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

by Fiona Anderson

multiplicitous doors offer no spatial or temporal direction. They encourage wandering, visual cruising. They face the edges of the picture plane and, in their ineffectuality, direct our gaze toward the peeling animation of the rotting walls. Accidental orifices have developed on almost every surface, revealing the underlying structure of the warehouse or only darkness. Light pours in from above—we might imagine, a burned or windblown hole in the room’s ceiling—illuminating graffitoed texts encouraging contemporary visitors and latter-day viewers to “CELEBRATE” something. Waterfront buildings stripped of their original purpose, lacking the prescriptive spatial narratives that well-maintained architectural spaces produce, were the ideal location for anonymous sexual encounters, since they encouraged the projection of phantasy, distinct from the quotidian urban time-space of places of work, public transport, apartment buildings, and the street.