Damayanti Wallace, a queer Black poet, community organizer and Chicago native, recounted police disrupting recent open-mic nights where queer youths of color often found sanctuary.

“I was able to be around these adults who were queer and in queer relationships and it was so loving and so welcoming and so beautiful and, also, so messy,” they said. “I remember [when] cops would come into the open mics and try to stop whatever we were doing or [when] my mentors [had] to go stand at the door so the police wouldn’t come in.”

Wallace is a co-founder of GoodKids MadCity, a non-profit youth organization fighting to end inner-city violence, call for community resources and to abolish police. Through both their work and their experiences as a queer Black person, Wallace has seen the individual struggles of each identity, as well as the unique tension with police born from this intersection.

“Policing is inherently violent to a Black queer person because it’ is the embodiment of all of the things we are running away from or fighting on a day to day basis,” they said. 

To Julian Mohammed, a Black gay man based in Harlem, the tension is unsurprising. With two police officers for parents, Mohammed grew up around law enforcement. This closeness helped illuminate more overarching issues within the force, he explained.

“I know for a fact they do treat minorities different,” he said. “I’ve heard that from their mouths, that if a minority walks up to them they’re gonna be more likely to perceive it as a threat. That’s more common, I guess, in the neighborhoods they’re in.”

The issue, to Mohammed, is that police officers simply do not care about certain communities.

“I’ve seen a lot of cops say ‘f——’ and I don’t know if they’re just saying it because everyone used to say it back then,” he said. “But I feel like if you were hate crimed  or anything, it’s gonna get brushed under the rug.”

Police discrimination may be a driver of poor health outcomes and inequities among Black LGBTQ+ people, according to a 2020 paper published in Social Science & Medicine. The same paper found that four in ten Black LGBTQ+ men claimed they’d faced police violence in the last year. Another study found that Black transgender people are 50 percent more likely than their non-Black counterparts to be arrested following a police stop.

The singularity of these difficulties has left Wallace disillusioned with policing.

“You place black and queer together and it’s almost like you’re placing yourself in your own special kind of hell,” Wallace said.

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 The hospital, adorned with graffiti that reads “Trans Lives Matter,” and “Queer Freedom,” looms over a small corner of the beach. Some residents are advocating for a playground to replace the building, which threatens the de facto nude status of the beach by introducing children within eyesight.

 “It’s always been a queer beach,” said Victoria “Queen of Riis” Cruz from under her sun tent. “We’re born naked,

Victoria ‘Queen of Riis’ Cruz enjoys an afternoon at The People’s Beach, the queer Jacob Riis Park beach in Queens she has frequented since the 1960’s. Photo by Annie Iezzi

everything else is just an asset.” 

 Cruz has been frequenting The People’s Beach  since 1963. She said that convalescent patients from the hospital used to frolic with the beachgoers, enjoying the healing power of the ocean.

 The queer community and the nude community at The People’s Beach–with much overlap between them–have initiated petitions to #saveriisbeach. The beach would be closed during the demolition, and likely impacted moving forward, dependent upon the future development of the plot.

 Veronica Kirschner, a nudist who has enjoyed Riis for more than 10 years and who initiated a petition to make Neponsit Hospital a scenic landmark, worries about decreased privacy and increased police presence. She said that last week, she was harassed by park rangers demanding identification while she sunbathed in the nude.

 “When we come together in community, we are spectacular,” she said, regarding organizing efforts to mitigate harm from the demolition.

 Another petition, Protect NYC’s queer beach, has been circulating on Instagram, courtesy of Pony Knowles. An Instagram account, riis.beach, that posts historic and contemporary images of life at Riis, has also been instrumental to community mobilization. On that platform, concerned beachgoers organized a “save Riis beach” community Zoom to share information, skills, and ideas. More than 60 members of the LGBTQ+ community attended in support, and a second Zoom meeting is scheduled for Friday.

A memorial to the late Ms. Colombia, a beloved New York City queer icon, hung on the barbed-wire fence at The People’s Beach in Jacob Riis Park in Queens. Photo by Annie Iezzi

The effort to save the beach is as much rooted in its history as its present. Many worry about the destruction of a memorial to the late Ms. Colombia, a beloved NYC queer icon, that has long adorned the barbed wire fence between the hospital and The People’s Beach. A colorful wind spinner pokes out between the wires, twirling amidst blooming fake flowers and an homage rainbow dress.

 Queer beachgoers are especially concerned about the closure of the beach, community safety, and the possible diminishment of queer gathering space.

 “Riis Beach, particularly this corner in front of the abandoned hospital, is a safe haven for queer, trans and nonbinary folks, and it’s important that it remains that way,” said trans-inclusive sex educator Cristina Pitter.“The abandoned hospital reflects the way that marginalized people are also abandoned, so finding sanctuary here alongside this building goes hand in hand.”

