Check Out 11 Landmarks in Gay New York

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It’s Friday. How did Mayor de Blasio and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand do in the Democratic presidential debates? Some viewers in Manhattan picked a winner through ranked choice voting. This could be how New Yorkers vote in the future.

Weather: Today and this weekend, it’ll be bright and hot, with highs in the mid-80s to low 90s. Thunderstorms may pop up tomorrow after 2 p.m.

Alternate-side parking: In effect until July 4.

The Times’s Pierre-Antoine Louis writes:

Growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, I started attending Pride events at age 17. There were no guides to the festivities as there are now, so my friends and I explored New York City on our own to find gay-friendly places like Luke & Leroy’s and Chi Chiz bar.

We also strolled along the Christopher Street Pier to watch our fellow L.G.B.T.Q. family members vogueing and celebrating.

Discovering that side of the city changed my life. I felt more comfortable being my gay self, and these spaces helped my friends and I understand that we were not alone.

This year, New York City is hosting WorldPride for the first time, as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn uprising and a half-century of struggles and liberation.

An audio tour that I hosted for The Times takes listeners to 11 places in New York that are of special importance to the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and provides information on Pride events and insider tips.

Whether you’re one of the millions of people visiting for WorldPride, or you’re a resident who wants to learn more about L.G.B.T.Q. history, this tour is for you. You’ll explore some of New York’s most scenic and iconic neighborhoods, including Harlem and the West Village.

Some of the places on the tour are:

  • The STAR House, which was founded in 1970 by the activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson. Ms. Rivera and Ms. Johnson saw that the needs of street youths and transgender people were not being addressed by activist groups. They created STAR to fill that gap.

  • The home of Langston Hughes, a poet who contributed much to the Harlem Renaissance. Mr. Hughes lived on the top floor of a brownstone in Harlem for the last two decades of his life. Although he never formally “came out,” many academics and biographers believe Mr. Hughes was gay.

  • Henrietta Hudson Bar & Girl is one of the oldest lesbian bars in the city. In 1991, its owners took over the location, which was once the home of the popular gay bar Cubbyhole.

[Take the tour, and read our coverage of WorldPride.]

A fried pickle restaurant opens on the Lower East Side. [Gothamist]

Friday:

New to meditation? Start with a beginner’s session at Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan. 7 a.m. [Free]

The Bronx Documentary Center hosts Claremont Illuminated, a photography festival that features media projections on the walls surrounding a stairwell in a housing project. 7 p.m. [Free]

“WERK! Behind the Ball,” a film about the Black Pride Heritage Ball, screens at BRIC House in Brooklyn, followed by a panel discussion and an after-party. 6 p.m. [Free]

Saturday:

An architectural historian leads a tour of works commissioned by lot owners at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. 1 p.m. [$15]

Roll up your sleeves and participate in an open ceramics workshop. The finished pieces will be fired and exhibited at Flares Studio and Designs in the Bronx. 1 p.m. [Free]

Sunday:

Mix your own rose water spray, learn about the rose family during a garden walk and see a cooking demonstration with roses at Wave Hill in Queens. 11 a.m. [$10]

The author Rebecca Godfrey’s book “Under the Bridge,” which she debuts at McNally Jackson in Manhattan, introduces readers to teenagers accused of a murder. 6 p.m. [Free]

— Vivian Ewing

Events are subject to change, so double-check before heading out. For more events, see the going-out guides from The Times’s culture pages.

The Times’s Derek M. Norman reports:

The earthquake rumbled near the Queens shoreline just as the dinner crowd was ordering dessert.

Wait. An earthquake? In Queens?

It’s not as unusual as it may sound, experts say.

The temblor was reported on Tuesday at 7:26 p.m., registering a magnitude of just 0.9. It originated approximately 1.2 miles underground at about 43rd Road and 10th Street in Long Island City, according to the United States Geological Survey.

While New York is not typically accustomed to quakes that shake walls or rumble floors, the terrain here makes it possible to feel relatively small seismic events, according to Don Blakeman, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center.

The ground in the region doesn’t absorb the energy well, he said, increasing the likelihood of feeling the rumble.

“The crust is much older and more rigid in the northeastern part of the U.S., so the energy of a quake may travel farther and people are more likely to feel it,” Mr. Blakeman said.

Still, it’s unlikely that many people detected the temblor on Tuesday: Typically, earthquakes must be at least twice as forceful — 2 to 2.5 magnitude — for people to feel the vibration, Mr. Blakeman said.

New York State had about 551 recorded earthquakes between 1737 and 2016, according to the Northeast States Emergency Consortium.

One memorable quake reached the city in August 2011. The 5.8-magnitude temblor struck in Virginia and vibrated across the Eastern Seaboard, sending New Yorkers scrambling out of buildings and into the streets of Midtown Manhattan as police officers ordered the evacuation of City Hall.

“There are a number of faults that are well-known in Manhattan,” said Mitchell Gold, a seismologist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University. “There’s one up in Inwood. There’s another in Harlem on 125th Street. That could even be the fault that reacted here.”

So, is New York overdue for a severe earthquake?

“‘Due’ is a loaded term,” Mr. Gold said. “There’s stress on these faults and sometimes that stress is released, so these things happen. They are old faults and they don’t tend to move as much.”

The most lasting vibrations of Tuesday’s seismic thrill could be found in conversations around the city and in threads on social media — many of which took note of the explosive too-close-to-call race for Queens district attorney that was happening simultaneously on Tuesday.

It’s Friday — stay grounded.

Dear Diary:

I was stuck with a flat tire a few blocks from Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx. It was the middle of summer and very hot and humid. I was struggling to jack up my Honda Civic to change the tire. The street was on an incline, and I couldn’t keep the jack upright.

I tried to use discarded chunks of concrete I found nearby to prop up the car’s rear wheels. No luck. Every time I got the car a few inches off the ground, the jack would collapse, the car would slide back with a thud and I’d be back to square one.

I was losing hope. My 2-year-old son was strapped in his car seat, and he wasn’t having a good time. I was exhausted, dehydrated and beginning to feel lightheaded. I sat down on the sidewalk to consider my next move.

Although I hadn’t realized it, I was just a few yards away from a busy warehouse. Apparently my son’s wailing had called attention to our situation. The next thing I knew, one of the warehouse workers showed up with a forklift, lifting my car in the air so that I could change the tire. He lifted it so high I was able to do it standing up.

My son stopped crying as soon as he saw the forklift. He laughed all the way home. So did I.

— Ivo Rachev

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