Last Thursday, I grabbed drinks with a coworker in the West Village.
As we walked from our office near Madison Square Garden through Chelsea, the city turned from tourists to yuppies to predominately gay men in a matter of blocks. That's the thing I love about New York City; it changes in a minute.
After drinks, I was a little buzzed and craving chicken fingers, so the hunt was on.
I unsuccessfully checked in a handful of pizzerias and feeling defeated, I decided to reward myself with a drink at a gay bar.
As I grabbed a seat alone at the bar, I listened to the piano man and watched the bustling city outside as the sun set and people went from work to dinner or home or wherever they were headed.
Sure, our rent is high and some of us are underpaid, but who wouldn't want to live in one of the coolest cities in the United States?
While enjoying my drink(s), I daydreamed like I typically do and listened to the music. For a bit, I thought about how great it is for gay men who flock to the city for acceptance, and more so, safety. Of course, no place is completely safe for the LGBT community, but New York overall - particularly Greenwich Village - is probably one of the most comforting places that a gay man or woman can find themselves.
Sadly, a few days after my visit to the bar, Mark Carson, a 32-year-old gay man, was gunned down in the early morning -- a victim of a hate crime. It wasn't too far from where I had my optimistic drink alone, and not too far from the Stonewall Inn; the birthplace of the American gay rights movement that began late one night in the summer of 1969.
New York has seen a spike in anti-gay crimes this year and if anyone looks at any modern Civil Rights movement, they'll be able to see that when things start changing for the positive, a spike of negative unfortunately occurs.
The Boston Marathon bombings further helped me realize that the disturbed and violent people will try to make the lives of others miserable, but the easiest - and hardiest - thing we can do is to keep on living the lives we were meant to lead.
