino communities, against effiminate boys/men and really butch girls/women.

But even more of a problem than homophobia is the class veiled racism of white gay men. Their first thought is to get rid of the "thugs" (unless of course they want to fuck them) call the police.

Instead of having empathy and using their influence with the city government and neighborhood associations to have an area in a park (or a community space indoors - that has a outdoor area) that is patroled by police (or a local organization) to protect the kids from being bashed but where they can be their gay-ole selves. They want the kids to be in jail.

The fact is nobody really cares enough about effiminate/butch gender non conforming Latino and Black youth.

If they did they would really work to provide a space where these kids can just be.