aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

At 1 a.m.

There’s only one difference I see in this story from what I knew to be true 10, 20, 30 years ago:

The crowd strolls toward the Hudson River and Pier 45, where the gay teenage crowd practices vogue moves (runway poses immortalized by Madonna), flirts, and gossips. But at 1 a.m., when the pier closes, the crowd strolls back up Christopher Street. Its screaming and music drive the locals nuts.

“The young people… are raising holy hell,” said David Poster, 68, president of the Christopher Street Patrol, a neighborhood watch group. “We pray for rain and snow.”

Forget the image of the Village as a gay haven; forget the gay-liberation movement that rose from its cobblestone streets. The scene has moved north to Chelsea, and the Village is a gay neighborhood grown older, wealthier and stodgier. Some in the area of $4 million townhouses and lofts say it is under siege by gay kids of color who bring loud talk, drug dealing and prostitution.

When I was young, the pier didn’t close. New York never sleeps. But the parks close at 1.