Tales of the city

The gay movement came of age in the city. Now the post-gay movement, combined with a new urbanism, threatens to sanitize the very things that make our community and city life interesting.

by Robert David Sullivan

photos by Eric Antoniou

Last year, I visited a porn shop in Greenwich Village, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I found it near the end of Christopher Street, past the club-kid clothing stores and within sight of the Hudson River. This particular shop included a downstairs area where gay men met for sexual encounters in closet-size video-screening rooms. I'd seen this feature in other shops, but I was struck by the simplicity of the layout here: two symmetrical rows of cubicles, all opening onto a wide, dimly lit corridor. Other "boothstores" have a more haphazard layout, favoring lots of dark corners and no vantage point from which to take in the entire store. Here, one could stand near the foot of the stairs and see it all. Some doors were closed (occupied?), some were ajar, and some were almost wide open, spilling out that syntho-music found only in porn videos and employee-training films. There was a steady traffic of men entering and leaving booths, and the sense that every movement in the public area was being watched by dozens of eyes.

It was a city street.

In fact, it was a textbook illustration of the best kind of city street. And the textbook is Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, written in 1961 and probably the most influential work on urban planning from the past century. Consider this passage: "A good city street neighborhood achieves a marvel of balance between its people's determination to have essential privacy and their simultaneous wishes for differing degrees of contact, enjoyment or help from the people around." Her book never mentions sex clubs, but Jacobs perfectly described the dynamics I saw at that boothstore -- at least the boothstore that I remember now, which I admit may be a sanitized version of the real thing.

The image has stuck with me because I've always considered my identity as a gay man to be inseparable from my identity as a city dweller. Not surprising, I know. A disproportionate number of us live in major cities, and gay culture is full of urban symbolism: The Wizard of Oz, with its depiction of Emerald City and the catch phrase "I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore"; Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City and countless other novels in which the heroes flee small-town life; the entire disco genre.

In politics, our major cities are relatively safe havens, places where the religious right is considered a fringe element (but, like all fringe movements, capable of occasional violence). American leaders going back to Thomas Jefferson have viewed the city with fear and loathing, but gays are more likely to agree with another statement from Jane Jacobs: "In real life, barbarians (and peasants) are the least free of men -- bound by tradition, ridden by caste, fettered by superstitions, riddled by suspicion and foreboding of whatever is strange. `City air makes free,' was the medieval saying, when city air literally did make free the runaway serf."

Jacobs also wrote, "Cities are full of people with whom . . . a certain degree of contact is useful or enjoyable; but you do not want them in your hair." Americans have been conditioned to condemn this attitude, but there's nothing cold or inhumane about neighbors, staying "out of each other's hair," as long as they can be counted on in an emergency. (And they can, in most city neighborhoods. I'm not so sure about the suburbs.) The casual contacts that make city life so vibrant can include sexual encounters, to be sure, but they also include interesting-looking strangers that you pass on the street and perhaps acknowledge with a friendly nod.

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The connection between gay life and city life seems even stronger at the end of this century. Both are rising in public esteem, and both have proven more resilient than many thought possible 20 years ago. The anti-gay movement pioneered by Anita Bryant has been less effective with each passing year. And the AIDS epidemic, despite a horrific death toll, has not destroyed the gay community in ways that once seemed plausible (either by turning the rest of society against us or by dividing us from within -- for example, splitting gay men and lesbians apart). At the same time, it has become apparent that the catch-all disease known as urban decay is not an unstoppable force. Boston and New York City -- not coincidentally, cities with large gay populations -- have been particularly successful at reversing crime rates and revitalizing neighborhoods.

These are all encouraging trends, but not necessarily permanent ones. The revival of older cities is tied to a booming national economy that can't last forever; the gay-rights movement has also benefited from economic prosperity, since fewer people need scapegoats when times are good.

