Central Park Summertime Sky

by baad lamb

Though summer storm clouds threaten, they provide a dramatic backdrop as the late afternoon sun illuminates the Beresford on high and the bike boys below.

I snapped this on June 25th from the newly restored Cherry Hill, looking northwest. Embiggens nicely.

The Calm Before the Storm

by baad lamb

Waiting for the overhyped and underwhelming Irene to arrive, I was up very early on Saturday morning and took a long slow stroll in Central Park.

There was a grey sky, a gentle mist and a rich green glow all about, as grasses caressed shrubs that tickled trees, all pasted together by the thin swirls of a late August algae bloom on The Lake.

Autumn in New York

Our perfect Autumn stroll through Central Park this morning.

Lots more photos (and Ella and Louis!) after the jump.

John Lennon's 70th Birthday. Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

Early in the morning and the crowd had already begun to swell.

More photos, and video of the crowd singing "I Should Have Known Better", after the break.

Bear Hill, Central Park, Last Saturday, 4 QNY Bloggers,

and my empty chair.

Algae in the City

Perry Brass: Lost Gay New York: Sunday in Lost Gay New York

Perry Brass hangs out in Southhampton, 1976. Note: Mark Spitz mustache.

Sometime in the mid-60s and into the 1970s, Sunday became “the” gay day. I know, the idea sounds a bit crazy. Why would God’s day, once dedicated to church, family, bad food, and other mortifications of the flesh become queer as 3-legged goose? I think there are lots of solid reasons why. A few would be:

By the mid-60s and especially by the mid-70s, there was enough of an urban gay culture that a lot of men, myself among them, started to really resent the fact that they could not come out at work. In the 50s, your greatest hope was not only that you’d never be out at work, but that no one on American soil got a whiff of what you did in your bedroom. Or any other places. But in the next decade or so, it became apparent that work = closet was miserable. Pure shit. The weekends were for you (and many of my friends actually began their weekends on Thursday nights, knowing that they could coast through Friday if they had to) and Sunday was the last day you had to be your real self.

After that, it was indentured servitude inside the closet for most guys.

There was also the idea that Sunday was for you and your friends. It might turn romantic, especially at the bars that offered free buffets on Sundays (more about that later), but staying overnight Sunday with a new friend (or “trick,” not a word I’m crazy about if you read my book How to Survive Your Own Gay Life, but it works, too) was often not in anyone’s cards—which meant that Sunday’s trick could turn even more romantic because you might make another date with him, if you’d not had enough of him Sunday evening.

So Sunday in New York became this great gay-licious holiday, and there were so many ways to do it, depending on where you lived and at what point in the calendar you did it.

Perry Brass: Lost Gay New York: Gay Pride, 2010

Original Marchers in front of the Stonewall Inn, June 27, 2010
(l to r:) Bob Spiegel, Roberto Camp, Rick Landman, Jim Fouratt, Mark Segal, and Perry Brass.
Back right: John Knoebel with the GLF Banner.
(photo courtesy: Mark Segal) 

Yesterday was the Gay Pride Parade in New York, and I marched in a contingent known as the First Marchers. We were men and women who had marched in the first gay pride march on June 28, 1970. The contingent was organized by one of my Gay Liberation Front brothers Rick Landman, who took it upon himself to organize us in last year’s march, the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, and this year for the 40th Anniversary of the Gay Pride Parade, which started out as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March to remember Stonewall.

We carried two banners: one provided by John Knoebel was a replica of the first banner GLF had carried in the first march; the other banner, provided by Mark Segal, publisher of Philadelphia Gay News, said, it all: “Original Marchers June 28, 1970. Christopher Street Gay Liberation Gay. Gay Liberation Front.”

Marching with this group, and these banners was a total joy. People cheered us and thanked us, and we cheered back and smiled, and sometimes cried remembering all those years between the first march and now, and who was there and who will never be here again.

I remember that first march very well, but remember even better the Gay Liberation Front meeting, in the spring of 1970, when Bob Kohler brought up an idea that had started with Craig Rodwell, the owner of Oscar Wilde Bookstore, to have such a march and to name it for Christopher Street, a street whose associations had become as clear and evident as other New York street names, like Broadway, Wall Street, Seventh Avenue, or Madison Avenue.

