I'm Scott and I'm a New York City boy now living in Seattle and Bill is my oldest friend serving an almost 8 year sentence in federal prison for selling meth. He gets out in April of 2010.
Bill in Exile originally contained letters written between Bill and me while Bill was in prison as well as a bunch of other shit but Bill has, as of late, opted out of contributing and I've just been too lazy to change the name of the blog.
Some of what this site contains IS DEFINITELY NOT work safe and some of it may not be appropriate for those under 18 years of age. Navigate away if you have doubts. And if I've used an image for which you hold the rights and wish me to remove it or credit it please send me a POLITE email and I will be more than happy to do so.
“Discrimination is the antithesis of equality. It is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual.”
The Delhi High Court of India writing in a majority opinion striking down the law that made homosexuality a crime in that country.
It would be nice to think that President Obama would find it in himself to be as much of a “fierce advocate” for equality as the members of the High Court in Delhi clearly are.
{Posted in New York, Video on July 2nd, 2009
by Scott }
One of the great things about New York City is the way that it reinvents and renews itself in wonderful and often idiosyncratic ways. And the High Line is one of those things that was recently reinvented in a very spectacular manner indeed.
For those who aren’t familiar with the High Line it is, quite simply, an old elevated railway line that runs from the Meatpacking District up to the 34th street rail yards. A distance of just under a mile and a half and running 30 feet above the street and actually through the middle of some buildings along its route
The High Line as it passes over a diner as seen from the corner of Little West 12th Street and Washington Street.
For decades the line was an abandoned, shabby and dangerous derelict and a blight upon the neighborhoods through which it passed. But in 1999 the Friends of the High Line was formed to lobby the city to turn it into a public park.
And that is exactly what happened — it was turned into a park — and two weeks ago the first section of the High Line was opened to the public and it is beyond spectacular.
In the short time its been open the citizens of New York have been thronging to it and although these pictures that I snapped don’t do it justice you can see why it’s so popular. In fact, on Gay Pride there was a line that stretched over an hour and half comprised almost exclusively of hot, sweaty, muscly, shirtless, gay menz waiting to take a stroll along this new and seriously gorgeous urban promenade.
Old train tracks and new plantings.
And if you want to see what the High Line looked like in less genteel times just watch the You Tube below by the musical group The Art of Noise. It was filmed back in 1983 in one of the buildings that the tracks cut through and that’s now an art space that currently contains this neon light art installation.
There’s more pics of the High Line after the jump.
My Ex BF Patrick strikes a pose in his skivvy drawers with our dear friend Tanya — our hostess with the mostest and at whose grand, multi-thousand square foot downtown Manhattan loft Patrick and I freeloaded while in New York.
And this is the current view of what was once known as the World Trade Center — as seen from the kitchen window of Tanya and her gorgeous hubby Jeremy’s loft — a loft that survived the ‘93 attack on the Trade Center but that required months and months of rehab after 9/11.
UPDATE
See Tanya’s update in the comments regarding the loft on 9/11 and what they were doing that morning.
