The muscled midday crowd streams through the TMPL entrance. I loiter on the curb rewatching Sylvia Rivera’s ferocious 1973 speech at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally, in which she excoriates New York’s gay “middle-class white club.” That club feels literal here, complete with a juice bar.
In a visibly queer neighborhood like this, it’s easy to assume everyone’s values are aligned, says four-year resident Connor Johnston, 32, an actor and writer originally from Oregon who video-chatted with me about his life as a proud “Hell’s Kitchen gay.”
“We don’t say too much about politics because it’s just…understood,” he intones. In the discussions he has had, he’s been surprised to learn where some people stand on Trump, or on Palestine. “It’s strange,” Johnston says uneasily, then jokes, “Should we do a wellness check? Maybe we should go around and be, like, ‘We’re all on the same page here…right?’”
Even though some threads unite the LGBTQ+ community, class is one factor that plays into political differences. And in this neighborhood—the same one abandoned by shady landlords during the citywide fiscal crisis and “white flight” exodus of the 1970s—median monthly rent climbed 8.3 percent year over year this past February to $4,550, outpacing the average Manhattan median rent increase of 6.4 percent. Meanwhile, median household income now hovers around $127,380, which is 60% more than the citywide median of $79,480. Hell’s Kitchen is about 50% white, according to recent population figures, about 20 percentage points whiter than New York City on average. Johnston, who is Asian, is often struck by the homogeneity at neighborhood parties and bars: Is anyone else clocking this?
In addition to more diversity, Johnston would love to see greater candor on these and other issues. Before even moving to Hell’s Kitchen, he commuted in regularly from Queens for volunteer shifts on the Trevor Project’s crisis hotline…