Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 106

ROBERT MAYER Out of the Closets Into the Streets All over Central Park Sunday afternoon young couples could be seen in their private reveries holding hands talking softly kissing Up near the reservoir they kissed in the shade of dark' trees In foe crush of people around Bethesda Fountain they held hands and listened to a dozen guitars In the wide open space of the Sheep Meadow they stretched out In the sunshine and gazed up at a score of kites that danced like insects in foe far-up sky It was much like any other Sunday boys and girb together enjoying what little chunk of nature the city offers At the south end of foe Sheep Meadow the picture was only slightly different Here too there was handholding soft murmurs moist kisses But hers the girb were holding hands with girls the boys were kissing ofosr boys A five-day of homo-sexuab was nearing its aid and the participants were having a Joyful unself-conscious outing in foe park Under one tree a young blond couple both men were kissing passionately while a knot of people pressed around them cameras clicking The crowd grew larger aa foe long uninterrupted kiss continued On and on it went Finally a young man shouted to the crowd for attention and gentlemen" he announced have just broken the longest continuing kissing eight hours and 40 minutes" gasped a woman passerby been here since seven fob morning" a young man told her foe woman said Consequencm of a Village Incident He appear to be kidding In a sense this public kiss between two young men began even earlier than that It began a year ago yesterday June 29 1969 On that night hot sultry evening police in Greenwich Village raided a homosexual bar called The Stonewall Inn smashed foe place apart and sent foe customers out into the street Such raids had taken place many times before in many places but fob time foe customers fought back They picked up rocks and bottles and hurled them at the imlire shouting cries of For three suocxwite nights the homosexuals poured into Christopher Street taunting police and blocking traffic The Stonewall Inn still a battered barren place with a Rent" sign on it now But those three nights were a turning point in the long quest by homosexuals for equal rights They have adopted in foe past year foe tactics used by foe peace movement the black power advocates and foe libera-tionists One tactic involves organizing for political power The other requires piddle demonstrations Nearly -20 homosexual organizations from all over foe Northeast joined to sponsor a five-day program in New York that began last Wednesday and entled Sunday commemorating the Stonewall raid Tier? were lectures films discussions and dances in the evening All week long the homosexuals could ho seen in greater numbers than usual walking through tlte city like so many visiting dentists Signs Buttons and Dancing Sunday in foe park there were ahmit 301 H) of them Some carried signs that said Is Good" Others wore buttons that said of Hip Closets Into the Streets" The men danced together to music from portable phonographs and kissed each oilier on the necks Bystanders watched with no visible outrage surprised to see so many straight eupls standing around accepting one homosexual said That fact alone made the day a success I lonm-spxuab are discriminated against by laws that restrict sex acts performed in private by consenting adults often fired by employers when their homosexuality becomes known There is still a long distance between a kiss in public and a rewriting of the criminal codes but leaders of Lite homosexual organizations are confident that that day too shall come Reducing that little flicker of horror in I In eves of the straight world their first gojl JACK ALTSHUL Teen Jesses Cause Woe For LIRR The Indictment last week of Richard Glennon deputy director of purchase and supply Is part of a continuing investigation by DA William Cahn that may lead to trouble far higher officials in the county administration daman was Indicted for allegedly giving advance information on a county bid A recent drowning In Long Island waters at first written off as an accident Is now being studied by homicide detectives Their suspicions were aroused when they learned about the heavy life insurance policy carried by the victim and by unaccountable bruises on the body The short-staffed Long Island Railroad police department may have to press Into service volunteer posses to help control the Juvenile Jesse Jameses who are holding up freight cars on an almost daily basis The kids operate cm the Evergreen branch near Brownsville darting onto the trades in numbers forcing the engineer to stop the train and jumping into the cars to help themselves Railroad cops find themselves so outnumbered they cope with the problem Almost 10 years in the working Glen municipal golf course will open either this fall or next spring according to Ed Zendle a member of the golf commission Currently the city is interviewing golf pros and looking for a head greenskeeper a a Carlos Cruz who represents Puerto Rican community in the Town of blip Building Dept as a deputy director got the testimonial dinner treatment the other night in Amityville He received a Distinguished Service Award from the Amityville Masonic Lodge A parakeet for sale got out of hb cage In a Jericho Turnpike department store the other day and the security guards accustomed to other types of protest demonstrations watched in amusement as the bird flew around the premises They moved in to effect a capture however when the bird attempted to leave the store without being paid for That was Whitey Ford sm Jacket or tie trying to achieve a late-night dinner at plush Capriccio in Jericho the other night Maltre a baseball buff and Whitey left hungry The Impossible Job foe slums no matter who the mayor linppi-ncd lx-" Thu theme of a municipal governnMMil struggling to merely keep its head above water permeates the Kbin book Although he is critics! of performance as mayor he is even more critical of a system which keeps foe mayor constantly immersed in crises or ceremony Thera no time for the long-range thinking and acting needed to cure the grave ills Let Klein who was there describe the first month we seemed to be running in circles There were many meetings but not much action Tim kind of headlines that Lindsay received were liead-lines having to do with his personal appearances such as at a fire one night or at a building coll-ip-te or at an empty garbage strewn lot which lie pledged to clean up" Four Months Later: No Difference Four months bier foo situation was no lx-tter five months I viewed the mayoralty ns a near Impossible task As I sat near the mayor day after day I could see his time and energy Ix-ing slowly drained Rarely does a week go by without some major crisis at City Hall A labor dispute a scandal turmoil in foe streets racial confrontations always a fin to lx put out At the same time the mayor ia literally barraged by hundreds of invitations each week to apeak before politically powerful groiifM to grant interviews to participate in ceremonies for foreign dignitaries to meet with other politicians or lenders of the business and labor establishment As Kbin summed it up: trouble was of course that there was only one John Lindsay and if lie appear on some of these occasions no substitute! were accepted" A seemingly Impossible Job Yet If Lindsay or his successors fail all in trouble city residents and suburbanites alike Can the downward slide of the greatest city New York be halted? Even an optimist likely to be shaken by the experience and revelations of an idealistic former newspaperman who played an important rob In the first two-and-n-half years of John administration at City Hall Woody Klein who was first press secretary paints a grim picture in hb just published and fascinating book Promise The Dream That The bat paragraph in book sums it up: "Aa a result of my experience I am convinced that at least in foe foreseeable future there littb anyone can do to revive a desperate New York Not even John Lindsay" The plight of the city can be seen In foe story of one slum building on 100th St The crumbling rat-infested foul hovel was first publicized by newspapers and oven a television doemmentary in 1961 But littb was dona until 1964 when foe folen-63-year-old building was taken over by the city for repairs and rehabilitation under the bw In foe next three years under both the Wagner and Lindsay administrations an astounding total of $34233 of city money was poured into the building and yet by 1968 when Klein left foe administration the building was still a shambles Mora than 1000 vfobtiani had been pasted against the building since it waa taken over by the city Tenants Object to Moving Why not tear It down and start all over again? The tenants and their neighbors objected because they want to move The city did not have clear title to the building A new building would mean higher rentab for the tenants many of whom were on welfare Klein describes the building as a to the Indifference and complete inability of the municipal housing bureaucracy to cope with foo crisis of HunS loutavlila Couiter-Toum! 'So You Punks Feel Alienated Huh? Well Why? Speek Up Kookl1 3 Tuesday June 10 170.