Gay New York

Question 1

What public spaces did gay men frequent in New York City in the early 20th century?

Answer 1

Streets, parks, and beaches were common places where gay men would gather, socialize, and find sexual partners.

Question 2

How did gay men respond to the threat of anti-gay violence and police presence?

Answer 2

Gay men devised various tactics to move freely, appropriate spaces not marked as gay, and construct a gay city within the dominant city. They also relied on public disbelief that “normal”-looking men could be gay and their access as men to public spaces.

Question 3

How was the gay street culture intertwined with the larger, working-class street culture?

Answer 3

Working-class people often socialized in streets and parks due to crowded living conditions, which allowed the gay presence to be masked by the general bustle of street life in working-class neighborhoods.

Question 4

Why did gay and working-class uses of the streets come under attack?

Answer 4

They challenged bourgeois conceptions of public order, the proper boundaries between public and private space, and the social practices appropriate to each.

Question 5

What was the role of parks in New York City’s gay culture during the early 20th century?

Answer 5

Parks were popular and secure meeting places for gay men to socialize, find friends, and search for sexual partners through cruising.

Question 6

How did cruising in parks and streets help newcomers to the city enter the gay world?

Answer 6

Cruising allowed newcomers to meet people more familiar with the gay world, who could then guide them through it and introduce them to other gay spaces and communities.

Question 7

How did parks and streets function as social centers for groups within the gay community?

Answer 7

Parks and streets were gathering points for groups of young gay men who could not afford other forms of recreation. They served as spaces for gossip, socializing, and meeting lifelong friends.

Question 8

What were some well-known parks that were popular for cruising and socializing within the gay community in New York City?

Answer 8

Bryant Park, Prospect Park, Battery Park, and Riverside Park, with landmarks like Grant’s Tomb and the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, were popular parks for cruising and socializing.

Question 9

Why was Central Park particularly renowned within the gay world as a social center and cruising ground?

Answer 9

Central Park’s location, vast stretches of unsupervised wooded land, and heavy patronage made it an ideal space for gay men to gather, socialize, and cruise.

Question 10

What impact did police presence and harassment have on the parks as spaces for the gay community?

Answer 10

Despite police harassment, parks continued to be important spaces for social and sexual activity for both homosexual and heterosexual couples because they were more challenging to regulate than enclosed spaces and provided more hiding spots.

Question 11

How did gay men utilize the city’s beaches during the early 20th century?

Answer 11

Gay men gathered on the city’s beaches for socializing and searching for sexual partners, often claiming sections of the beach as their own or joining other groups, such as ethnic or neighborhood-based groups.

Question 12

What was the significance of a male beauty contest at Coney Island’s Washington Baths in the summer of 1929?

Answer 12

The contest showed the boldness of gay men in public spaces, as they took over the contest by becoming its audience, contestants, and stars.

Question 13

What function did streets serve for gay men in the early 20th century?

Answer 13

What function did streets serve for gay men in the early 20th century?
A: Streets served as social centers, cruising areas, and meeting spots for gay men, often in neighborhoods with gay-oriented saloons and restaurants.

Question 14

What threats did gay men face on the streets?

Answer 14

They faced threats of arrest or harassment from the police, anti-gay vigilantes, and informal groups like gangs or corner saloon patrons.

Question 15

How did police surveillance of homosexuals change around 1910?

Answer 15

The police department added the surveillance of homosexuals to the responsibilities of the vice squad, which already handled investigations of female prostitutes.

Question 16

What charge did most men arrested by the vice squad face?

Answer 16

Most men were charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, rather than sodomy, a felony.

Question 17

How did the state legislature formalize the categorization of disorderly conduct charges for homosexual behavior in 1923?

Answer 17

The legislature revised the disorderly conduct statute to define the crime as frequenting or loitering in public places, soliciting men for the purpose of committing a crime against nature or other lewdness

Question 18

How did gay men respond to the threat of formal and informal sanctions on the streets?