Just as important, what looks like progress can bring its own set of problems. The gentrification of inner-city neighborhoods threatens to drive out middle- and working-class residents (perhaps sending them to decaying suburbs). Anyone who's recently searched for an apartment in a heavily gay neighborhood (such as the South End or the Fenway) knows that it's damn near impossible to replicate the Tales of the City experience anymore.

Some believe that the same kind of exclusion threatens the gay community. Activists like Sarah Schulman warn that "assimilation" and the growing acceptance of "mainstream" gays and lesbians -- those who are monogamous, politically moderate, and discreet about their sexual lives -- do not extend to the segments of the community that have suffered the most from homophobia. Typical of the debates between separatists and assimilationists (neither side cares for the label it has been given) was an exchange between Schulman and the more conservative Andrew Sullivan in the January 19 issue of the Advocate, during which Schulman snapped: "Come on, you know the people who make change are not the people who benefit from it. The drag queens who started Stonewall 20-something years ago are no better off now than they were then."

Schulman and others raise the possibility that America is (slowly and reluctantly) embracing an incomplete or even fake version of the gay community -- the one seen in The Birdcage and Philadelphia and similarly hollow offerings from Hollywood. You might even call it a Disney version of the gay community, in honor of the company that owns the TV network that broadcast Ellen and now condones an annual "Gay Day" at its signature theme park.

The Disney Company is also a key link between the new, improved image of gay people (or maybe "post-gay" people) and the new, improved image of America's largest metropolis. It has helped transform Times Square from a seedy and dangerous center of vice into a family-friendly collection of souvenir shops and theme restaurants. Pleasantly surprised by the rapid transformation, politicians and neighborhood groups are now trying to turn the entire city into a vice-free zone. "Annoyance-free" may be a better term, for the watchdogs aren't stopping at prostitutes and drug dealers. As Sasha Abramsky put it in a recent New York magazine cover story: " . . . nowadays, people are willing to protest just about anything -- street fairs and parades, garish billboards, trucks unpacking produce outside grocery stores, limos discharging diners at restaurants." Meanwhile, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's administration has stretched its "quality-of-life" mantra to justify crackdowns on sidewalk vendors and even the deviant use of one's own feet (i.e., jaywalking).

The most publicized aspect of Giuliani's quality-of-life campaign (which appears to be part of his campaign to find a political office outside of Manhattan) has been the war against X-rated businesses, which brings us back to the boothstore on Christopher Street. Most of the clientele at the city's strip clubs and porno shops is straight, of course, but some of the loudest objections to the anti-smut campaign have come from gay activists -- including members of the provocatively named Sex Panic! (The exclamation point is usually part of their name, but since this rule appears to be casually enforced, I'll drop it in future references.) A flier announcing a Sex Panic rally in late 1997 summed up the group's philosophy: a struggle against both "the rapidly increasing homogenization of New York City" and "the anti-minority, anti-gay, anti-low income, so-called `quality of life' campaign."

The "Disneyfication" of Times Square (soon to include a spiffed-up Army recruitment center) seems to be a particular irritant to Sex Panic followers, which helps to explain why so many of the smut defenders in New York are gay. Times Square has been a symbol of the city's embrace of outsiders, particularly escapees from the drabness and conservatism of rural America. It has also symbolized diversity. The Port Authority bus terminal, legendary for sheltering runaways and prostitutes, is within a few blocks of the most prestigious theater district in the country. The juxtaposition reminds one of straight America's conflicting attitudes toward gay people -- viewed as fabulous entertainers (selflessly devoting their lives to art, and seen wearing AIDS ribbons on awards shows) and shameless perverts (selfishly devoting themselves to sex, and seen wearing harnesses in Pride parades).

