This Friday: Furball In Times Square

Furball continues its exile to Times Square on Friday. Always mobbed, always a wild time.  Get tickets here. More details on their Facebook event page.

SF's Pink Saturday Is Back On

San Francisco's often tumultuous Pink Saturday street party, held on the day before the Pride parade, was canceled last month after the withdrawal of its longtime sponsor, the Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence, who cited the event's "escalation of violence." But today the San Francisco LGBT Community Center stepped in to run this year's party with a promise of increased security. From their announcement:

We are honored and humbled to continue the legacy of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. We share their commitment to bringing together our diverse LGBT communities across age, race, culture, income and geography. As an affordable event that is well attended by young people, it is an essential component of Pride weekend. For many of us Pride weekend represents a set of magic moments where we are free to be our authentic selves in a public and supportive setting.

We are committed to community safety and creating public spaces that are free from violence. As Pink Saturday has historically been the destination for many of the tens of thousands participants of Dyke March as well as the Saturday Pride festival, creating a strong infrastructure for our community to gather is critical to the success of Pride weekend. Our leadership of a celebration that is safe, fun and welcoming for everyone is part of that vision. This year’s event will feature expanded entertainment and increased security to promote a celebratory and safe environment.

(Tipped by JMG reader Steve)

RELATED: Pink Saturday has long been criticized for its unruly crowds. Last year two Sisters were assaulted and two women were attacked by a group of six men. In 2013 a woman was brutally beaten and robbed during the event. Her attacker was later sentenced to six years in prison. In 2010, three people were shot and one young man was killed during a gang-related altercation on Pink Saturday.

Broadway Backwards: Cell Block Tango

Posted in full yesterday: "Highlights from Broadway Backwards 2015 included Chicago's 'six merry murderesses' represented in a sexy, all-male version of Cell Block Tango featuring Joshua Buscher-West, Marty Lawson, Alfie Parker Jr., Waldemar Quinones-Villanueva, Alex Ringler and Ryan Steele."

HIGHLIGHTS: Broadway Backwards 2015

New York City LGBT Center Celebrates With Ribbon-Cutting After $9.2M Remodel

Last night I attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the New York City LGBT Center, which is almost finished with a 14-month $9.2M remodeling that has dramatically reshaped the building, an 1844 structure that in 1938 became Food Trades Vocational High School. Leading the ceremony was Center executive director Glennda Testone and Edith Windsor, who announced that the Center will be the recipient of her personal papers. Speakers included Manhattan borough president Gale Brewer, City Councilman Corey Johnson, state Sen. Brad Hoylman, state Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, and a representative from Mayor De Blasio's office, who declared yesterday to be LGBT Center Day in New York City. The Center hosts hundreds of groups and was the birthplace of ACT UP. The ribbon was provided by rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker.

UPDATE: JMG reader Glenn provides us with his video of Edith Windsor's speech. Lots of gay history here.

Saturday: Furball New York City

New York City's most well-attended bear party lumbers into the LGBT Center this Saturday. The party starts and finishes quite early and the fur will be belly-to-belly within minutes of the doors opening. Two dance floors on two floors and a complete mob scene.  Early arrival recommended.

Facelift Coming For NYC's LGBT Center

New York City's beloved but decidedly ramshackle LGBT Center is about to begin a much-needed multimillion dollar facelift. Via New York Times:

A 14-month renovation is expected to begin by the end of the year. The $7.5 million project is being financed with $3.7 million from New York City and $2 million from New York State. A fund-raising effort will seek private donors for the remaining $1.8 million. Brian Ripel of RSVP Architecture Studio in Brooklyn and Nicola Mongelli of N-Plus Architecture + Design in Brooklyn are the architects. The center is now receiving bids from general contractors. Perhaps the first thing noticed by visitors to the renovated center will be what’s not in the lobby any longer: a high, forbidding central reception desk that conveys, unintentionally, the message that one must stop and announce one’s business, which couldn’t be further from the case. Visitors are free to come and go.

Among the many improvements will be the acoustics in the main meeting room, where I've strained my brain many times to hear over the clattering air conditioning. More renderings of the changes are at the link.

OctoBEARfest At NYC's LGBT Center

Next month the NYC LGBT Center will host a week of events as part of their inaugural octoBEARfest.  Via press release:

In a celebration of bear culture, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (the Center) has created octoBEARfest, a week of activities centered on everything furry and fuzzy. Four events will take place throughout the week of October 1-6, ending with the legendary Fur Ball. Started in 2004, the Fur Ball brings out the wide spectrum of creatures in the bear community and is affectionately called the "bear prom." “This bear-centric fundraiser for the LGBT Community Center has raised over $500,000 and has brought thousands of bears, cubs and their admirers (many for the first time) through the doors of the Center,” said Joe Fiore, Fur Ball Creator and Manager. “We are very excited to present such a great week of events for bears – and hope to do so annually!”

