Tuesday, September 27, 2005
by Wayne Besen
If only the coffee shop Big Cup had changed its name to the Luxurious Latte it might have survived. Instead, the cornerstone of New York's gay Chelsea neighborhood closed shop earlier this month after the landlord raised the rent from $16,500 to $21,500. The downfall of the Big Cup is indicative of dramatic changes taking place in gayborhoods across America, where artists are pushed out, as art dealers move in.
From San Francisco's Castro District to Provincetown, the hard bodied and cool are displaced in favor of cold hard cash. Gentrification is having a dramatic impact on everything from the GLBT bar scene to politics. The question is, can the GLBT Community survive and thrive without the cocoon of the traditional gay ghetto?
Sure, remnants of the gay ghetto exist, but it is fast becoming the exclusive playground of the very wealthy. As prices rise, heterosexual families are also moving in, further changing the unique character of these neighborhoods. I have nothing against these heterosexual families who are often our friends and allies. But, as the number of heterosexuals increases, the safety net grows smaller and gay people who once freely kissed, suddenly have to look over their shoulders.
For example, demographic changes may be affecting South Beach, a magnificent Miami neighborhood blessed with bountiful sunshine, gorgeous beaches, and scantily clad models. I first started club hopping in South Beach in the late eighties when it was a scary ghost town infested with prostitutes and drug dealers. The gay community opened a few nightclubs in old theatres and by the early nineties the city was booming. For the next decade, working class gay men flocked to this Mecca from all over the world. Eventually, prices skyrocketed as the gay glitterati and sybaritic straights moved in.
The loss of majority status for gay people has seemingly emboldened gay bashers. On July 4, according to the Express Gay News, Carl Zablotny, the gay publisher of Wire, a Miami Beach gay newspaper, was slugged in the mouth and knocked unconscious by two thugs who hurled anti-gay remarks. In January 2003, Earnest Robinson left a popular gay pub and was shot in the shoulder by two men who shouted anti-gay slurs. In another incident, three men attacked and beat a victim who left a gay bar dressed as a belly dancer.
And, this month Miami Heat basketball star Shaquille O'Neal called police after he witnessed gay bashers yell anti-gay slurs and throw a beer bottle at a gay couple. South Beach is still an incredible place to be openly gay. The outbreak of recent bashings is not representative of the community. However, these attacks do suggest that as our numbers decrease, so does the safety zone.
The decline of the gay ghetto also may have political implications. In the past, gay activists had a critical mass of young people who could be organized to protest abuses. It is much more difficult to convince older wealthy gay people to hit the streets chanting slogans.
Meanwhile, the younger, and often angrier, homosexuals can't be mobilized because they are dispersed in isolated, lower income neighborhoods. Perhaps, this dynamic helps explain the tepid response in California this month following Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger's announcement that he would veto legislation allowing gay couples to marry. When Gov. Pete Wilson vetoed pro-gay legislation in the early 90's, there were riots throughout the state, particularly in areas with high concentrations of gay people.
As the ghetto becomes more exclusive, regular gay and lesbian Americans are forced to search for new neighborhoods that are inclusive. For gays who enjoyed living in the traditional gayborhood, moving dramatically changes their quality of life. Instead of living in vibrant areas where one can walk to the grocery store and the gay bar, many gay people today must live in rundown neighborhoods that are quite far from centers of gay culture and the convenience of upscale urban life. For some, this represents a degraded standard of living and a diminished sense of community.
Those looking for solutions to this conundrum may be out of luck. History suggests that neighborhoods are in constant flux and there is little that can be done to reverse changing market and social forces. For example, New York's Lower East Side used to be predominantly Jewish, but that is no longer the case. Before gay people claimed The Castro in the early 1970's, it was primarily a neighborhood of Irish Catholic families.
