Celebrating Pride in a Time of Protests and Pandemic |
Weather: Sunny in the high 80s with a small chance of thunderstorms. |
 | | Amr Alfiky/The New York Times |
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The Pride March in New York City is a huge celebration most years. Thousands of people gather in the streets and there are dozens of floats and an ocean of rainbow flags. |
The year, the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first Pride parade in the city was to have been particularly striking. |
But as with so many things in the past few months, reality confounded predictions. Two events on Sunday illustrated the different ways 2020 had reshaped the festivities. |
March No. 1: Socially distanced and devoid of crowds |
The official Pride March was canceled by Mayor Bill de Blasio in April, along with other Pride events that would have attracted large groups and possibly spread the coronavirus. Instead, on Sunday there was a procession of several dozen people, and five rainbow-colored BMWs, that began in the Flatiron section of Manhattan and headed south toward the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Organizers, including members of N.Y.C. Pride, which runs official Pride events for the city, actively encouraged people to stay away. Some signs read, “Stay Safe, Stay Home, Stay Proud.” Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for N.Y.C. Pride, called the event a “tiny, symbolic gesture.” |
But for Wendy Dumas-John, 62, who said she had been marching for 26 years, the lack of crowds was “a bit strange.” |
Still, she said that the smaller turnout had its advantages. |
“I tell you the truth, I’m kind of happy to see some of the locals around without all the tourists,” she said. “This is us; it’s a breath of fresh air.” |
March No. 2: Clashes with police officers |
With the official Pride March canceled, the largest event on Sunday was the Queer Liberation March. The upstart march began in 2019 to counter what some viewed as the commercialization of the official march. |
And this year, the countermarch, which drew more than 1,000 people, was focused on police brutality and racism. |
Jay W. Walker, the lead organizer of the Queer Liberation March, said that the event was initially canceled because of the coronavirus. But after the killing of George Floyd sparked protests nationwide, organizers felt a march was necessary. |
“This is one of the most important moments for civil rights and human rights in this country in the last 50 years,” he said. |
The march was generally peaceful, but in one case the police clashed with demonstrators near Washington Square Park, with videos posted on social media showing officers pushing and shoving people gathered in the street near the park and at least one officer falling onto the ground from his motorcycle. |
The tension lasted for about 10 minutes, before the dancing resumed. |
For the first time in 14 weeks, St. Patrick’s Cathedral celebrated Sunday Mass. [amNY] |
Eleven people were shot in less than 12 hours across New York City. [New York Post] |
A parked S.U.V. was swallowed by a sinkhole in the East Village. [Daily News] |
And finally: He created the ‘I ♥ NY’ logo |
From The Times’s Obituaries: |
Milton Glaser, a graphic designer and a founder of New York magazine, changed the vocabulary of American visual culture in the 1960s and ’70s with his brightly colored, extroverted posters, magazines, book covers and record sleeves, and notably his “I ♥ NY” logo. |
He brought wit, whimsy, narrative and skilled drawing to commercial art at a time when advertising was dominated by the severe strictures of modernism on one hand and the cozy realism of magazines like The Saturday Evening Post on the other. |
And at Push Pin Studios, which he and several former Cooper Union classmates formed in 1954, Mr. Glaser opened up design to myriad influences and styles that began to grab the attention of magazines and advertising agencies. |
Mr. Glaser died on Friday, his 91st birthday, in Manhattan. His wife, Shirley Glaser, said the cause was a stroke. He also had renal failure. |
He was born on June 26, 1929, in the Bronx. As a child, he took drawing classes with Raphael and Moses Soyer, the social realist artists, before enrolling in what is now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. He graduated from the Cooper Union in 1951, and married Shirley Girton in 1957. |
His “I ♥ NY” logo was created for a 1977 campaign to promote tourism in New York State. Sketched on the back of an envelope with red crayon during a taxi ride, it was printed in black letters in a chubby typeface, with a cherry-red heart standing in for the word “love.” The logo became an instantly recognized symbol of New York City. |
After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, T-shirts emblazoned with the logo sold in the thousands, as visitors to the city seized on it as a way of expressing solidarity. Mr. Glaser designed a modified version — “I ♥ NY More Than Ever,” with a dark bruise on the heart — that was distributed as a poster throughout the city and reproduced on the front and back pages of The Daily News. |
It’s Monday — it’s up to you, New York, New York. |
Metropolitan Diary: Space saver |
I was walking in Manhattan with my family when we noticed a man who was standing in the street near the curb on the opposite side, blocking a car that wanted to take the space. We figured he was trying to save the space for someone who was circling the area. |
We watched as the car edged forward toward the man, who stood his ground. After almost touching him, the driver of the car, obviously furious, gave up and zoomed away. |
At that point, my brother crossed over and stood in the street at a distance from the man who was saving the space. |
“Do you mind if I double park,” my brother said. |
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