Details about the four events are here.

Bronx LGBT Center To Close

After its former head was arrested earlier this week for swindling hundreds of thousands of dollars, today we learn that the Bronx LGBT Center will be closing.

After more than two years of scrambling to fill the budget gap caused by the missing funds, the center’s board of directors decided last week to shut down the 16-year-old agency, which serves up to 1,000 clients a month, said Antonio Centeno Jr., the board chairman who joined the group months after Winters left. “I’ve been trying to find money to keep salaries paid, to pay for the programs,” Centeno, 35, said Wednesday. “So even though I never met [Winters], I do feel betrayed.” The board said in a statement that it would work to arrange for other organizations to provide its clients with the services it had offered from its Longwood center, such as HIV testing and counseling, sexuality support groups and case management.

Centeno said that in January 2010 the board asked Winters to leave after whistleblowers said she had acted inappropriately, which in turn sparked an inquiry by the city’s Department of Investigation. After she left, the board reduced the number of staff and tried other measures to slash costs and lower the agency’s debt, Centeno said. They also pressed donors for money, but found that under Winters’ tenure the center had developed scant name recognition, according to Centeno. “When you approach potential donors and they say, ‘What is Bronx Pride?’ that’s not a good thing,” Centeno said

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NEW YORK CITY: Former Bronx LGBT Center Head Arrested For Embezzlement

The former executive director of the Bronx LGBT Center has been arrested for embezzling over $338,000 from the group she once headed.

Lisa Winters, 42, who was let go as head of the Bronx Community Pride Center in January 2010, used the dough to pay $25,751.74 to Eyes on Africa for a personal trip and $15,953 to a dog-walker, authorities said. She also paid thousands of dollars for trips to the United Kingdom, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Carolinas, according to the criminal complaint. Winters was fired from center by its board of directors in January 2010 after proof surfaced that she misappropriated funds, according to a Department of Investigation report. Winters was arrested June 15 and charged with grand larceny and 23 counts of falsifying business records for allegedly cutting checks for her benefit to the tune of more than $143,000. She was freed without bail at her arraignment. The Bronx district attorney's office is still investigating whether additional charges may be brought, a spokesman said. A DOI report from January concluded Winters swindled as much as $338,000 from the organization between 2005 and 2009, the years she served as executive director. The Hunts Point center helps provide medical and social services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the Bronx.

The above-linked news item reports that it was employees of the Center who brought their charges to its board of directors, adding that they claimed she was often "drunk at work."

FRIDAY: Pride Fur At The LGBT Center

Co-promoted with Blowoff, Pride Fur at the LGBT Center starts early and ends just in time for you to scoot over to the Highline Ballroom. Get tickets here. DJ Man Parrish!

QAIA Occupies NYC LGBT Center

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid occupied NYC's LBGT Center yesterday in protest of having been denied meeting space. Duncan Osborne reports at Gay City News:

The protest, which was organized by Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QAIA) and about 20 other groups, began with protesters packed into the lobby. QAIA did not contact police prior to the event, but officers from the Sixth Precinct in the West Village had set up a pen on the street outside the West 13th Street building. Protest participants ignored the pen. The protest inside lasted for roughly an hour as speakers pilloried the Center for the ban and called for solidarity with the Palestinian people. “We usually fight the oppressors who squelch free speech,” said Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a group of progressive lawyers. “By succumbing to the outspoken in power, this Center betrays its historic mission.”

The Center issued a statement declaring that the moratorium will continue.

This Saturday In Manhattan

NYC Queers Against Israeli Apartheid intend to occupy Manhattan's LGBT Center this weekend. Last February the LGBT Center refused meeting space to the group after a threatened donor boycott by porn producer Michael Lucas, who is an ardent Zionist and what some consider to be an anti-Palestinian racist. That refusal resulted in an anti-Center petition campaign from the opposing camp, which included high-profile activists Cleve Jones and Judith Butler. Saturday's action will include a denouncement of pinkwashing.

May 3rd At NYC's LGBT Center: Community Forum On Youth Homelessness

Via press release from the Ali Forney Center:

We'd like to invite you to attend a forum on May 3rd at New York City's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center (208 West 13th) which will examine the struggle to protect the thousands of youths who have been rejected by their families due to homophobia, and seeks to articulate a vision of equality for LGBT families which incorporates protecting youth as a more central focus. The need to examine this has been made more urgent by the recent budget put forth by New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, which cut funding for homeless youth services by 50 percent. These cuts risk the closure of a number of youth shelter beds, putting vulnerable youth on the street, and disproportionately harming vulnerable LGBT youth.