Answer 18

They developed strategies for negotiating their way on the streets, such as openly announcing their sexual interests and creating a visible gay presence, even though this could result in harassment from onlookers. This defiance and resistance were aimed against the heterosexist cultural system.

Question 19

What tactics did gay people use to communicate with each other without alerting hostile outsiders?

Answer 19

They developed codes and tactics that were intelligible only to those familiar with the subculture, using clothing styles, grooming, mannerisms, and speech that were not stereotypically associated with homosexuality.

Question 20

How did gay men use the gender conventions of public interactions to their advantage?

Answer 20

They exploited the cultural norm against men looking at other men in a sexually assertive way. A “normal” man would avert his eyes when making eye contact with a stranger, while a gay man interested in the other person would return the gaze.

Question 21

What factors determined the safest places for gay men to meet?

Answer 21

They considered the social dynamics of various neighborhoods and the maps devised by other, sometimes hostile, groups. Cruising areas were often located in theater and retail shopping districts, less desirable avenues, waterfront areas, and “vice” area

Question 22

How did gay men use department store display windows to make contact with one another?

Answer 22

One man would indicate his interest by stopping before a window and gazing at the display, allowing the second man to join him without attracting attention. They could then strike up a conversation to determine if they wanted to spend more time together.

Question 23

How did the evolution of East Fourteenth Street illustrate the factors that encouraged the development of a cruising area?

Answer 23

Once a fashionable district, it became an inexpensive retail strip and a center of ribald entertainment for working-class men, with theaters, museums, drinking establishments, and prostitution. It was in this context that Fourteenth Street became a center of gay life and street activity from the 1890s to the 1920s

Question 24

What was the relationship between a neighborhood’s changing social dynamics and its gay street scene, as seen in Times Square?

Answer 24

The shifting spatial and social organization of Times Square influenced its gay street culture. Male prostitution in the area developed in two distinct groups: well-dressed hustlers catering to middle-class gay clientele, and effeminate “fairy prostitutes” serving gay men and self-identified “normal” men. The streets were the site of multiple sexual systems, each with its own cultural dynamics, codes, and territories

Question 25

What significant change occurred on Forty-second Street during the Great Depression?

Answer 25

It became a major locus for a new kind of “rough” hustler and interactions between straight-identified servicemen and homosexuals, with many young men turning to prostitution for income.

Question 26

Why did the hustler scene follow the bars so closely?

Answer 26

Bars attracted customers and provided shelter from the elements, and the streets and bars functioned as extensions of each other, each with their advantages and dangers.

Question 27

How did cheap cafeterias, Automats, and lunchrooms play a role in the gay circuit?

Answer 27

They had a symbiotic relationship with the public life of the street and served as meeting places for gay men throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Question 28

What role did movie and burlesque theaters play in the gay circuit?

Answer 28

They became part of the gay circuit as places where gay men and others interested in homosexual encounters could meet one another, particularly in the standing-room area and the balconies.

Question 29

What was the significance of movie theaters in the gay community?

Answer 29

Movie theaters served as legitimate spaces for young men to meet other gay men, learn about the gay world, and form friendships, despite being subject to periodic crackdowns.

Question 30

Why did men, particularly those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, engage in public sex?

Answer 30

They had limited alternatives, as they couldn’t bring partners home to crowded living spaces or afford temporary accommodations, and thus sought secluded spots in public areas.

Question 31

How did parks serve as locations for both homosexual and heterosexual encounters?

Answer 31

Parks were dark at night and provided secluded spots in bushes and trees, where couples could find privacy in a public space.

Question 32

What were public comfort stations and how did they become associated with homosexual encounters?

Answer 32

Public comfort stations were public restrooms built in parks and at major intersections. They became associated with homosexual encounters as they provided accessible and relatively private spaces for men seeking sexual partners.

Question 33

How did the expansion of the subway system contribute to the increase in public sex?

Answer 33

Subway washrooms became major sexual centers, with certain washrooms developing reputations for such activity, providing accessible and relatively private spaces for sexual encounters.