Gay neighborhoods throughout America are in transition, however, as old communities disappear, new ones are born. In Brooklyn, the areas of Williamsburg and Park Slope have gone from hideous to hip. Back in Manhattan, the once rundown Hells Kitchen is looking more like heaven each day for young gay people. Meanwhile, in Washington, working class GLBT people have moved out of prohibitively pricey DuPont Circle and have rebuilt their lives in nearby Logan Circle, which was not too long ago a place one would not walk at night.
Nothing in life is static. Even as we mourn the blooms falling off the old roses, we can celebrate the flowering of new GLBT-friendly communities.
7 Comments:
Well, my old Chelsea neighborhood used to be filled w/ families before it "went Gay," and those small Mom & Pop shops were replaced by trendy shops, florists, restaurants & bars...So, what's REALLY the big deal? Where they used to sell "cheese," they now sell "fromage." Big deal. Boo Hoo.
posted by , at
6:36 PM
1) gay demographics changed
2) gay businesses did not keep up with the changes of taste
3) poor marketing ignored the internet and cell phones
4) gays are more demanding of better service and not just a gay hangout
posted by , at
10:18 PM
Just because a shop is gay-owned doesn't mean it's worth frequenting. I've gotten plenty of poor customer service and attitude from waiters in shops and eateries in gayborhoods and so they don't get my dollars because they provide inferior service.
I buy from vendors that offer a quality product and great service. And if they happen from gay-owned establishments, that's neither here nor there. I think this notion of cocooning and having gay neighborhoods sends a very sad message--that we still feel as if we don't belong in the larger world.
Personally, I dislike the term "gay ghetto" and found it rather limiting to confine one's self in an area that is predominantly one culture. There is still a sense of seperatism to that and anyone who wants a rich life needs to become part of the greater whole.
I disagree that gay people "must live in rundown neighborhoods" and that younger people tend to live in isolated places--that's a matter of choice. I think today's younger gays are met with far more acceptance and don't feel the need to converge into a self-segregated urban area to find a sense of community.
Where I live, there are plenty of gay men who all own homes and are part of the larger community--they've become one with where they are and don't need to be in an insolated area. In other words, many are choosing to make lives for themselves on their own terms and are successfully integrating with the rest of humanity.
Perhaps we should be more concerned with how to help others integrate into the world at large as opposed to trying to carve out our own niches.
posted by , at
6:58 AM
It might be good for gays and straights not to be so segregated. In the long run, perhaps attitudes toward us will change once more people get to know us.
Then again, it is troubling that there has been no great outcries to recent political gay bashing. There has to be a way to mobilize people rather than living next door to them.
posted by Ryan Grant Long, at
12:36 PM
"GAY GHETTO" IS THE BEST WAY YOU CAN FIND TO PUT THE NEIGHBORHOODS, WEVE BROUGHT BACK FROM OBLIVION, SOUTH BEACH BEING THE FIRST EXAMPLE HERE IN S.FLA. WELL IF YOUVE RECENTLTY VISITED S.B. IT LOOKS MORE LIKE A GHETTO THAN EVER BEFORE, BUT YOU WONT FIND GAYS LIVING IN THOSE AREAS, WE ARE IN THE HIGHRISES, REFURBISHED HOUSES AND NEW CONSTRUCTION, THE ONLY GAYS LIVING IN GHETTOS, ARE THE CLUB CRAWLING, DRUG ADDICTED QUEENS WHO MOVED TO SOUTH BEACH ONLY TO DO THE ABOVE,EVENTUALLY HAVING TO CRAWL BACK UNDER WHATEVER MIDWESTERN ROCK THEY CRAWLED OUT FROM UNDER.I LOVE S.B. BECAUSE ITS WALKING FRIENDLY GREAT FOR SHOPPING AND HAS A GREAT FLEA MARKET,BUT PLEASE "GHETTOS" ARE EVERYWHERE AND TRASH KNOWS WHERE TO LOOK TO FIND THEM BECAUSE THATS WERE THEY FIT IN,YOUR USE OF THE WORD IS DISGUSTING MAYBE YOU NEED TO LIVE IN A GHETTO TELL ME DO YOU TAKE THE TERM FROM THE HOLOCAUST, THE JEWISH GHETTOS SOMEHOW TRANSLATE TO YOU INTO HOW GAY PEOPLE SHOULD MAKE THEMSELVES TO LIVE.GET REAL GHETTOS AS YOU CHOOSE TO CALL THEM ARE OUT,BECAUSE GAY OR NOT GAY NO ONE WANTS TO LIVE AROUND TRASH,DRUG ADDICTED LOOSERS, AND BY THE WAY I WOULD RATHER EAT AT A STRAIGHT RESTAURANT ANY DAY RATHER THAN AT A GAY ONE WHERE THE FOOD AND SERVICES SUCKS AND THE METH ADDICTED WAITER ISNT GOING TO REMEMBER ANYTHING EXCEPT, WHERE HE IS PARTYING AND WITH WHO THAT NIGHT,SO AS FAR AS RESPECTABLE PEOPLE BEING WORRIED ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF YOU GHETTOS, BELIEVE ME WE ARENT.
