“We understand the going rate (average) being charged by the (again, average) hustler is $10.” Movie theaters were also popular. Parts of 42nd Street are “always lively with … scores of hustlers,” noted the Gay Scene Guide. (*=still open) A gay guide to life in 2009. Gay New Yorkers may not have been free in the year of the Stonewall riots, but there was still plenty of fun to be had, with the third annual Gay Scene Guide boasting “over 175 listings … as accurate and up to date as the editor’s kidneys can make it.” The year before, Mart Crowley’s play The Boys in the Band put the secret joys and woes of gay life on the public radar, and, on The Tonight Show, the psychic Criswell predicted that gay enclaves would spring up in cities nationwide. Illustration by Shane Harrison Photo: Rue de Archives/The Granger Collection