The New Illumination Lawn at Lincoln Center

When Olmsted and Vaux designed Prospect Park in Brooklyn, they recognized their chance to refine or redress some of their efforts in Central Park, whose two large green gathering spaces, The Sheep Meadow and The Great Lawn, are both essentially flat. In Prospect Park, one of the best-loved features then and now, is the Long Meadow, the nearly mile long roll of grassy hills that unfold after the initial entry from Grand Army Plaza. They considered Prospect Park their superior work, as do many landscape architect critics.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro cut out a small section of this undulating Brooklyn icon, and then transported their flying green carpet of grass to the tighter, smaller, higher-built spaces of Manhattan. Here, they placed it on the head of a two story, still unnamed “destination” restaurant in Lincoln Center’s north plaza, and secured it all with a stainless steel hat pin.

Last Friday, this “Short Meadow” of green space opened for public use, finally allowing close-up inspection of what has only been intriguingly visible from a distance or in computer simulated virtual reality.

Photos, details and video after the jump.

In A Parallel Universe?

By Tony Adams

In our Queer New York, we examine the history of cruising in Central Park, we celebrate gay New Yorkers past and present, we trade recipes and reviews and photos offering a glimpse into the gritty but gorgeous ordinary of our city, we report on activism and we delivery poetry in word and image. Let's pause for a moment and offer our thanks to some well heeled ladies in fabulous hats who have taken on the responsibility of maintaining Central Park for the rest of us.

Their annual luncheon is covered lavishly by the wonderful David Patrick Columbia in his New York Social Diary.

(photo by JH for New York Social Diary)

Are We There Yet?

Photo: Spring Equinox Marker, Central Park

(Spring Equinox Directional Ornamentation Detail, Central Park, Feb 2010)

Still Hunt, Central Park

(Still Hunt, Central Park NYC, Feb 5th, 2010 - photo by me)

I run past this statue of a big, crouching cat, set back in a thicket on an outcropping of rock, every morning and have wondered for years what it was about.  No plaque or explanation around it.  Finally got off my lazy ass and took a picture of it this morning then looked it up and got the low down.  

It's one of those little hidden gems of the city that would be easily missed but which makes for a little smile when you find it.  It looks ferocious coming from north to south but up close, it becomes a sad cat who probably just missed the bird.

(Still Hunt, Face Detail - Central Park NYC, Feb 5th, 2010 - photo by me)

Central Park: Untermyer Fountain

(Detail, Walter Schott's Three Dancing Maidens, Central Park Conservatory Garden, January 2010 photo by author)

This morning's NYC sunrise

(During my run in Central Park looking east over the Jackie Onassis Reservoir)

On the 29th Anniversary of the Death of John Lennon

Posted by Father Tony:

A Baad Lamb photo of the Dakota from a Central Park perspective. Yoko Ono, who still resides there, and John Lennon were returning home when John was shot outside the building's entrance on 72nd Street.

Queer New York contributor Donnie sent me this message earlier today (The link is a beautiful article about how John fell in love with New York City):

John was the first artist who contributed money to buy bullet proof vests for members of the NYPD.  John was a progressive, peaceful man yet he knew evil when he saw it. You won't see any modern progressives donating monies to the NYPD or to our men and women in engaged in armed conflict....

QNY Contributor Brooklyn Bill has this to say:

"Imagine" is one of the wisest and most beautiful songs ever written. I wish John Lennon were still alive to inspire the anti-war movement in New York and across the U.S. We desperately need more charismatic  men and women of peace who can eloquently speak hopeful truth to violent power.

A stone's throw from the Dakota is the Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park. A point of serious pilgrimage for many visitors to the city. After the jump are a photo of Bilerico's Jerame Davis and Bil Browning who listed it as a must-see during their brief visit last summer, and a video made two days ago by QNY contributor Baad Lamb of a young group performing music by John Lennon and The Beatles in the band shell of Central Park. I would guess that most, if not all, of these performers were not even born before Dec 8, 1980.

Why I Love Central Park

Posted by Father Tony

Kids weaving through frisbee pros dodging skaters.
Young DJs pumping out vintage disco in the bandshell.
An eccentric middle-aged dervish whirls off his meds.

There is no place like it.
A kaleidoscope of free entertainment.
The best backyard I've ever had.