My second time in New York City was the first time I’d seen it by myself.
On invitation of a stranger, I’d gone for a weekend of debauch but he was a no-show. I stayed anyway.
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| Inside Julius' Bar NYC c. 2018 will brady |
It was the summer of 1967. I’d gone to get away from a convulsed, confused scenario living in a house of drag princesses and a heroin addicted male housemarm whose grandmother thought I was fourteen. Coming to NYC was a liberation though I did not yet know this.
That first time I strode out the Port Authority Bus Terminal doors, walked down Eighth Avenue searching for Greenwich Village, a place I’d long ago wanted to see.
I refused to look up or stare at tall buildings, not wanting to appear a rube. Instead I admired them from a distance, but I was in awe!
Crossing Thirty-Fourth Street, the Empire State Building, with its needle-like spire jutting into the sky, like a syringe taking in the atmosphere to imbue the city with life.
Going south, passing Fourteenth Street, the streets no longer on a grid, I knew I’d reached “The Village”.
Sauntering down Greenwich Avenue I found an eatery known as “Mama’s Chick-n-Rib” (infamous as a pick-up joint where boys and their admirers planned illicit assignations). Smug in my ability to find it, I went in and ordered lunch.
Inside it was impossible to discern the hunters from their prey; those coy young lads or the older men seeking them. One thing was sure, there were no innocents here.
I set my eyes on the cook, an elderly gent of maybe 35 years. He invited me to the Stonewall Inn. I said, “I’m only 17.”
“No matter; it’s a private club.”
That night turned out to be a collection of first times – but those are different stories.
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