1995—
It was a year before the anti-retrovirals and people were dying, but they still lived their lives and made the most of what time they had left. There was a community of LGBTQ people who gravitated to the West Side Highway Piers to be themselves, to have fun and cruise and pick up, but also to hang out and laugh and lay in the sun. There was a cross-section of teenage runaways and sex workers and rich gay men who lived in the West Village. Leathermen and twinks before the term was invented. Transsexuals and drag queens and lesbians. What we lost when the city tore down the West Side Highway Piers was a sanctuary where we could be ourselves without regret or explanation, we could be our authentic selves. We could be free.
William Howell is an artist who earned his BFA in photography from Pratt Institute. He currently resides in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. West Side Highway, a book of photographs taken in 1995 of the West Side Highway Piers, will be published by Dark Entries Editions in late 2026.
This document is part of a series guest edited by Manon Lutanie.
