Peter's Place

NYC Council Elections, Bronx CD #18, Part 2 One freezing frost-filled February night in 2013, I first met Elvin Garcia in the back corner of a too-small greasepit of a Bronx diner to enlist his support in our work to build a new LGBTQ community center for The Bronx, he with his friend, I with mine. If it weren't for my friend, I never would have known what actually had been said during that meeting. Thus was my introduction to the insane world of Bronx politics. Both it, and the turkey burger (my standard diner fare) left a bad taste in my mouth. At the time, Garcia worked for NYS Senator Gustavo Rivera as an aide. More importantly, Garcia was an out gay man in Bronx politics, something of a rarity (even to this day). Garcia declined to join our efforts to build an LGBTQ community center. In fact, when he moved to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's office to a position where he would have direct influence representing LGBTQ Bronxites' interests, he did little—if a...

NYS Senator Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr NYC Council Elections, Bronx CD #18, Part 1 It was a hot, steamy, sultry summer afternoon in 2014 and we were having difficulty finding the entrance to the building using the address given to us while the batteries on our mobile phones were limping by on emergency power. We feared we would miss the meeting—one everyone and their drag queen mother had warned us against—but we were obstinate and determined to make it succeed. Finally, we got through to the office and learned that the entrance was around the block. Somehow, in the heat visibly rising off the sidewalks, this made sense. We were ushered inside into the refreshing respite of the 20th centuries' greatest technological miracle: air conditioning. It looked to be like any other ordinary office, with piles of papers strewn about and desks haphazardly arranged into working spaces, workers frenetically going about their business—hardly what one might imagine to be those of a state senator...