People’s Riisearch Group

Public spaces can be crucial sites of messy and collective ecological, social, and cultural value, and this is especially true of public spaces utilized for queer gathering. However, planning processes designed around private property logics economically pressure and culturally flatten these non-normative and generative spaces in New York City and globally. This challenge is twofold; it is the physical removal of diverse communities AND the displacement and disruption of cultural knowledge and both social and ecological relationships.

Queer and trans people–especially working class queer and trans people and queer and trans people of color–have historically relied on often devalued public spaces to build community while also being at a heightened risk of violence and policing in public. As a humble and long-standing queer space in New York City, Bays 1 and 2 of People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park have offered safety, community, and joy for over seventy years—though not uncontested by police and voyeurs.

Recent demolition, nearby luxury development, and increased surveillance—not to mention the drastic refiguring of the landscape by climate change and uneven infrastructure implementation—are applying pressure to this crucial site of queer gathering.

With the desire to protect queer histories and futures at Riis and support GLITS’ campaigns to landmark queer Riis and establish community control of land adjacent to the beach, jah elyse sayers launched the People’s Riisearch Group with founding members lex barlowe, dash pinheiro, and Safiyyah Riddle. Utilizing participatory art and research-based methods, the People’s Riisearch Group is collecting, compiling, and mobilizing both institutional and personal archival materials about queer Riis and conducting oral history interviews with queer Riis community members.