WHAT TO DO
New Year’s Eve Parties in Queer NYC
Events slated at LGBTQ bars across the city
BY MATT TRACY
New Year’s Eve is typically associated
with large, eventful celebrations,
but a new wave of COVID-19 cases
in New York City and elsewhere has
prompted many New Yorkers to reconsider their
plans. Nevertheless, many establishments are
staying open and moving ahead with plans for
New Year’s Eve — as long as people are fully
vaccinated and take necessary precautions.
Keep in mind that most events will require proof
of vaccination and some will require patrons to
wear masks, so if you do decide to venture out
into the city on New Year’s Eve, be prepared.
Below is a list of New Year’s Eve celebrations,
as well as a handful of other events — including
virtual options — on deck for New Year’s Eve.
New Year’s Eve at Henrietta Hudson
When: 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. on New Year’s Eve
Where: 438 Hudson St in Manhattan
Henrietta Hudson is going the extra mile to
protect patrons against COVID-19 with on-site
COVID testing for all guests who enter the bar
for their New Year’s Eve bash. Vaccination proof
is required prior to entering the bar. As for the
➤ HOOKS, from p.10
I wanted the information on it, so I proceeded
to peel it off gingerly. I had just about managed
to get it unstuck when over my shoulder came
a young woman’s voice in mock admonishment,
“Whose voice are you trying to silence, brother?!”
It was Lydia Masemola, a year my junior at 22,
energetic, fi t, working in community radio. Our
friendship started from there and through her I
integrated into a network of cultural producers,
as hooks would say, many of whom had been
in that auditorium, all of whom were thinking
seriously about hooks’ work and how it applied
to them and their agency to put representations
into the world.
“Blessings to our new ancestor, sister bell
hooks, she’s still doing the work,” Lydia said to
me last week in a WhatsApp voice message sent
from her home in Johannesburg, South Africa. “It
was a really special time, eh? And, I think it was
so critical for our future endeavors, our lives. It really
set the stage for us. You don’t get that type of
perfect scenario where you meet a variety of Black
people, and people of color, and white allies who
all have very progressive ideas and want to make
changes in the world. A lot of what we worked on
feels like it was a waste of time, in a way, because
look at the world now. But, not only were we politically
REUTERS/ANDREW KELLY
Several queer bars are planning New Year’s Eve events — even as
COVID rages through the city.
entertainment, DJ Mariko and DJ Stacey will
lead the evenings music. Learn more at Henrietta
Hudson’s Instagram page (@henriettahudson).
Pre-sale tickets are $100.
New Year’s Eve at Boxers
When: 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. on New Year’s Eve
Where:37 West 20th Street in Manhattan
Boxers NYC, a queer sports bar, is ringing in
the New Year with $20 tickets. DJ Mike Touch
will lead the way with go-go dancers and performer
feeding each other, but also socially. Oh my
Lord, I remember those dancehall parties, woo! It
was good times, I tell you!”
Bell hooks took theory out of the books and
put it in the barbershops and beauty salons.
A polyglot, she spoke many languages — Academese,
African American Vernacular English
(AAVE), CUSS, WASP — cross-pollinating
amongst them. In her prose, instead of referring
to people as “populations” or “demographics” or
any other word in the sociological lexicon, she
used “folks.” Just folks. It was a throwback to the
use of the word by her literary forebears W.E.B.
Du Bois (“The Souls of Black Folk” 1903) and
Langston Hughes (“The Ways of White Folks”
1934), but also her biological/communal forebears.
She adopted the name “bell hooks,” always
in lowercase letters, “based on the names
of her mother and grandmother, to emphasize
the importance of the substance of her writing
as opposed to who she is,” according to her faculty
page at Berea College.
I look at my own fi rst published piece of
“theory” — a rather overwrought cri de coeur
against the ubiquitous homophobia of heterosexual
Black male performers published in
1993 in the fi rst edition of a magazine called
“Diaspora” created by Peter James Hudson —
and I see bell hooks writ large all over it: the
interweaving of tongues, the fi nale imploring
Rikk York. Purchase tickets via Eventbrite.
New Year’s Eve at Alibi Lounge
When: 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve
Where: 2376 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard
in Manhattan
Alibi Lounge, one of two Black-owned LGBTQ
bars in Harlem, is hosting a New Year’s Eve party
featuring a “chic” dress code. Tickets are $25
at the door. Champagne is $15 and a heated
VIP outdoor patio is available for $10. There will
be a free champagne toast at midnight.
New Year’s Eve at Lambda Lounge
When: 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve
Where: 2256 Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., Boulevard
in Manhattan
When: 8 p.m. on New Year’s Eve
Lambda Lounge, the other Black-owned LGBTQ
bar in Harlem, is planning their fi rst-ever
New Year’s Eve party. The black tie affair offers
a $20 cover all night with an open bar from 8
p.m to 10 p.m. If you’re planning to stay out late,
this is the place to be — it’s open until 6 a.m.
New Year’s Eve at Industry Bar
When: All night on New Year’s Eve until 4 a.m.
Where:355 West 52nd Street in Manhattan
Mark the dawn of a new year at Industry Bar,
where Nick Padron will lead festivities.
love and solidarity.
The title is classic hooks: “Brothas Gotta
Work it Out! Roots, Culture, & SM Domination.”
It was one of my greatest joys to learn years later
that hooks saw the magazine in New York
and said she’d appreciated the piece.
I came to New York City a year later. One afternoon
at dusk in the fall of 1994 I was walking
up Christopher Street and happened to witness
a clamorous group of guys, not too much
younger than me, sauntering past the PATH
train entrance, which at that time had cops
posted outside. I was walking on the opposite
side of the street, holding myself stiffl y accountable
to my internal monologue of respectability
politics that said, “Don’t be too loud; don’t fl it
or fl aunt; straighten up that walk.” As I looked
over, the ringleader of the group spontaneously
broke into a noisy rendition of rapper KRSOne’s
track “Sound of da Police” and dipped
down to give a little fl irtatious dance in front of
one of the offi cers, a handsome Latino man who
smiled with bemused exhaustion. The dancer’s
acolytes erupted in hoots and hollers and one
yelled, “Teach!” to which another followed up
with, “Yes, Miss Thing, teach to transgress!”
And this is what I mean about how everything
was enmeshed — place, space, language,
concepts, culture, bodies — and how bell hooks
was one of our sharpest needles.
GayCityNews.com | December 30, 2021 - January 12, 2022 11
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