Lesbian Herstory Archives

Park Slope

Brooklyn

When I lived in Glasgow for a year, one of my favorite places in the city was the Glasgow Women’s Library and Lesbian Archive and Information Center. I remember it being a warm, welcoming place that offered a unique collection geared toward women and the queer community. The Library hosted support groups for battered women as well as book clubs and poetry readings for everyone. Men probably didn’t find the space quite as inviting. A gay friend of mine wanted to use the Lesbian Archive and was told only women were allowed to access the archives, nor were men allowed to visit the Library during support group hours.

I don’t know how much the Glasgow Women’s Library has changed in the thirteen years since I last visited it. Their website seems to suggest a more male-friendly space, or perhaps they don’t post their women-only policies online. I was excited to discover Brooklyn’s very own Lesbian Herstory Archives, expecting to find a similar environment as the one I experienced in Scotland.  I have to admit I was initially disappointed. The Lesbian Herstory Archives is dark, jumbled, and painfully quiet. Though, if you can manage to get past the confusing filing systems and awkward silence, you can easily lose yourself exploring the Archives’ holdings.

Librarians will be scandalized to learn that the Archives alphabetizes books by the author’s or the subject’s first name. Which means Jean Strouse’s biography on Alice James would be found under A for Alice, while Sarah Waters’ novel Fingersmith is found under S for Sarah. I know. This is the system started by Joan Nestle when she founded the Archives in her apartment in 1972 and it seems to be a point of pride to maintain her system throughout the ages, no matter how frustrating it might be. There is one computer available for searching the catalogs, but it didn’t appear to be working. Nor did it seem that most of the Archives’ holdings were thoroughly cataloged. For example, the Archives has 1,569 Subject Files that fill four five-drawer filing cabinets plus several overflow boxes on the second floor. These a filled with newspaper clippings and photocopies about subjects ranging from Abortions to Bars to Music Festivals to Violence. Really the only thing a visitor can do is pick a topic and start browsing.

I decided to try to find information on Edmonia Lewis. The first floor was a bust, but the foyer and staircase up to the second floor were completely dark. After pacing the first floor for twenty minutes I figured out which of the women in the Archives was working there and asked if the second floor was open. “Of course,” she responded. Why of course? No lights on generally means closed. I walked up the stairs and turned on a light switch, bathing the entranceway and hall in light, glorious light. Then I encountered a new obstacle. The Archives is housed in a brownstone apartment and the second floor landing had four closed doors with no labels. I opened all of them before I figured out which way to go.

The second floor is, frankly, a mess. It is rooms and rooms filled with boxes and file cabinets of papers. There are entire file cabinets filled with zines and pamphlets and newsletters from women’s organizations around the country. The second floor also has two filing cabinets filled with unpublished papers, including some 1,000 theses, dissertations, and poetry written by lesbians over the past thirty-five years. These are alphabetized by title, so good luck finding anything there. I managed to finally find some actually useful article clippings on Edmonia Lewis in the Individual/Biographical Files.

Amongst the claustrophobic, overwhelming space that is the second floor is an odd display of buttons and t-shirts in the hall formed by what was once connecting bathrooms. The linen closets are filled with the hundreds of t-shirts that form the Archives’ t-shirt collection and the sinks are filled with all sorts of queer paraphernalia, including stickers, buttons, bags, and dildos.  I did not venture down to the basement level which houses the Music and Spoken Word Collections.

The Archives looked admittedly more welcoming once the lights in the foyer were turned on. I suspected that budget constraints caused pennies to be pinched wherever possible, even if it meant a forebodingly dark entranceway. The place is run pretty much entirely by volunteers and is open at random, odd hours.

With lights on I could see the didactic information for the Archives’ current exhibition, “Straight to Hell: 20 Years of Dyke Action Machine!” DAM! is a two-person public art project started in 1991 by Carrie Moyer and Sue Schaffner. The Archives is currently displaying three cases of their various public propaganda campaigns, including posters, reviews, buttons, stickers, and catalogs. With the lights on visitors could also see the boxes of free stuff set in the hallway for them to take with them when they go.

