Cruising the Dead River: David Wojnarowicz and New York's Ruined Waterfront

by Fiona Anderson

Throughout New York, muggings and murders were on the increase as poverty rates increased and the city’s law enforcement agencies and other municipal bodies failed to respond effectively to increased crime and public disorder. Between 1960 and 1968, robberies in New York had increased more than eightfold and burglaries had more than quadrupled.41 The number of homicides in New York tripled between 1965 and 1975.42 Between August 1976 and August 1977, the city was in thrall to the serial killer David Berkowitz, known by the self-assigned moniker “Son of Sam,” who murdered six people, all women, and wounded seven others, sparking an extensive police manhunt and equally expansive press coverage. In the midst of this spiraling violence and continued urban neglect, the safety of queer New Yorkers was additionally compromised by homophobic policing, epitomized by the many raids on gay and lesbian bars, which continued after Stonewall into the 1970s, and by limited civil rights legislation. Beginning in 1971 the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) sought to challenge New York’s continued failure to protect its gay, lesbian, and transgender citizens from violence and discrimination by sponsoring a bill in the city council, titled Intro. 554, to extend the prohibition of “discrimination in employment, housing or public accommodations based on race, religion or sex” to include that based on sexuality.43 The bill did not pass until 1986.