[PHOTO] Looking northeast, Church and Wellesley

Pride Toronto was still going strong at Church and Wellesley when I was there just a quarter-hour before midnight. I do not doubt it is going strong even now.

[BLOG] Some Pride Day blog links

• Joe. My. God. has reposted a famous, fantastic contemporary New York Daily News article about the Stonewall Riots.


• James Leahy's clips of Toronto Pride parades from 1988 through 1995 are great. h/t to Leahy and to Shawn Micallef of Spacing for sharing them.


• Arnold Zwicky has collated some photos of Pride rainbows on Chicago and Dublin transit buses and on some boots.

[URBAN NOTE] Four notes about the past and future of queer life in a dynamic Toronto

• In the Toronto Star, Emma Teitel wonders how long Church and Wellesley will last as a hub as the queer community develops and migrates away.


• Trevor Corkum, also in the Toronto Star, explores the important role of the Glad Day Bookshop in modern Toronto's gay and literary scenes.
  
• Brian Bradley tells the story of Craig Russell, an early drag queen who became a star and started a still-living cultural tradition of drag performances in Toronto.


• In NOW Toronto, Vaughn Grey tells the story of how he successfully escaped Jamaica to claim refugee status in Toronto.

[NEWS] Four links about queer history, from the National Park Service to the Globe to New York City

• The National Park Service's LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study is an amazingly thorough survey of sites and stories of note.


• In The Globe and Mail, Stephanie Chambers explores how the history of homophobia recorded in her newspaper's old articles.


• Back2Stonewall shares rare archival footage of the 1970 Christopher Street Liberation Day parade, ancestor of Pride.


• The New Yorker's Daniel Penny tells the story of Joseph Touchette, at 93 the oldest drag queen in Greenwich Village.