The stairs leading up to the brownstone are handicapped accessible, which I found very confusing, as the rest of the Archives is not. Sure, the electric ramp will get you up the stairs, but then you have two heavy doors and a cluttered hallway to deal with. Not to mention there is no way to get up to the second level or down to the basement level. Even if a handicapped visitor were contented with the first level, most items are found up on high shelves or cabinets. The Lesbian community seems to have always been at the forefront of accessibility, yet the electric stair ramp seems like an empty gesture considering the inaccessibility of the rest of the space.

With all of its flaws and imperfections, I actually found it difficult to get myself to leave the archives. If I had allowed myself, I could have spent the entire afternoon browsing through boxes and cabinets. The Archives also offers lesbian studies courses which draws on the documents contained within the library. And, while the lesbian studies program insists on annoyingly spelling the word women “wymn,” the classes actually sound really interesting—they’re even taught by NYC college professors.

When I finally managed to make it back to the foyer, I got caught up a little bit longer reading the Archives’ own publications, which include yearly newsletters and historical publications like Radclyffe Hall’s 1934 letter about what she termed “The Well of Loneliness.”

Grumbling aside, the Archives actually has some useful resources and plays a small but important role in preserving queer women’s history. When I first went I thought I wouldn’t find anything that couldn’t already be found using Google. I was quite wrong. After all, where else can the lesbian researcher find Iowa’s “Better Homes & Dykes” newsletters from 1977?

www.lesbianherstoryarchives.org

The City Reliquary

Williamsburg

Brooklyn

It is quite easy to walk past The City Reliquary without noticing the tiny storefront museum and civic center. This is despite the bright yellow and red awning that proclaims “Museum.” You are, after all, in Williamsburg where random hip things that signify nothing abound. Intrepid pedestrians who cross the threshold will discover that the small space does indeed contain a most unusual collection.

The City Reliquary bills itself as a “Community Museum and Civic Organization.” These seem like lofty titles for a place that has an entire display case devoted to Statue of Liberty figurines. Pompous titles aside, the Reliquary is a labor of love and a rather charming one at that. The whole thing began in 2002 when Dave Herman turned his ground-floor apartment window into a display that contained items like two-and-a-half links of a city hall window chain, a set of dentures found in Dead Horse Bay, and painted directions pointing toward nearby landmarks. If viewers pushed a button they received a guided tour recorded by Herman. Seven years ago the apartment window display moved into its current storefront location which contains three tiny rooms.

The first room is serves as a visitor’s center and gift shop. For such a small space, it has some pretty cool items on offer, from handmade coin purses to NYC borough necklaces to French stickers. Though, one does wonder what French stickers are doing in the gift shop of a rather NYC-specific museum. An old subway turnstile marks the entranceway to the museum proper. Admission is a suggested donation of $5, which, after you see the size of the actual exhibition space and some of its contents, seems a bit high. But it’s for a good cause, right?

The second room houses the Reliquary’s permanent collection. This consists of several fun-filled cases that proudly display postcards from the New York World’s Fair, subway handrails, and various containers for water. The New Yorker’s Geology case contains stones from the Flatiron Building, Plaza Hotel, and Waldsdorf Astoria, as well as a wooden brick from the last wooden sidewalk in Brooklyn. The walls are covered with photographs of the Williamsburg Bridge, Brooklyn seltzer bottles (your guess is as good as mine), and many images of Jackie Robinson, including one very proud painting. A community collection case displays donations from locals. You might get to enjoy such curious delights as one woman’s personal unicorn collection or a man's assortment of tensor lights.

The permanent collection also contains a window looking into a barbershop and a closet decorated with flowers that is dedicated to the life of Little Egypt, the woman who is credited with bringing burlesque to New York. She scandalized the public with her hoochie coochie (from the French “hochqueue,” to shake ones tail) dance at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Sadly, none of the many interactive features appear to work. I pushed every button I saw to no avail.

