Hiv and Aids Kin: the Discotecture of Paradise Garage
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
HIV AND AIDS KIN: THE DISCOTECTURE OF PARADISE GARAGE Ivan L. Munuera Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00717/1611039/thld_a_00717.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 RUSHIN’ IN THE SKY: 1 Series I. Internal Files: CELEBRATION, CONFUSION, Fundraising: Gay Men’s Health Crisis. 1982-1984. AND MOURNING TS The National Gay and Lesbian Taskforce Records, “Rushin’ in the sky, flyin’ high, trippin’ on the moon 1973-2000: Series I. Cornell …, here in me, sexualityyy”—the lyrics of Cerrone’s University Libraries. Archives hit “Trippin’ on the Moon” reverberated at Paradise of Sexuality & Gender. 2 One of the first news Garage, a nightclub located at 84 King Street in items that called AIDS “gay Lower Manhattan, New York, on the night of April cancer” or “gay plague”: 8, 1982. Paradise Garage was also known as “Paradise Lawrence K. Altman, “Rare Gay-Rage” because the queer community that Cancer Seen in 41 Homosex- uals,” The New York Times, https://doi.org/10.1162/thld_a_00717 frequented the club was extremely politically active. July 3, 1981; Matt Clark and In fact, that night the club was hosting April Marianna Gosnell, “Diseases Showers, a party organized by GMHC (Gay Men’s That Plague Gays,” Newsweek, Health Crisis1) to fundraise in support of initiatives 21 December 1981, 51-52; and Michael VerMeulen, “The Gay intended to confront a new epidemic called the Plague,” New York Magazine, 2 “gay cancer” or the “gay plague” by the media. May 31, 1982, 52-78. This “gay cancer” or GRID (Gay-Related Immune 3 “Current Trends Pre- Deficiency) had already affected more than 300 vention of Acquired Immune New Yorkers; by spring, half of them would be Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): Report of Inter-Agency 3 dead (Fig. 1). Recommendations,” Morbidity GRID was renamed AIDS (Acquired Immune and Mortality Weekly Report Deficiency Syndrome) during the summer of 1982 32, no. 9 (March 4, 1983): 101-3. and was described as a syndrome “at least moderately 4 Altman, “New Homosexual Disorder Worries Health predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, Officials,” The New York Times, occurring in a person with no known case for May 11, 1982. diminished resistance to that disease”4 and “a rare 5 Lawrence K. Altman, and rapidly fatal form of cancer”5 manifested as “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals” Kaposi’s sarcoma and/or the infection PCP (pneu- 6 Lillian & Clarence de la mocystis carinii pneumonia). Before 1981, cases Chapelle Medical Archives. of Kaposi’s sarcoma were so infrequent that the NYU Cancer Registry. cancer struck just two out of every three million 7 Altman, “Rare Cancer Americans. Indeed, the NYU Cancer Registry archives Seen in 41 Homosexuals.” show only three cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma for the whole of the 1970s.6 In July of 1981, there were at least 41 cases, a number that increased every day.7 This uncommon form of cancer later became one of the AIDS-defining illnesses and probably the most visible sign of the disorder given the apparition of purple-colored tumors on the skin. In the confusion of the early 1980s, when AIDS was still an unknown medical affliction, nightclubs like Paradise Garage provided spaces for information and collective discussion. At the time, the United Munuera L. Ivan © 2020 133 THRESHOLDS 48 KIN States government, along with the mainstream media and several health agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sought to identify and confine potential risk groups, which came to be known as the 4Hs8—homosexuals, heroin addicts, hemophiliacs, and Haitians—a list the CDC provided on March 4, 1983.9 Members of these groups were ostracized and deprived of considerations typical during the outbreak of an epidemic: protocols of announcement, transparency in information, research, and measure-taking. Gary Bauer, assistant to President Reagan, told Face Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00717/1611039/thld_a_00717.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 the Nation that the reason the president did not utter the word “AIDS” publicly until a press conference 8 During the first years of Issues, Policies and Programs held in late 1985 was that the administration did the HIV and AIDS epidemic, (Washington DC: Intergovern- the words “group” and not perceive the epidemic as a problem until then. mental Health Policy Project, “community” were often George Washington University, AIDS was not yet considered serious because by mixed, referring to the same 1987). the mid-1980s “it hadn’t spread into the general part of the population affected 13 Similar forms of neglect population”10—as if the patients infected were not by HIV and AIDS. Nowadays, have persisted even after this part of the US population, as if they held some the Centers for Disease date, considering the history Control and Prevention (CDC) of stigmatization that people other citizenship, as if they were another kind of has defined “group”—as in living with HIV and AIDS faced, kin. Nevertheless, by 1985, already 20,000 Americans “control group” or “test as will be explained later in had died from the disease—an epidemic according group”—as a segment of the this paper. to the CDC’s own definition of that term: when population affected by specific 14 Tim Lawrence, Life and conditions, a definition that Death on the New York Dance `the number infected rises above the level expected does not link the individuals Floor, 1980-1983 (Durham 11 in a given population in the same area (Fig. 2). to a greater context outside and London: Duke University The epidemic was finally considered serious in of the study. These individuals Press, 2016), 328. 