Nighthawks: Queer Love in the Darkness

It was the 1970s, the decade before AIDS hit, when gay men in New York City lost their inhibitions and discovered community on the dance floor and queer sex in the backrooms. Gay liberation was celebrated everywhere, especially after dark from the West Village streetcorners to the underground sex clubs, from the 24/7 bathhouses to the kinky leather bars near the Hudson River. These newly liberated men found queer sex outdoors in the moonlight, in the Ramble in Central Park or the Meat Rack on Fire Island, in the empty delivery trucks in the Meatpacking District or the subterranean vaults underneath the Brooklyn Bridge. Each night the homosexual sissies donned their black leather and faded denim as they transformed themselves into nighthawks in pursuit of their next queer hookup. While the heteros slept peacefully in their safe comfortable beds in the suburbs, we homos discovered the thrills of queer lust and love in Manhattan’s disco palaces, abandoned piers and subway tearooms. Join Miles on his nightly adventures exploring the City’s shadows as he discovers a welcoming community and the promise of forbidden love.