The third and final room (rather grandiosely labeled the “Exhibition Hall) is saved for rotating exhibitions as well as a stereo that appears to play only recordings of Enrico Caruso. Currently this space contains a show on the Santa Claus Association, which existed from 1913 to 1928. Much like the City Reliquary, the Santa Claus Association was the work of one dedicated, driven man. John Duvall Gluck, Jr., started the association as a NYC-based philanthropic group dedicated to answering poor children’s letter to Santa Claus. Prior to his efforts, letters to Santa wound up at the Dead Letter Office. Gluck made it his mission to respond to needy letters with gifts and charity.

The exhibition is rather text heavy. Yet, despite this, I’m still not entirely clear what the fund-raising scandal was that caused the Santa Claus Association to close up shop. Something about Gluck playing too large a role in running the organization. It’s a little confusing. The show is made up largely of artifacts and research collected by Gluck’s great grandnephew, Alex Palmer. Some of the best items in the show are copies of children’s letters written to Santa. Though, I have to admit the idea of the exhibition is more interesting than the actual exhibition itself. If you want to judge it for yourself, it’s on display through February 10^th.

Along with exhibitions, the City Reliquary hosts block parties, film events, and backyard concerts. It also works with a local public elementary school to create shows of student work. If you visit it soon, you might be able to catch a public art display that was being created under the BQE overpass on Manhattan Avenue—two weeks ago a man had salvaged thrown out Christmas trees and was hanging them upside down. Some still had tinsel.

http://www.cityreliquary.org/

SK Art SKSK Brooklyn

Greenpoint

Brooklyn

Everyone knows Brooklyn is filled with artists. One can scarcely throw the proverbial stone without cracking a camera lens or clanking against a can of spray paint. Along with those artists are thousands of artists’ studios, many of which work in collectives which have annual or semi-annual open studios where the public can visit and buy work. Steve Keene has one-upped the idea of the annual open studio by making his studio open every week.

Pretty much any given Sunday members of the public can walk right into Keene’s home without so much as ringing a bell or knocking on the door. His studio is a converted garage attached to his house in the Polish/Russian/Artist enclave that is Greenpoint. If you’re lucky you might get to watch Keene work, other days you have to settle with marveling at the sheer quantity of pieces filling the space, but either way he’ll come and say hello.

Steve Keene is a radio DJ cúm painter/sculptor with a Master’s from Yale who began making mass-produced works in 1993. He wanted art to be as affordable and readily available as music. He works in large editions of paintings and engravings on wood, lining up the small panels and making them all at the same time. His studio is filled with album covers and newspapers which serve as sources of inspiration for his pieces. The combination of music and art is integral to his creativity: he’s created album art, stage sets, posters, and video sets for various bands like the Silver Jews, Pavement, Apples in Stereo, and Soul Coughing.

You can easily buy Keene’s art from his website--$30 will get you five paintings of his choice from whatever is available that day. He also has some pretty fabulous cut metal pendants on chains. If you want to pick your own art, you have to head in Brooklyn. It is well worth the effort, however, as he will often give away works or sell them for $1 if he has a surplus lying about. My beau and I headed over the first Sunday of January and Keene gave us a New Year’s discount: we left with four paintings for $2. And they all come ready to hang.

Keene seems to be on to something. Most artists hope to sell a few dozen works a year for a several hundred or thousand dollars a piece. They are generally unsuccessful. But Keene makes and sells thousands of paintings a year. In one of the many articles you can find links to on his website he says “it’s O.K. with him that none of them will hang in New York City’s Museum of Modern Art.” They do, however, hang in the homes of celebrities like Dennis Hopper and Devo, along with thousands of more modest abodes.

If you’re going to take the trouble to head over the Greenpoint (and I suggest you do) be sure to walk one block over to the Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop on Manhattan Avenue. They have the best donuts in all of New York, maybe even the world. I can’t remember who it was, but a well-travelled musician was interviewed on NPR years ago and was asked his three favorite dining experiences. He listed some fancy places in France or Japan or Russia, and then the time he had a donut from Peter Pan. Give them a try and see for yourself. You might find yourself using the G-train much more than previously expected.

http://stevekeene.com/

http://www.wnyc.org/articles/wnyc-news/2009/may/14/a-day-in-the-life-peter-pan-donuts/