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k80uva's review against another edition
4.0
An informative and engaging history of queer life in Brooklyn, pre-Stonewall. If you're someone who studies this subject closely, you may not find a ton of new material here, but this book is a really helpful synthesis of a lot of work that came before it and it weaves together discussions of policing, literature, social history, and geography to create a cohesive picture of a history that has long been fragmented and difficult to trace.
brianlarson's review against another edition
5.0
I loved every moment of this book. It follows LGBTQ history from the 1850s right up until the Stonewall Riots. Most- if not all- of this history goes unrecorded into today’s history textbooks. What’s resolutely true is that American history is indelibly linked to Queer herstory.
While a portion of the book retraces Brooklyn’s long queer history (from the the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to the expansion of NYC public transit to Coney Island) most of the chapters tackle queer American history at large (including the Lavender Scare, society’s evolving understanding of queer identity, and the consequences of the Great Depression, WWI & WWII on Queer America).
Take 5 minutes to learn something new about Queer icons like Mabel Hampton, Anne Moses, Alfred Gross, Gustave Beekman, and Walt Whitman!
While a portion of the book retraces Brooklyn’s long queer history (from the the building of the Brooklyn Bridge to the expansion of NYC public transit to Coney Island) most of the chapters tackle queer American history at large (including the Lavender Scare, society’s evolving understanding of queer identity, and the consequences of the Great Depression, WWI & WWII on Queer America).
Take 5 minutes to learn something new about Queer icons like Mabel Hampton, Anne Moses, Alfred Gross, Gustave Beekman, and Walt Whitman!
jcthiem's review against another edition
5.0
Provided insightful and often overlooked aspects of LGBT history in the US. It was an easy read and quite interesting.
kstookley's review against another edition
4.0
I always love the opportunity to learn more queer history, to see myself in figures from the past. This book did a great job of representing all different types of queer person (it would be great if there were more qpoc, but it's also less likely for their historical records to be preserved). I really, really wished that this book had maps, considering that so much of it discussed how Brooklyn's changing geography influenced its queer scene. It also assumes that its audience will have a robust knowledge of certain lgbtq figures that I don't think is smart to bank on (for example, opera composer Benjamin Britten-- even the most mainstream opera is divorced from the common pop culture consciousness, so figures like these need to be unpacked perhaps just as much as the Brooklyn unknowns Ryan describes in the book). But overall, very interesting and informative discussion on the evolution of queer identity and urban planning.
araknifae's review against another edition
Not a bad book by any means, it was just... difficult to understand why this specific thesis statement was chosen. About half the points it made involved "well this didn't actually happen in Brooklyn but it happened elsewhere in New York so that must mean it happened in Brooklyn too", which was a bit lame when the whole point is queerness in Brooklyn. Eventually it all got too annoying to ignore.