Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940

Both gay men and anti-gay activists believed that widespread, visible gay sexuality was a “distinctly urban phenomenon” (131). In rural areas and small towns, it was hard to escape being monitored by one’s family and community. However, in cities, anonymity helped enable a double life. Conservatives blamed the existence of “fairies” and gay men on cities and the corruption of modern, urban life. Early sociologists like the Committee of Fifteen (succeeded by the Committee of Fourteen around 1905) studied and “shaped” the gay world. While the city’s anonymity afforded some freedom, gay men created “an organized, multilayered, and self-conscious gay subculture” that let them maintain a “straight” work life and a gay night life (133). Risks were high, however, for men; in 1903, one draftsman was sentenced to seven years in prison on a sodomy charge.

The fact that cities like New York City attracted many unmarried men and women facilitated the survival of gay subculture. Lesbians and gay men often lived in neighborhoods where most inhabitants were single and housing and where food services catered to the unmarried, like the Bowery, Times Square, Greenwich Village, and Harlem. In response, reformist politicians tried to introduce residential hotels where morality could be enforced, created “parks to reintroduce an element of rural simplicity and natural order to the city” (138), and established youth clubs.