Arts & Entertainment
Pride march brings gayborhood boom years back to Chelsea
‘We will continue what began 50 years ago, to bring us closer to equality’
From long lines to get into gay bars to crowded sex shop aisles to sidewalks dense with drag queens, daddies, dykes, twinks, tweakers, and wide-eyed tourists, Manhattan’s onetime ground zero of gayness had a déjà vu moment that lasted all day long, and well into the next, when Chelsea served as the end point of June 30’s NYC Pride March.
Cheered on by an estimated four million spectators, the March proceeded down Fifth Avenue from its East 26th Street kick-off, went past the Stonewall Inn during its Greenwich Village phase, then made its way up Seventh Avenue, concluding in the heart of Chelsea.
Twelve hours and 32 minutes after its noon start time, over 150,000 marchers had crossed the West 23rd Street finish line, from which point many remained in the area to congregate on stoops, hold impromptu dance-offs, and scoop up Stonewall 50 T-shirts hawked by vendors who turned side streets closed to vehicular traffic into open-air markets.
Some strolled, many strutted, down Eighth Avenue, between West 14th and 23rd Streets—which, at the height of Chelsea’s gay glory, housed dozens of queer-centric businesses, including gay lifestyle retail mecca Rainbows & Triangles, and The Big Cup—a java joint that served the community as, depending on your pop culture touchstone, the “Cheers” bar, Central Perk, Starbucks, or a brick and mortar Grindr, where hookup prospects were never more than 20 feet away.
By dawn, the streets were clean, and little evidence of the previous day’s record-setting revelry remained, save for the Pride-hued confetti that promises to linger, like Christmas tree needles, as a reminder of the season that came and went.
For longtime locals, the Pride March recalled an era when Chelsea was the reigning queen of NYC gay nightlife, retail, and residency.
“I consider the heyday of the Chelsea gay vibe to be when I moved here [in 1996] to until around 2005,” says 49-year-old Stephen Charles Lincoln, creator/proprietor of The Protein Bakery, a neighborhood fixture since 1999.
WorldPride, Lincoln notes, “was a fantastic reminder” of the heyday, “with the streets filled with gay people of every race, age, and sexual preference.”
While the onetime group fitness director at the predominantly gay David Barton Gym strongly disavows the notion that Chelsea is “over” as a gay neighborhood (“I’m still here,” he quips), Lincoln concedes it “has definitely diluted over the past 10 years.”
Unlike Splash, Rawhide, and View, not every gay bar from Chelsea’s golden age has been consigned to history.
Sixty-year-old Derek Danton, “an out business owner for 40 years, 20 with the Eagle NYC,” says there is “really nothing in my history to compare to the events of the last two weeks. Locals and visitors alike were just happy to be alive, happy to be free to express themselves, unconditionally.”
Located at West 28th Street and 11th Avenue since 2001, and one of the only Manhattan gay bars with a roof deck, the Eagle is set to mark its 50th anniversary next year.
“In its storied history,” Danton notes, “the size of the crowds at the Eagle, because of WorldPride, is unprecedented… It is astonishing to realize that so many thousands of visitors from all around the world know and love the Eagle, and that tradition is still valued.”
Andrew Rai, 38, a lifelong resident of Chelsea, talks of vanishing tradition, noting he feels the March “retains some of the rapidly fading cultural authenticity” of his neighborhood.
“Chelsea,” Rai says, “was very gay when I was growing up, was very vibrant, in terms of the variety of personalities, genders, and thoughts. Now, it’s becoming very homogenized. But this really harkened me back to when Chelsea was truly diverse. It makes me feel that there’s still some element of it, somewhere, that lives.”
Fifty-one-year-old Craig M. de Thomas, a partner in the Midtown-based commercial and residential title insurance company, Insignia National Title Agency, recalls “telling my grandmother I was gay when I was 25 years of age,” and often traveling “from upstate New York, to indulge in the gay life that is offered here. I have fond memories of going to the many Chelsea clubs, bars, and restaurants, truly enjoying life and always feeling safe and accepted. Seeing men openly sharing affection and being their authentic selves in public was incredible to me. I wanted to be part of that, which is why I moved here 11 years ago.”
Over the last few years, de Thomas observes, “We have seen Chelsea shift, as many gay business owners and residents have moved north [to Hell’s Kitchen].” This year’s Pride celebration, he says, “brought with it a much-needed injection of gayness to Chelsea. It was lovely to walk around over the weekend, both day and evening, and feel the gay energy again, to see restaurants, bars, and shops filled with life and happiness. It was a vibe that is reminiscent of days gone by.”