posted by , at
10:08 AM
runescape money runescape gold runescape gold runescape money buy runescape gold buy runescape money runescape money runescape gold wow power leveling wow powerleveling Warcraft Power Leveling Warcraft PowerLeveling buy runescape gold buy runescape money runescape items runescape accounts runescape gp dofus kamas buy dofus kamas Guild Wars Gold buy Guild Wars Gold lotro gold buy lotro gold lotro gold buy lotro gold lotro gold buy lotro gold runescape money runescape power leveling runescape money runescape gold dofus kamas cheap runescape money cheap runescape gold Hellgate Palladium Hellgate London Palladium Hellgate money Tabula Rasa gold tabula rasa money Tabula Rasa Credit Tabula Rasa Credits Hellgate gold Hellgate London gold wow power leveling wow powerleveling Warcraft PowerLeveling Warcraft Power Leveling World of Warcraft PowerLeveling World of Warcraft Power Leveling runescape power leveling runescape powerleveling eve isk eve online isk eve isk eve online isk tibia gold Fiesta Silver Fiesta Gold SilkRoad Gold buy SilkRoad Gold runescape accounts buy runescape accounts rs2 accounts buy rs2 accounts runescape power leveling rs2 power leveling FFXI Gil buy FFXI Gil gaia gold buy gaia gold buy dofus kamas buy dofus kamas dofus kamas
posted by , at
1:34 AM
心中一阵不安升降机，因为我忽然又想起了那道剑光升降平台，可怕的剑光升降台，美丽的剑光登车桥。为什么那一剑是那么的美丽货架，却又那么的可怕呢集装袋？在我倒下之前我说地磅，好美的剑塑料托盘，好恨的剑塑料托盘。我倒下了仓储笼。在我失去知觉之前仓储笼，我听到他说北京货架，这叫艺术超市货架，剑的艺术北京货架。
我并没有死广州货架，原来我的心是在右边仓储货架，而是不是左边货架厂。所以在那穿胸一剑之下我并没有死南京货架。
是一阵暴雨把我冲醒了货架公司。听说雨是上天的眼泪深圳货架，也许这天又有人死在那美丽的剑光之下吧服装货架！我张开嘴巴托盘，任雨水打进我的嘴托盘，直冲我的胃塑料托盘。我的伤口又开始流血塑料托盘，但已经不痛了木托盘。试问：仓储笼一个心已经死了的人仓储笼，肉体上的疼痛又算得了什么呢仓储笼？我知道我的刀再练一百年也无法那么美丽仓储笼，那么恨托盘，而且永远别想杀了他托盘。
