Queerguru is always happy to recognise any project/performance art/film that celebrates the history of our community,  It’s a subject that was neglected for far too long, and is one that is very dear to our hearts, as it honors and remembers what shaped who we are today.

The Brooklyn Historical Society has just opened a new must-see exhibition On The (Queer) Waterfront curated by NY historian and author Hugh Ryan whose new book When Brooklyn Was Queer has just been published by St Martins Press.  

This excellent Exhibit which is imbued with Ryan’s passion for the subject. is the very first time that someone has taken a broad look at the queer history of the vibrant Brooklyn neighborhood.  Starting with the legendary queer poet Walt Whitman who published his major work Leaves of Grass in 1855 and profiling the many queer individuals who have lived in or passed through Brooklyn in the last 150 years.

Through its collection of evocative photographs, ephemera, and artifacts, the exhibit examines five types of work that proved specifically welcoming of or interesting to LGBTQ people: artist, entertainer, sex worker, sailor, and factory worker. The  LGBTQ presence in the Brooklyn, much of it clustered along the waterfront, where industrial jobs, cheap housing, and urban anonymity life provided unique opportunities for queer people to explore their own desires and discover one another.

On the (Queer) Waterfront
March 6, 2019 - August 4, 2019
BHS Pierrepont  http://www.brooklynhistory.org/exhibitions/