The Gay Parade

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In 1972 I built a recording studio at 173 Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. About the same time I began working with Berenice Abbott and thinking seriously about photography. One of her first admonitions to me was to never take photographs "willy-nilly" To have a project.

The following year I witnessed the end of the gay parade as it wound down in my front yard on a Sunday night. The following year, 1974, I began to take photographs of this spirited one day a year affair. These photographs were one of my first sustained projects, ending in 1983, when the parade began to become more choreographed and predictable. I photographed the parade six times during those years and accumulated about 1500 photographs.

I always thought the photographs might make a good book and was encouraged when Allen Ginsberg suggested the same thing in 1983. We were working on another project together and over the course of a few months, Allen wrote captions for 125 of his favorite photographs. Later, William S. Burroughs wrote an introduction for our planned book, but the book was rejected by everyone who saw it. Some publishers were outraged, others felt it had no commercial possibilities. The photographs and written material were put on the shelf. Allen and I moved on to other things.

In mid-2005 the project was revived and the 125 original photographs, plus 25 additional ones were released in book form by Abrams Image as Gay Day - The Golden Age of the Christopher Street Parade, 1974-1983. This is a representative sampling, some of my favorites, actually, presented year by year. Allen's captions are also included along with the images. If you click on an image, Allen's handwritten caption will be shown. Many more photographs and captions can be found in the book itself, which was published on May 1, 2006.

Gay Day, Published By Abrams Image, 2006