我退出江湖了手推车，我没有通知江湖上的朋友们静音手推车，并来一个什么金盆洗手静音手推车，因为我的朋友们差不多都被他杀了置物架。我悄悄的走了置物架，隐进了山林之中堆垛架。俨然一个世外高人的样子堆垛架，每天一壶绿茶登高车，放在身边的几上登高车，然后或盯着一朵白云超市手推车，或盯着一片树叶物流手推车，或双目紧闭物流台车。我的刀在玉盆中泡了七七四十九天角钢货架，已经没有血腥味了角钢货架。然后我把它放在我的屋顶轻型货架，任它风吹雨打轻型货架。
十年就这年过去了中型货架。为何今天天忽然想起那柄剑中型货架，那道剑光重型货架？而且内心为什么如此不安重型货架？不应该是这样的仓库货架，对于一个喝了十年绿茶的人来说服装货架，面对死上海货架，也已不再惧怕精品货架，不再不安苏州货架，但今天又为何如此呢托盘货架？
莫非是他青岛货架，和他的剑库房货架，加上他的剑光沈阳货架。我已不问江湖之事天津货架，想他十年前也应该坐上武林盟主的位子了杭州货架，一个武林中人做了武林盟主山东货架，这一生还有什么要求的呢文件柜？
我不停的喝着绿茶工具柜。绿茶静心工具柜。但此时怎么也静不下来零件柜。茶已尽工作台。平时茶尽之时工作台，正也是日落之时工作桌。
一定快有什么事情发生了工作桌。
剑还是那美丽的剑Google左侧排名，如果再加上一道剑光吹塑机，就会形成剑的艺术色带，武学的艺术电源插座。
我问反光背心：为何还来找我滚针轴承，我已在十年之前就退出江湖了夜光粉。
他说文化石：因为你没死缎带，因为我没有对手风火轮。
我说激光打标机：十年前已不是你的对手平衡机，何况现在十年未动刀大功率led。
他说磁力泵：放眼天下梯子，只有你一个人是我的对手网眼袋，也只你一个人对我的威胁无尘布。
我不再说话手摇手电筒，因为我不知道说什么手板，我知道我十年前就开始找我毛巾布，发现我没有死就开始找我磁钢。我不死促销台，他心不安模具钢材。
他说时尚配饰：拿出你的刀筛网。
我说齿轮泵：我已无刀天使花房，命托辊，亦可有可无色丁。
他盯着我广告衫，握剑的手越来越紧钢坯，我知道那道美丽的剑光可能随时发出过滤网。在那美丽过后疏水阀，我的生命将画上句号胸章。
阳光照在了刀上发热管，反射到他的脸上手机耳机。他发现了那把刀螺杆，我的刀插销，宝刀蝴蝶，没有鞘的刀工具包。
刀已在我手中点钞机，刀还是那把刀配电箱，人却已不是那个人流苏，因为心不是那颗心沙滩巾。
他为了杀我竟找了我十年氯化镁，而为了和我比武竟帮我从屋顶拿下我的刀来双面胶带，并放在我的手中碳纤维。我忽然发现排线，他也变了汽车座垫，他在后悔十年前将所有高手都杀绝珍珠奶茶。
高手的悲哀太阳伞。
我握紧了刀桥架，我看着他的眼tpr，已经不再像十年前那样明亮了钢丝。
他的剑划出柴油发电机组，划出一道美丽的剑光护栏。我想围栏，这十年他大概在不停地使自己的剑光更美围栏。
我的刀也出了隔离网。简单的动作隔离网，一刀刺进了他的胸网片。那道美丽的光忽然停止网片，停在我的衣服上南京货架。
他说北京货架：这也是艺术北京货架，杀人的艺术北京货架，想不到你十年不动刀还懂这个艺术仓储货架。
我说仓储货架：因为我不想再让你痛苦了广州货架。
他说广州货架：谢谢货架厂。
我走了货架公司。我头也不回的走了塑料托盘。没有取回我的刀塑料托盘，因为我觉得它在我身边已经没用塑料托盘，我后悔我十年前为什么不扔了它塑料托盘？我听到了尸体倒下的声音塑料托盘。我流泪了塑料托盘，我真的不想杀他仓储笼，十年前不想仓储笼，十年后也不想仓储笼，因为我下山时答应过师父仓储笼，一切让着他仓储笼。
我叹了一口气仓储笼。远去仓储笼。
posted by SEO, at
11:17 PM
<< Home