By the way, this wasn't always such a contradiction: at the beginning of this century, American theater was considered a lowbrow and an alarmingly urban form of culture, and a natural nesting place for sexual libertines (both on the stage and in the audience). Now that film and television are the most powerful forms of entertainment, the theater is considered more honest, pure, and intellectually challenging. At the same time, theater is viewed as more "gay" than ever. (When was the last time you saw a straight theater director as a character in a film or television program?) Thus, a gay dancer in Disney's The Lion King, now playing on West 42nd Street, represents three communities that have been cleaned up for the respectable classes: inner cities, the theater, and homosexuals.

Few people regret that Manhattan hasn't continued its descent into the urban hell depicted in films like Death Wish and Escape from New York. Even more impressive has been the turnabout in Boston, which was one of the first major cities to suffer a huge population loss after World War II and was still sliding toward irrelevance at the time of New York's Stonewall riots in 1969. (In fact, the city's rebirth neatly coincides with the increased visibility of its gay community. The first Gay Pride march attracted only 150 people in 1971, when Boston was still known as a grimy, xenophobic has-been of a town. By 1977, when the newly restored Faneuil Hall became a national symbol of urban renaissance, attendance was up to 7000. And in 1992, attendance first hit 100,000.) Complaining about the less-colorful street life in Times Square, or the disappearance of Boston's Combat Zone, can come off as seriously misguided nostalgia -- or a reinforcement of the stereotype of gay men as obsessed with sex.

But if straight people don't seem as concerned about saving the "wild side" of the city, it may be because they can get their kicks elsewhere. Straight sleaze has generally migrated to the suburbs anyway, to strip clubs along back roads and to tiny video stores in failed shopping centers. This trend fits what I consider a particularly straight and anti-urban impulse: to compartmentalize everything in life.

By contrast, I've always thought of gay life as full of thrillingly strange combinations, as seen every year in Pride parades. Sex (or, more commonly, sexual energy) has a way of mixing in with the most high-minded pursuits. Gay bookstores stock serious literature one aisle away from beefcake calendars. Witty, sophisticated songs -- a relief from the crass, overtly sexual lyrics heard on the radio these days -- can be enjoyed at seedy piano bars that scandalized neighborhood groups are now trying to shut down. (Last year, Boston lost two of them: the Napoleon Club and Playland.) Even religious services often have a palpable cruisy atmosphere.

Porn shops and bathhouses are, of course, much more singular in purpose, and part of me wouldn't mind if they quietly vanished. But I also wonder whether they're part of some thread that can't be pulled out of a tapestry without unraveling the whole thing. Can a place still be called a city if its "quality of life" approximates the clean, quiet order of a brand-new suburb?

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If that sex shop reminded me of the chaos of a city street, I fear that the reverse idea will take hold, and a chaotic city street will remind people of a dirty bookstore. Neighborhood groups are increasingly likely to fight not just sex shops, but any business that keeps people on city streets into the late night. In Boston, the mayor's office and the Bay Village Neighborhood Association are currently trying to shut down Rise, a non-alcohol, after-hours private club on a non-residential block just outside the Theater District. Several other gay clubs have been through similar battles, mostly on the losing end. For instance, the Bay Village group has been trying to shut down Jacques for years, and has been able to impose a midnight closing time. And a couple of years ago, Fenway residents put the kibosh on a Club Café-type restaurant planned for Boylston Street, near the Ramrod. (It was replaced by the Adam Berke Gym, which helpfully went bankrupt last month, leaving a nice, quiet blank space on the block.) Each of these restrictions may be defensible on its own, but their total effect is to deaden the nightlife of the city and keep everyone indoors after bedtime. One also gets the feeling that the city's effort to strangle the Combat Zone once and for all is a way to perfect techniques that can be used against more-benign forms of entertainment.

Older gay activists may be getting a sense of déjà vu from the quality-of-life campaigns. The destruction of Boston's Scollay Square in the 1950s (now the site of sterile Government Center) was, in part, a way to get rid of the area's many "sailor bars," which attracted a significant number of gay men. In the 1960s, gay nightlife was more specifically targeted: "renewal" projects in the Bay Village area wiped out a number of popular gay bars, such as the Punch Bowl. According to the History Project's Nancy Richards, transcripts from city-council meetings of the time are full of references to the "immoral" behavior of gay men and lesbians, and the threat they posed to children. (For more details, read the History Project's Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and Gay History from the Puritans to Playland, published by Beacon Press.)