The forum starts at 7pm and speakers include Cathy Renna, Tobias Wolff, and AFC executive director Carl Siciliano.

SATURDAY: Furball NYC @ LGBT Center

Doors open 8PM, $10. Always a hot sweaty good time.

NYC LGBT Center Israel Flap Continues

Earlier this week the NYC LGBT Center canceled a planned Israel Apartheid Week meeting after gay porn kingpin Michael Lucas threatened to have the Center's wealthy donors pull their support. Immediately after the event's cancellation, a petition went online with a demand that the Center not let "wealthy bigots censor free speech." Among the petition's sponsors are well-known activists Cleve Jones, Judith Butler, and Sherry Wolf of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Today the Village Voice's Steven Thrasher interviews Wolf, who says it's an insult for her group to characterized as a "hate group" by a pornographer. (Snap!)

"More than half of [Siege Busters] is Jewish, and the others are mostly Arabs, and they call us anti-Semitic? Isn't the center a place where different people are supposed to meet and discuss? Shouldn't Jews and Arabs, gay and lesbian and transgender, working together towards peace be something that is celebrated? We cannot allow a wealthy porn entrepreneur to dictate what kind of speech is allowed, at a center whose very mission is to represent the oppressed and the marginalized!"

Read Thrasher's full interview.

LGBT Center Bows To Michael Lucas

This just in from the Lucas camp:

We prevailed! Congratulations to everyone who stood with me in support of Israel. With your help it took only eight hours to accomplish our mission. The LGBT Center has decided it will not host the party by Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), scheduled for March 5th. According to an email I just received personally from Glennda Testone, executive director of New York's LGBT Center, it has been determined that “this event is not appropriate to be held at our LGBT Community Center." [snip] I stand with Israel for its right to defend itself, never to be exterminated again. Even if the entire world will think differently, I will not change my mind. I will always fight anti-Semitism in the world however it may try to hide.

Here's what this was all about.

HomoQuotable - Michael Lucas

"I'm preparing to organize a boycott that would certainly involve some of the [NYC LGBT] Center's most generous donors. It was an inexcusable decision on the Center's part to associate itself with a hate group like Israeli Apartheid Week, but there's still time for them to reverse course and begin restoring their reputation."

"At first I thought this was a joke. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that supports gay rights, while its enemies round up, torture, and condemn gay people to death -- often by publicly hanging or stoning them to death. If the LGBT Center wants to host a fundraising and awareness party for anti-semites, they might as well go all the way and host a tea dance for Fred Phelps." - Gay porn producer and actor Michael Lucas, in a press release announcing a boycott of the NYC LGBT Center.

Lucas, a GOProud supporter who pens anti-Arab/pro-Israel pieces for the Advocate, says that "anti-Zionism is new anti-Semitism."

SATURDAY: Furball NYC @ LGBT Center

Tomorrow is NYC's Furball party at the LGBT Center in the West Village with DJs Corey Craig and Mark Lauque.

It's 3 floors of fur, 2 DJ's, go-go bears, great music, cheap beer, hot guys and warm warm fur...and you and over 700 furry friends...So hit the dancefloor and shake it out before you hibernate for the winter! And it's a fundraiser for the Center! What are you waiting for? Host: Joe Fiore. GoGo Bears!

Doors open at 8PM and tickets are only $10. Expect it to be very crowded.

Los Angeles LGBT Center Wins $13M Federal Grant To Help Gay Foster Kids

We needed this kind of great news today, we really did. Via press release:

Today the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center was awarded a landmark $13.3 million, five-year grant from the Federal Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Administration on Children, Youth and Families to create a model program that will provide life-saving support for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth in the foster care system. Following a highly competitive review process, six grants were awarded—the Center’s grant is the only one specifically to support LGBTQ youth and the only grant that did not go to a government agency or academic institution. It’s also the largest federal grant ever awarded to an LGBT organization.

The need for services for LGBT youth in foster care is dire. According to a 2001 (Feinstein) study, 78% of LGBTQ foster youth were forced to leave their foster placements due to hostility related to their sexual orientation or gender identity. In a 2001 study from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, 70% reported physical violence and 100% reported harassment in their group home. Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services (GLASS), the only group home for LGBTQ foster youth in Los Angeles, closed its doors in 2008 (with its displaced residents turning to the Center for much-needed support).

Stand by for the wingnut screaming. Which will be delicious.