Just spotted this review of a fascinating new book about Walt Whitman and gay sociability in late 19th century New York. This is very timely for us, because Oscar Wilde Tours is planning a gay history tour of New York, to start hopefully in the spring. New York is of course one of the richest gay history sites in the world, but there isn’t much information available about the topic: there’s no book about it, and the only walking tours cover only the Village.
The Village is undoubtedly the richest gay history neighborhood, but there is plenty throughout the city, in Chelsea, among the Broadway theaters, in Harlem… In fact, our big problem is getting a handle on the pile of material we’d like to include. Just think of all the famous gay men and women who have lived in New York: Walt Whitman, Henry James, Hart Crane, Djuna Barnes, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Cole Porter, Langston Hughes, W. H. Auden, Frank O’Hara, Alan Ginsberg, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Andy Warhol, Calvin Klein, and so on….
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