Legalizing The World's Oldest Profession

Dear Editor: 
The legislators can pass all the laws they want, the clergymen can deliver all the sermons they want, and the editorialists can write all the scathing editorials they want. None of this will ever put an end to prostitution. The best solution is to legalize it. In this way, state and local authorities can minimize the number of prostitutes under 18. It also would minimize customer ripoffs, make periodic physical exams mandatory, and eliminate the often brutal pimp. Here's another plus--it would be a good source of tax revenue.

Note: My letter-to-the-editor was originally published in the Voice of the People column of the New York Daily News on July 9, 1979.

Watching Movies Inside A Train Station

Here's an interesting bit of New York cinema history that I recently learned about via an electronic message that appeared on a curbside Link NYC kiosk: In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, there was a movie theatre inside the world-famous Grand Central Terminal.

Numerous questions came to mind upon learning this: who operated the theatre?; where in the terminal was it located?; how many people did it seat?; was it ornate?; did the train noises disturb moviegoers?; were the moviegoers mostly commuters?; etc., etc., etc. I would love to have those questions answered.

No doubt it, like other theatres, was a single-screen venue; no multiplexes back then.

Who knew that Grand Central Terminal was large enough to house a movie theatre?

Grading Restaurant Customers

Has it ever occurred to restaurant wait staff in New York City to assign letter grades to the customers for cleanliness, courtesy, table manners (no texting while dining, for example), and tip generosity? Or give a "Grade Pending" status to those who are aware of their shortcomings and promise to do better during their next visit?

Note: The above blog post came to me in a dream.

The Community Within The Black Community

There's an old saying, "Dead men tell no tales." How many wonderful and intriguing stories of black gay men and lesbians have been buried with their possessors? Stories that would give us a special perspective on black life and culture overall. Stories that the black press and academia have largely given short shrift to out of prejudice and ignorance.

I have long supported Black Studies. And in the last 20 plus years, I have developed an interest in the gay and lesbian aspect of it, "the community within the [black] community," as Lloyd Williams, a  Harlem civic leader, has described it on "The Gary Byrd Experience," a weekly talk show simulcast on WBLS and WLIB, two New York radio stations.

I hope to continue doing articles, interviews, and essays concerning this community via this blog and the print media.

New Names Added To The Literary Canon

In one of the display windows of the bookstore called Book Culture, located on West 112th Street, near Broadway, in Manhattan, was this printed message situated among eleven books:

"Homer Herodotus Sophocles Plato Aristotle Demosthenes Cicero Virgil

Angelou Anzaldua Chang Hurston Morrison Revalthi Shange Silko

You've seen the new names on Butler Library [on the campus of nearby Columbia University], now check out their books!"

Among the books on display were Love: A Novel by Toni Morrison, Gardens in the Dunes by Leslie Marmon Silko, Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston, and Even the Stars Look Lonesome by Maya Angelou.


Note: Today is National Do Something Nice Day.

Why I Love New York In 25 Words

WNYE,Channel 25, a public television station in New York, has a short feature it broadcasts between programs called "Why I Love New York in 25 Words" in which celebrities explain their love for the city. It has inspired me to do the same.

Central Park (especially the Conservatory Garden. I overheard a woman tell her male companion, "This is my peaceful garden. My sanctuary.")

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Harlem (Some of the most beautiful architecture in the city can be found there.)

New York Public Library (A cornucopia of information. A book lover's paradise.)

Museum Mile Festival (At this annual event, all the museums along Fifth Avenue, including the Met, are free.)

Book Culture and the Strand (My two favorite independent bookstores. If I was looking for a hard to find book, I would go to these stores to see if one of them had it.)

Noche Mexicana Restaurant (I love their tacos!)

Mass Transit System (Despite its many problems, it operates 24 hours a day and links most areas of the city for $2.75.)



Note: Poets & Writers magazine (September/October 2019) announced that the Publishing Triangle gave its Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction to Imani Perry for her biography of playwright Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965). The book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, was published by Beacon Press. Ms. Perry is a professor at Princeton University.

Last year I attended a conversation she had with Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. regarding the biography at Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Harlem Renaissance Redux

What I would like to see is a true second Harlem Renaissance, not the one they say exists today which is really more about real estate and gentrification than anything cultural.

This new movement would rival, maybe surpass, what went on in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s, out of which came such artistic luminaries as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, et al. It would involve every branch of the arts to the nth degree, making use of existing as well as newly created cultural venues.

In my fantasy world, my apartment, which has a large living room, would be at the center of this activity a la A'Lelia Walker's Dark Tower salon on West 136th Street. (Walker, the daughter of the black cosmetics entrepreneur Madame C.J. Walker, was a supporter of the arts during the Harlem Renaissance.)

As a result, Harlem Week, instead of being a month-long series of events in August as it is now, would be year round.