Perhaps the wristbands seemed desirable this year in a time of terrorism and hyper-vigilance. The march started shortly after noon and ended around 9:15 p.m. Reportedly, the new parade route was selected by the New York Police Department (NYPD) in consultation with HOP to make the parade shorter, although that didn’t work.
This caused howls of protest in some quarters as did the policy this year of obliging all marchers to wear wrist bands. But this year, the route was changed so that the parade started on 16th Street and Seventh Avenue in Chelsea and after traversing a couple of blocks of Christopher Street, headed north on Fifth Avenue, ending at 29th Street. In recent years, it started at 36th Street and Fifth Avenue and ended on Christopher Street and Greenwich Street. Over the intervening years, the parade route has changed from time to time. By 1971, the march extended between Christopher Street and Central Park. The first Gay Pride march took place on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village on June 28, 1970. Heritage of Pride (HOP) was founded in 1984, five years after the Stonewall riots, to take over the planning of NYC Pride events from the disbanded Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee, former organizer of the march and the rally. The next day, June 24, was the 48th annual Gay Pride Parade - the culmination of 10 days of activities and events organized by Heritage of Pride. Her audience reached toward her with adoring hands. She was wearing a see-through shirt with pasties covering her nipples and tight, spangled, rainbow-colored briefs. Shortly before 9 p.m., Tove Lo, the Swedish pop singer/songwriter emerged from clouds of multi-colored mist on the LED-lit stage and strutted back and forth on a platform that extended into the crowd. Tickets for the pier cost as much or more than a prime seat for a Broadway show.
In the privacy of the guarded pier, all forms of dress and undress were acceptable. People were drinking and dancing and chatting and flirting. Loudspeakers flanked a stage, blasting music. On this warm, summer evening, the mood was upbeat and cheerful.
The huge pier was crowded, but not as crowded as it would be the next day when people would flock here following the Gay Pride Parade. This was the second year for Pride Island, formerly known as Dance on the Pier and for more than 30 years located on a pier in Greenwich Village or Tribeca. No one could enter without a ticket or media credentials. June 23, 2018: I could hear Pride Island before I could see it.įrom more than a block away on the Hudson River Park Greenway, an insistent bass beat announced that I was close to Pier 97, the midtown Manhattan location of the two-day festival preceding and accompanying New York City’s annual Gay Pride Parade.īarricades and guards stood at the entrance.