Calling the Pride March the “culmination of seeds sown decades ago, many of which were planted here in Chelsea by residents who still reside here,” de Thomas sees the neighborhood’s gay liberation greenhouse role as an ongoing one, noting, “We are the fruits” of those seeds and, as such, “will continue what began 50 years ago, to bring us closer to equality” while celebrating “the beauty and power of diversity.”
That Chelsea diversity has legs—four of them, in the form of many locals for whom Sunday’s Parade March intersected with the daily duties of dog ownership.
Chicago-to-NYC transplant Abbey Stolle spoke with the Blade while walking her Shih Tzu, Donna, in close proximity to their residence at 21st Street and Seventh Avenue, where one of the event’s green-shirted volunteers held a sign letting March participants know they were two blocks from the route’s end.
“People want to feel joy. They want to feel love,” she says, of the neighborhood’s sudden population explosion. “I’ve been out here all day. No one I know living here has ever complained [about the crowds brought by the March], and I have a mixed bag in my building—young, old, gay, straight, trans.”
Detroit-born Stolle, 37, spoke with this 52-year-old reporter about his having grown up during the height of the AIDS crisis, and put her own experience within the context of “my era, Matthew Shepard, that fear of coming out in the ’90s. I was a raver for 15 years. Gay men took me under their wing.”
As “a straight white woman,” Stolle notes, “I guess I feel a bit inferior on a day like today. This is a weighted year. These are people,” Stolle said, of the Stonewall-era faces in the March and on the streets, “who’ve lived through so much, who are still living here.”
Clarifying her use of that charged word, Stolle says she did not invoke inferiority “in a negative way. It’s just, it’s not my day. What are my woes compared to some of the strife these people are going through? But I’m a woman, so I get that taste, that sprinkle.”
Having watched the day’s events from a table outside Cafe Champignon (Seventh Avenue between West 21st and 22nd Streets), de Thomas recalls, “I stated to my darling friends, gay and straight, as we were sitting in the midst of millions of celebrants, ‘I absolutely love that this is our normal. Isn’t it fantastic?’ ”
Eight contestants vied for Mr., Miss and Mx. Capital Pride 2024 at a pageant at Penn Social on Saturday. Xander Childs Valentino was crowned Mr. Capital Pride, Dylan B. Dickherson White was crowned Mx. Capital Pride and Sasha Adams Sanchez was crowned Miss Capital Pride.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Theater
Round House explores serious issues related to privilege
‘A Jumping-Off Point’ is absorbing, timely, and funny
‘A Jumping-Off Point’
Through May 5
Round House Theatre
4545 East-West Highway, Bethesda, Md.
$46-$83
Roundhousetheatre.org
In Inda Craig-Galván’s new play “A Jumping-Off Point,” protagonist Leslie Wallace, a rising Black dramatist, believes strongly in writing about what you know. Clearly, Craig-Galván, a real-life successful Black playwright and television writer, adheres to the same maxim. Whether further details from the play are drawn from her life, is up for speculation.
Absorbing, timely, and often funny, the current Round House Theatre offering explores some serious issues surrounding privilege and who gets to write about what. Nimbly staged and acted by a pitch perfect cast, the play moves swiftly across what feels like familiar territory without being the least bit predictable.
After a tense wait, Leslie (Nikkole Salter) learns she’s been hired to be showrunner and head writer for a new HBO MAX prestige series. What ought to be a heady time for the ambitious young woman quickly goes sour when a white man bearing accusations shows up at her door.
The uninvited visitor is Andrew (Danny Gavigan), a fellow student from Leslie’s graduate playwriting program. The pair were never friends. In fact, he pressed all of her buttons without even trying. She views him as a lazy, advantaged guy destined to fail up, and finds his choosing to dramatize the African American Mississippi Delta experience especially annoying.
Since grad school, Leslie has had a play successfully produced in New York and now she’s on the cusp of making it big in Los Angeles while Andrew is bagging groceries at Ralph’s. (In fact, we’ll discover that he’s a held a series of wide-ranging temporary jobs, picking up a lot of information from each, a habit that will serve him later on, but I digress.)
Their conversation is awkward as Andrew’s demeanor shifts back and forth from stiltedly polite to borderline threatening. Eventually, he makes his point: Andrew claims that Leslie’s current success is entirely built on her having plagiarized his script.
This increasingly uncomfortable set-to is interrupted by Leslie’s wisecracking best friend and roommate Miriam who has a knack for making things worse before making them better. Deliciously played by Cristina Pitter (whose program bio describes them as “a queer multi-spirit Afro-indigenous artist, abolitionist, and alchemist”), Miriam is the perfect third character in Craig-Galván’s deftly balanced three-hander.