The massive and counterproductive urban-renewal projects of the '50s and early '60s were not chiefly fueled by homophobia, of course, but the growing fear and mistrust of cities couldn't have been good for the gay movement. A common assumption of the time was that almost all city residents would join the flight to the suburbs if only they had the means. (A similar kind of bridge-and-tunnel vision can be found in the Exodus movement of "cured homosexuals.") Barring that, the best way to improve the lives of poor, degenerate city dwellers was to provide them with an approximation of the nuclear-family Shangri-La found in the suburbs. For example, the experts pushed for more open space in urban neighborhoods (nothing crazy like Central Park or the Fens, but easily monitored expanses of grass and concrete). Expressways and parking garages were built to encourage inner-city driving, and high-rise apartments allowed residents to whoosh down to the supermarket in the privacy of an elevator, minimizing contact with the noise and people of the streets.

In 1961, Jane Jacobs's idea of a successful city neighborhood was Boston's North End, partly because its chopped-up quality -- narrow streets and short blocks stuffed with homes and businesses -- naturally allows people to run into each other all day long. But the conventional wisdom was that the crowded, noisy, and visually chaotic North End was a slum ready to be torn down. Many city planners admitted that they liked to visit the neighborhood, and they were baffled by the low rates of crime and disease in the area. Yet they were adamant that the North End had to be brought into line for the good of society. "It embodies attributes which all enlightened people know are evil because so many wise men have said they were evil," Jacobs wrote sardonically. (We've all met homophobes committed to similarly circular logic.) She also noted that a regular assignment for architecture students of the time was to describe how they'd fix the North End by "wiping away its nonconforming uses."

Thirty years later, almost everyone agrees that the North End is a treasure worth saving, and many of Jane Jacobs's ideas have become conventional wisdom in city planning. But the North End is also an unusually well-mannered example of a city neighborhood: mostly white, with relatively few transients and an orderly nightlife based on family-friendly restaurants. It's like a professional-class, monogamous "good gay": the part of the gay community most palatable to mainstream society. I doubt that it's possible to create an entire city of "nice" neighborhoods like the North End and Beacon Hill. These enclaves of respectability are essential to a healthy city, but by themselves they aren't so different from a walled-off housing development in the suburbs.

Warning against efforts to wipe away the more "unsightly" aspects of inner cities, including their poorer residents, Jacobs noted, "There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and be served." This language could describe closeted (and "ex"?) gays and lesbians as well as it describes sterile, micromanaged cities. It would be ironic if newly assimilated gays and lesbians joined a movement to put our urban centers "into the closet," by sweeping away anything that would look out of place at Disney World's Main Street, USA.

Certainly, not everyone in the gay community shares my feelings about the connection between gay life and urban life. I have many acquaintances who have moved to suburbia, and they generally find it liberating to be openly gay without restricting their lives to a gay ghetto. That's fine. I fervently hope that all gay men and lesbians who prefer immaculate streets and total silence after midnight move to the 'burbs. But I suspect that most of the gay community will stay in the urban centers that have "made us free" -- even if, and maybe especially if, straight America returns to its traditional loathing of the city. The boothstore on Christopher Street may be a particularly raw example of our hunger for social interaction, or perhaps of our need to reassure ourselves that we're not alone, but I welcome these burdens as much as I welcome being gay. Equality with straight people is generally a good thing, but we can do without a gay Unabomber, or a queer equivalent to the militia movement. America is counting on us to set an example.

Robert David Sullivan wrote about the year in gay TV for the December issue. He can be reached at Robt555@aol.com.

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