• Long-abandoned tuberculosis hospital has been a landmark for the LGBTQ community.
• The city wants to create a park on the site, wiping out the structure facing a clothing-optional beach.
• This is the people’s beach. And we are the people, says Victoria Cruz.

LGBTQ beachgoers are grappling with New York City’s plan to demolish a long-abandoned tuberculosis hospital that has served as a landmark for the community.

Graffiti on the outside walls reads “QUEER TRANS POWER” and “KNOW YOUR POWER.” Air conditioning units rust in the shattered windows of Neponsit Beach Hospital, which was also a nursing home but has been closed since 1998. A shrine on the chain-link fence honours a gay icon discovered dead in the nearby waters.

The city intends to build a park on the site, eradicating the dilapidated structure that faced a clothing-optional beach in the Queens borough.

The LGBTQ community has long embraced that section of Jacob Riis Park, sunbathing naked and holding gatherings such as memorials for Ms. Colombia, also known as Oswaldo Gomez, who is believed to have drowned nearby in 2018.

Also Read

LGBTQ Italians on high alert as the right-wing alliance wins the election

Giorgia Meloni is set to become Italy's first woman premier at the...

Novels by LGBTQ authors such as Audre Lorde and Joan Nestle contributed to the area becoming a fabled haven.

“We would like to be assured that we will continue to have this space, which has always been our space, where people from the queer community always end up,” said Victoria Cruz, 76, who has been coming to the beach since the 1960s.

“This is the beach of the people.” “And we are the people,” Cruz, dubbed the “Queen of Riis,” said.

However, what makes that beach section more isolated and exclusive for the LGBTQ community is deemed an unsightly health hazard by locals.

“The community is concerned about the remediation of vermin and asbestos and whatever else is in there,” said Jenna Tipaldo, a 25-year-old PhD student who lives nearby.

Also Read

Yeshiva University suspended all student club events due to response to HC LGBTQ ruling

Yeshiva University suspends student club activities. The decision follows a U.S. Supreme...

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which owns the site, has met with neighbours and LGBTQ community members to discuss their concerns.

“We will continue to engage these communities to learn how we can accommodate their concerns while ensuring public safety,” said Stephanie Buhle, the agency’s deputy press secretary, in an email.

The public hospital agency has not announced specific plans for the site, and Buhle has not responded to requests for more information.

However, Joann Ariola, the city councilwoman whose district includes the building, stated in an email this week that a park has been proposed, and surveys and other demolition preparations are underway.

The public hospitals agency has not stated when major demolition will begin, but told Reuters by email this week that it hopes to finish before the 2023 beach season.

Casey Morrissey, a Brooklyn-based bookseller, stated that they do not mind the demolition as long as the beach is not lost to the LGBTQ community.

“It’s been a haven for us.” “We just come here without planning and always find friends,” Morrissey said during a visit with their partner. “We don’t have many places like this.”

Also Read

Iran sentences two LGBTQ rights advocates 

Zahra Seddiqi Hamedani, 31, and Elham Choubdar, 24, were found guilty of...