Cast members’ performances are layered. Salter’s Leslie is all charm, practicality, and controlled ambition, and Gavigan’s Andrew is an organic amalgam of vulnerable, goofy, and menacing. He’s terrific.
The 90-minute dramedy isn’t without some improbable narrative turns, but fortunately they lead to some interesting places where provoking questions are representation, entitlement, what constitutes plagiarism, etc. It’s all discussion-worthy topics, here pleasingly tempered with humor.
New York-based director Jade King Carroll skillfully helms the production. Scenes transition smoothly in large part due to a top-notch design team. Scenic designer Meghan Raham’s revolving set seamlessly goes from Leslie’s attractive apartment to smart cafes to an HBO writers’ room with the requisite long table and essential white board. Adding to the graceful storytelling are sound and lighting design by Michael Keck and Amith Chandrashaker, respectively.
The passage of time and circumstances are perceptively reflected in costume designer Moyenda Kulemeka’s sartorial choices: heels rise higher, baseball caps are doffed and jackets donned.
“A Jumping-Off Point” is the centerpiece of the third National Capital New Play Festival, an annual event celebrating new work by some of the country’s leading playwrights and newer voices.
Nightlife
Ed Bailey brings Secret Garden to Project GLOW festival
An LGBTQ-inclusive dance space at RFK this weekend
When does a garden GLOW? When it’s run by famed local gay DJ Ed Bailey.
This weekend, music festival Project GLOW at RFK Festival Grounds will feature Bailey’s brainchild the Secret Garden, a unique space just for the LGBTQ community that he launched in 2023.
While Project GLOW, running April 27-28, is a stage for massive electronic DJ sets in a large outdoor space, Secret Garden is more intimate, though no less adrenaline-forward. He’s bringing the nightclub to the festival. The garden is a dance area that complements the larger stages, but also stands on its own as a draw for festival-goers. Its focus is on DJs that have a presence and following in the LGBTQ audience world.
“The Secret Garden is a showcase for what LGBTQ nightlife, and nightclubs in general, are all about,” he says. “True club DJs playing club music for people that want to dance in a fun environment that is high energy and low stress. It’s the cool party inside the bigger party.”
Project GLOW launched in 2022. Bailey connected with the operators after the first event, and they discussed Bailey curating his own space for 2023. “They were very clear that they wanted me to lean into the vibrant LGBTQ nightlife of D.C. and allow that community to be very visibly a part of this area.”
Last year, club icon Kevin Aviance headlined the Secret Garden. The GLOW festival organizers loved the its energy from last year, and so asked Bailey to bring it back again, with an entire year to plan.
This year, Bailey says, he is “bringing in more D.C. nightlife legends.” Among those are DJ Sedrick, “a DJ and entertainer legend. He was a pivotal part of Tracks nightclub and is such a dynamic force of entertainment,” says Bailey. “I am excited for a whole new audience to be able to experience his very special brand of DJing!”
Also, this year brings in Illustrious Blacks, a worldwide DJ duo with roots in D.C.; and “house music legends” DJs Derrick Carter and DJ Spen.
Bailey is focusing on D.C.’s local talent, with a lineup including Diyanna Monet, Strikestone!, Dvonne, Baronhawk Poitier, THABLACKGOD, Get Face, Franxx, Baby Weight, and Flower Factory DJs KS, Joann Fabrixx, and PWRPUFF.
Secret Garden also brings in performers who meld music with dance, theater, and audience interactions for a multi-sensory experience.
Bailey is an owner of Trade and Number Nine, and was previously an owner of Town Danceboutique. Over the last 35 years, Bailey owned and operated more than 10 bars and clubs in D.C. He has an impressive resume, too. Since starting in 1987, he’s DJ’d across the world for parties and nightclubs large and intimate. He says that he opened “in concert for Kylie Minogue, DJed with Junior Vasquez, played giant 10,000-person events, and small underground parties.” He’s also held residencies at clubs in Atlanta, Miami, and here in D.C. at Tracks, Nation, and Town.
With Secret Garden, Bailey and GLOW aim to bring queer performers into the space not just for LGBTQ audiences, but for the entire music community to meet, learn about, and enjoy. While they might enjoy fandom among queer nightlife, this Garden is a platform for them to meet the entirety of GLOW festival goers.
Weekend-long Project GLOW brings in headliners and artists from EDM and electronic music, with big names like ILLENIUM, Zedd, and Rezz. In all, more than 50 artists will take the three stages at the third edition of Project GLOW, presented by Insomniac (Electric Daisy Carnival) and Club Glow (Echostage, Soundcheck).
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