Love Ball

“Some of the city’s most talented dance, drag and Broadway performers — from The Saint at Large’s Love Ball to Hair, Wicked and West Side Story—gathered in Times Square yesterday around six o’clock to commemorate the event that started everything, The Stonewall Riots. Just in case you are not familiar with The Stonewall Riots, they were a series of spontaneous often demonstrations that took place against a police raid on the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969. It was the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement not only in the United States but worldwide. Phew. Pretty intense. Even though yesterday the extravagant costumes and bigger than life personalities did call attention to the event, what really captured people’s attention was the extraordinary PRIDE felt throughout Times Square. Not only did it ignite people’s interest, as in tourists just could not stop taking pictures and cheering, but it took on this shape of sort of a living marquee that lit up Times Square brighter than I’ve ever seen. So in honor of the event that started our fight, and even though we’re still fighting forty years later, I couldn’t be prouder to be gay.” —Silvano Melgar, HX Magazine