Brooklyn Park High School 1980

NYC gay running club turns 30

NEW YORK -- Good times, on the race course and off, are the essence of Front Runners New York, a club representing hundreds of gay and lesbian runners in the nation's biggest city.

Yet that's only part of its story.

Over three decades, the club has served as a comfort zone and support group for many of its members as they coped with personal challenges. It embraces a public-service mission forged in the 1980s when many members and their friends died from AIDS.

"No one knew what it was, how it was transmitted -- there was a lot of fear out there," recalled Steve Gerben , who began a four-year stint as club president in 1981 just before the first AIDS cases in the U.S. were reported.

Front Runners New York had about 35 members when Gerben took the helm. It held its first Pride Run in 1982, attracting about 400 entrants.

The scene in Central Park will be very different Saturday for the 30th Pride Run. A record field of more than 5,000 is expected for the 5-mile race, with entertainment, a raffle and an after-party on tap.

Proceeds from the event will go to the It Gets Better Project, launched last year in response to some highly publicized suicides by gay teenagers. Several club members appeared in a video for the national project, which seeks to convey messages of hope to counter the despair of bullied or rejected teens.

Front Runners' current president, Megan Jenkins , said the choice of beneficiary was fitting because many club members "ran the Pride Run as their first step out of the closet."

Longtime member Patrick Guilfoyle is among that group -- the club was a pivotal catalyst for his decision to come out in the 1980s.

Now 52, Guilfoyle grew up in upstate New York, ran track in high school and college, and was still in the closet when he moved to New York City in 1980.

"The city was a little overwhelming for me," he said. "I found myself living a lie."

He had a four-year relationship with a fellow member of a Brooklyn running club, but his partner drowned in 1986 while trying to rescue a suicidal person who'd jumped off a pier.

Brooklyn Historical Society Blog » Blog Archive » Who's a ...

Looks at how various peoples, places, and historical events have shaped the development of the borough. 

Brooklyn’s diversity has long been a point of local pride and continues to define the borough today.  The oral histories featured in the exhibit speak to the diversity of Brooklyn’s people, neighborhoods, and many immigrant experiences. 

Paul Mak  was born in Hong Kong and immigrated here with his family.  He is the founder of the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, which serves the Chinese-American population of Brooklyn, and specifically Sunset Park.  In this clip, Paul recalls his experience at James Madison High School where he witnessed the influx of Chinese immigrants as a student in the 1980s.

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Encarnacion Armas , a well-educated and well-traveled resident of Brooklyn, describes her involvement with the Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn in the 1940s.  In this clip, Armas reminisces about moving to Bay Ridge as a teenager and shares her experiences serving the Puerto Rican community.

Puerto Rican Oral History Project (1973-1976)

Interview Date: October 21, 1974

Milton Wurtzel   was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx and in Stuyvesant Heights, Brooklyn on Kosciusko Street. Wurtzel worked at Lieberman Shoe Factory as a foreman and at a slipper factory before he began his job as a welder at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In this clip, Wurtzel discusses the ethnic diversity at the Navy Yard during the 1940s.

Brooklyn Navy Yard Oral History Project (ongoing)

Interview Date: February 12, 2009

was created by the high school students in Brooklyn Historical Society’s Exhibition Laboratory program.

They Chose Minnesota, A Survey Of The States Ethnic Groups

Official Catholic directory Anno Domini ...

National union catalog, a cumulative author list representing Library of Congress printed cards and titles reported by other American libraries

Football register

Art in Mississippi, 1720-1980