 Pitter said that park facilities and accessible bathrooms could be constructed on the empty lot. Others on the beach said they would like to see a community or holistic healthcare center erected there, and some suggested that a privacy sand dune would suit the plot well.

 “One can only hope that New York City will have a proper infrastructure in place to build, protect and advocate for marginalized communities in this space,” Pitter said.

 Constructed in 1914 as a tuberculosis hospital, and officially known as the former Neponsit Nursing Home, the iconic Queens building has housed medical facilities since its erection. In 1998, the hospital made headlines in its last iteration as a nursing home, when the city relocated all its residents without warning and in the middle of the night, citing unsafe building conditions.

 Last spring, during a turbulent storm that hit the Rockaways, a chunk of corrugated metal flew off the hospital’s roof and into the driveway of a nearby house. According to Robby Schwach, the Deputy Chief of Staff under City Councilman Eric Ulrich, this active decay kicked off the city’s most recent move to demolish the hospital.

 “It would be crazy to keep paying money to maintain it, when it is falling apart,” said Schwach, who is also a community liaison for the office. He says that City Health and Hospitals, which owns the property, has selected the architecture firm Urbahn to design the demolition.

 Urbahn hopes to present a demolition plan this fall and could have “shovels in the ground” by spring, Schwach said. The city will also host a community meeting to hear the concerns of beachgoers and neighborhood residents alike. According to the original deed, if the plot is not used for a healthcare facility, it will automatically become a city park, but whether or not that park’s playground will abut The People’s Beach remains undecided.

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With COVID-19  devastating much of the country’s nightlife, many restaurants and bars have been hurting, especially the last standing 15 lesbian bars across America. 

Erica Rose, director and co-founder of the Lesbian Bar Project, February 16, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Erica Rose.

Erica Rose, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker, alongside her friend Elina Street banned together to create the Lesbian Bar Project, a four-week fundraiser in the fall of 2020.

“Our goal was to spread the message, spread the word, spread the urgency, and raise money to give some assistance to the bars,” said Rose. 

As a filmmaker, Rose wanted it to be a film project. So she and her team produced a 90-second PSA video to shed light on the significance of these spaces. 

They teamed up with Jägermaester’s #SAVETHENIGHT, an initiative created to support the nightlife community, and gained immense exposure to successfully raise $117,504 to distribute between the 15 bars. 

Well before the pandemic, lesbian bars have been on the decline. According to Rose, this has been an ongoing issue caused heavily by gentrification amid other factors. 

“These spaces are getting devoured by rising rents. They are getting devoured by a client base that is being squashed by heterosexual people. It’s being devoured by now the pandemic,” said Rose. 

It wasn’t until the pandemic acted as a catalyst forcing Rose to take stock of what was most precious to her that she was surprised to learn there were only 15 lesbian bars left. A number nowhere near resemblant of the 8.5 million queer women in the United States. 

“There needs to be space for people to grow, and learn, and experiment. And the fact that there are so few means that we really need to realize how precious those few are,” said Ashley Coia, a New York-based actor.

Along with gentrification bringing in younger generations, it brought with them the world of online dating and a wider acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community, lessening the need for queer-centric spaces. However, the importance of these spaces remains crucial, as they offer many a safe place to experiment without unwanted and unwelcome spectators. 

“It was the space that I went the most when I was trying to find myself as a queer woman,” said Coia. “Spaces like Cubbyhole I would go because I just felt so safe there. I could hit on a woman and not worry that a man was going to come up and harass me for it.”

A bar is more than a place to drink in the queer community, it often acts as a creator of community, a place to socialize. 

“What a bar to me is, is a place where you can meet all walks of life,” said Rose. “Walking into Cubbyhole and seeing queer women together and the comradery and the friendship and the community. I was drawn, I was hooked.”

Ali Clayton, a comedian from North Carolina, February 16, 2021. Photo Courtesy of Ali Clayton

For Ali Clayton, a comedian who has been sober since 2018, it was difficult for her to go to social events that involved drinking when she first recovered. But Henrietta Hudson, another lesbian bar in Manhattan offered alternative ways, like trivia nights and dancing, for Clayton to enjoy herself in good company. 

Clayton described the emotions that the atmosphere of queer spaces elicits as “freeing” and “validating.” 

She expressed that exclusive spaces made for lesbians promote a safe place and different energy that allows her to feel confident to hit on a woman without the fear that she might be straight. 

Despite the waning number of lesbian bars, The Lesbian Bar Project’s efforts prove the vitality of the lesbian community, showing that they won’t let their spaces be eradicated.

And as long as things go as planned, The Cubbyhole Bar hopes to reopen in March, and Rose can’t wait to join her friends and her community to celebrate the bar’s rebellion.

“I always believe that queer women are the most loyal audience,” said Rose. “If you give us something…we will show up.”

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