image from fiercenyc.org

Melissa Sklarz, a transgender activist, says in “Gay and Loud” in this week’s Village Voice that the battle over a curfew for the Christopher Street pier “has turned into a full-fledged culture war.” While FIERCE!, a gay-youth group, is pushing for a 4AM curfew for the Christopher Street pier, which many queer teens call their own, many Greenwich Village residents would like to see the pier shut down as early as 11:30PM, hoping the change from the current 1AM closing time would tone the neighborhood down some.

People seeking a resolution to this in-tractable turf war have found themselves caught in the middle, attacked by both sides. Supportive gestures have backfired. Arthur Schwartz, of Community Board 2’s waterfront committee, which has held the hearings, tried to encourage the neighborhood to confront the apparent racial dynamics. “It’s important for everyone to deal with the fact that the kids out there on the pier are largely black and Hispanic,” he says. That means they have a different relationship to the area’s white residents than white gay kids would, he notes, as well as a different need for safe queer space.

On March 6, Schwartz drafted a resolution calling for a midnight curfew. In the text, he noted that the “rowdyism” was coming from crowds of “mostly” gay youth of “African American and Hispanic origin.” FIERCE! immediately tagged him with the label of racist. Schwartz, a civil rights lawyer for 30 years, says he was only trying to help the kids.

Likewise, Sklarz, the activist who formerly headed the board’s gay committee, has defended the teens’ claim to gather on the Christopher Street pier. But when she pleaded with FIERCE! members to recognize that the West Village was gentrifying and becoming a haven for young families, too, she got booed. “It’s nasty, and feelings are hurt, and the effort to find a solution is rejected,” says Sklarz, who resigned from the board earlier this month.

Community board members thought they’d ironed out a compromise with the March 6 proposal. The plan included keeping the nearby Pier 54, in the meatpacking district, open until 2 a.m. Village residents would get their early curfew; gay teens, their safe space. But some 200 FIERCE! members at the meeting rejected the proposal, seeing it as a move to get them out of the West Village. Without buy-in from the kids, the waterfront subcommittee wouldn’t recommend the measure.