How much history can you cover in five miles?
Quite a bit, according to locals Anthony Vidal Torres and Brian Boisvert, the hosts of a Halloween-themed queer history running tour coming to Brooklyn next month.
“Queer Ghosts of Brooklyn: A Halloween Fun Run,” will serve as a sort of crash course through an oft-overlooked but critically important part of the borough’s past.
Running and queer history may seem unlikely companions, but Boisvert — the founder of Great Day, the LGBTQ+ running group hosting the tour — said running “can be a form of queer liberation.”
“This run is a way to honor our queer ancestors and to support queer athletes during a time in which there are active political efforts to erase us,” he said in a statement. “We’re doing what queer athletes do best: running forward, proudly, defiantly, and with great joy, to celebrate the beauty and resilience of our community.”
Vidal, who has been running since high school and joined Great Day last year, was inspired to create the tour after he read “When Brooklyn Was Queer,” a 2020 nonfiction book by Hugh Ryan.
The book focuses on the lives and stories of queer Brooklynites from the late 1800s to early 1950s, years before Stonewall turned the tide for queer communities in New York City.
Though Vidal grew up on Long Island and has been living in Brooklyn for almost ten years, he was totally unaware of the area’s history. Many of the people who have already signed up for the run were too, he said.
“That’s because [queer history] was deliberately erased by supremacist politicians, developers, forces, many of which we still deal with today,” Vidal said. “Forces of our past that tried to silence and whitewash and literally remove any sign of this history because of how powerful it is.”
The Navy Yard, for example — one of the stops on the running tour — was home to a thriving gay subculture as sailors and other waterfront workers found community and safety there. Nearby Sand Street, another stop on the tour, was home to a number of queer establishments for “many, many years.”
“It was also not only one of few places in New York and the country where there were fairly overtly gay establishments, but also multiracial ones, and ones where people across gender, where women and trans folks could intermingle and have the freedom to be themselves and enjoy,” Vidal said.
Over time, things began to change. In 1923 the city enacted new, stricter laws against male homosexuality and later began targeting queer women and gender-nonconforming people. Many bars and gathering spaces were repeatedly raided and forced to close.
“I think we need to fully reckon with the whole truth of our history if we’re able to understand how we got to this present moment, and ultimately how we can get free,” Vidal said. “At a time where we’re facing modern campaigns to whitewash our past and present, recognizing this erased history and learning from our history … is the least we can do. We owe it to our ancestors, to ourselves and our community, and we owe it to future generations.”
The tour grapples with some tough topics, Vidal said, but he and the other organizers wanted it to be fun, too. That’s where the “Queer Ghosts” came into play. Halloween is a “very queer holiday,” he said, and leaning into it felt like an authentic way to tell the nabe’s queer stories.
The run will begin and end at two local LGBTQ+ bars — signs, Vidal said, that though queer communities may have been forced to go underground, they never fully disappeared — and Council Member Chi Ossé will join the tour and stick around for a talkback afterward.
“One of the challenges and one of the opportunities here is we want to ultimately call on the city, and make the city actually reckon with and recognize this queer history,” Vidal said. “There’s really no public acknowledgement of the queer history that was here.”
Join “Queer Ghosts of Brooklyn: A Halloween Fun Run” on Tuesday, Oct. 21, from 7-10 p.m. The event is free, with a $10 suggested donation and registration in advance.