1987, when the Assistant Secretary of the Department share common characteristics but they do not necessarily of Health and Human Services, Robert E. Windom, share common values. The declared in a memorandum that word “community,” however, suggests a link in a much AIDS is the number one health priority … The magnitude broader sense—local, state, of the problem is illustrated by the fact that over regional—even when the 40,000 Americans have been diagnosed with AIDS, individuals are taken out of of whom half have died. It is estimated that 1.5 million the context of a study. These Americans are already infected with the Human individuals share common Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and that many of these values in a given geographical persons will eventually develop AIDS or a related area. In this sense, the words illness. In addition, every State [of the United States] “group” and “community” are 12 has reported AIDS cases (Fig. 3). used in this paper following the CDC recommendations, As the government of the United States neglected but also with a historical sense. to respond to the epidemic, and did not even Territorial connotations, national definitions, and other publicly account for the actual dimension HIV/AIDS community-based associa- 13 had reached until 1987, parties like April Showers tions are used to describe provided a space for information and discussion groups. Information provided for those affected. François Kevorkian, the DJ that by the CDC. played “Trippin’ on the Moon” at Paradise Garage 9 “Current Trends Pre- vention of Acquired Immune on April 12, 1982, expected the club-goers to engage Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS): in a sheer collective celebration that night. Even Report of Inter-Agency though the audience danced to the beats of this Recommendations,” 101-3. intergalactic sexual-liberation anthem, they also 10 Jan Zita Grover, “AIDS: Keywords,” in AIDS: Cultural interrupted the music constantly, screaming “this Analysis/Cultural Activism, 14 is an emergency, people are dying left and right.” eds. Douglas Crimp and Leo These cries were accurate. A significant percentage Bersani (Cambridge, MA: of the people who attended the party succumbed MIT Press, 1988), 23-24. 11 Information provided to the epidemic in the years following, including by the CDC. Michael Brody, the proprietor of Paradise Garage; 12 AIDS: A Public Paul Popham, one of the founders of GMHC; Keith Health Challenge: State 134 HIV and AIDS Kin: The Discotecture of Paradise Garage Fig. 1 Poster for April Showers, April 8 1982, Paradise Garage. Gay Men’s Health Crisis records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library/GMHC. Courtesy of GMHC. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00717/1611039/thld_a_00717.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 135 THRESHOLDS 48 KIN Haring, the artist behind the graffiti that decorated Fig. 2 Temporal distribution of diagnosed cases of the club; and Larry Levan, another DJ at Paradise the immune suppression in New York City. March 1982. New York City Municipal Archives. Garage and its undeniable star. In what could be read as an inflection point in the way Paradise Fig. 3 AIDSGATE, The Silence = Death Project, 1987. Garage performed as a site for collective activism, Courtesy of Avram Finkelstein. now tinged by sadness and fury, Kevorkian never played the song again (Fig. 4). While nightclubs are commonly perceived as dark, autonomous interiors filled with purely hedo- nistic sounds, that night speeches punctuated the music, turning the club into a political space. Stories about hospitals that refused to treat those affected Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/thld/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/thld_a_00717/1611039/thld_a_00717.pdf by guest on 28 September 2021 by the disease, funeral directors who declined to embalm the bodies of AIDS victims, and emergency medical technicians who ignored calls in so-called gay neighborhoods found in Paradise Garage a place where they could be collectively responded to. The club-goers also shared information about upcoming street actions and demonstrations to engage the governments of New York and the United States, as well as the addresses of lawyers for those seeking legal counseling.