Question 34

How did men achieve privacy in public spaces like public washrooms during sexual encounters?

Answer 34

They used tactics such as nonverbal signs, sentries to warn others of approaching strangers, and taking advantage of elaborate and noisy entrances to maintain their privacy.

Question 35

What were the consequences of being arrested for homosexual activity in public spaces during the early 20th century?

Answer 35

Conviction often led to a sentence of 30 to 60 days in the workhouse, and extralegal sanctions such as revealing a man’s homosexuality to his family, employer, and landlord, resulting in job loss, damaged reputation, and loss of housing.

Question 36

Who tended to use subway washrooms or “tearooms” for homosexual encounters?

Answer 36

While many men who used tearooms were relatively poor with limited access to private space, men from various backgrounds and social standings also frequented them due to the appeal of sexual adventurism, experimentation, and variety.

Question 37

Why did some gay men view tearoom visits as shameful?

Answer 37

Some gay men expected the same level of romanticism, monogamy, and commitment in gay relationships that bourgeois ideology expected of marriage, making tearoom encounters appear to be inappropriate and risky.

Question 38

What factors made tearooms attractive for sexual encounters?

Answer 38

Tearooms provided unparalleled access to a large and varied group of men, anonymity, unpredictability, and danger, which some men found sexually exciting. They also allowed men to minimize the implications of the experiences by making them easy to isolate from the rest of their lives and identities.

Question 39

What groups of men were attracted to tearooms for reasons other than poverty or lack of private space?

Answer 39

Straight men interested in a quick sexual release, men who acknowledged their homosexual interests but dared not visit a bar or restaurant with a gay reputation, and men who couldn’t emotionally face their homosexual interests due to pervasive anti-homosexual social attitudes.

Question 40

What happened to some men who had sexual encounters in tearooms?

Answer 40

Many of these men participated no further in the gay world, often returning to their conventional lives as respected family men. However, a quarter of the men arrested for homosexual activity in 1920-21 were married, and many of them had children, shattering the illusion of security offered by the tearooms.

Question 41

How did tearoom encounters affect men’s perception of the gay world?

Answer 41

While tearoom encounters reinforced negative impressions of homosexuality by associating it with degeneracy, they also provided men with an enticing sense of the scope and counterstereotypical diversity of the gay world, leading some to explore it further and feel less isolated.

Question 42

What impact did witnessing the sheer numbers of men participating in tearoom sex have on individuals?

Answer 42

Seeing large numbers of “normal” looking men of diverse backgrounds participating in tearoom sex reassured many who felt isolated and uncertain of their own “normality” and offered a perception of a vast and diverse gay underworld.

Question 43

How did early forays into New York’s gay underworld influence people like Martin Goodkin

Answer 43

The discovery of New York as one big cruising ground was an electrifying and reassuring realization for Goodkin, as it convinced him that he was part of a vast secret world with its own territories and codes, ensuring he would never feel isolated again.

Question 44

How was gay street culture related to working-class street youth culture?

Answer 44

Gay street culture was in many respects part of the larger working-class street youth culture and was policed as part of policing that larger culture. The social ties, desire for communal life, and lack of privacy in living spaces drew both working-class gay men and others to the streets for socializing and sexual encounters.

Question 45

Why did the use of public spaces for sexual purposes trouble middle-class reformers?

Answer 45

Middle-class reformers were troubled by the use of public spaces for sexual purposes because it challenged the careful delineation between public and private space central to bourgeois conceptions of public order. It also highlighted class differentiation in the use of streets and norms of public sociability.

Question 46

How did the policing of gay men’s use of public space fit into broader efforts by the state?

Answer 46

Policing of gay men’s use of public space was part of a broader effort by the state to police the boundaries between public and private space, imposing a bourgeois definition of such distinctions on working-class communities. This effort aimed to control not only challenges to hetero-normativity but also a more general challenge to dominant cultural conceptions of boundaries and social practices.