Folsom Street East
27th St. and 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
More so than anywhere else in the world, there is no shortage of entertainment opportunities in New York during Pride month.
The weekend before Pride takes place a somewhat unusual street fair on W 27th street: Folsom Street East. As the name indicates, Folsom Street East is the New York version of the famous San Francisco based Folsom Street fair, a block party celebrating the Leather, Bear, Kink, Fetish, BDSM, you-name-it communities.
The desolated urban landscape of West 27th street, in the fringe of Chelsea, is the perfect setting for this picturesque gathering of leather daddies, bears, cubs, kinky dykes, and fetishists of all kinds, who come outside of their usual dungeon under the sweltering summer sun of New York for an afternoon of outdoor fun.
The air on 27th street smells good of poppers and beer, and much flesh is on display all over the street, nicely outfitted with elaborated leather or latex gears. Community associations, specialty manufacturers and porn companies have set up their booths, alongside ice cream carts and hot dog stands. Performers, drag queens, Leather celebrities, activists and even politicians take turn on the stage to keep the crowd entertained and mobilized.
Browsing through the vivid stands of the various vendors can be at times titillating, instructive, and astonishing. Among the local businesses showcasing their products, Mind Fetish Gear generated quite some attention, with their collections of home clothing and linens specially designed for the leather man lifestyle. Their gorgeous sets of embroiled leather bed sheets are both aesthetically superb and robustly built to handle any types of adult play without wearing out.
In past editions of Folsom Street East, the club Crobar would open the doors to its Reed Rooms, providing a welcomed haven to relax and dance under the fresh breeze of the Air Conditioning system. With its surreal decoration made of cylindrical perches rising to the ceiling, and immersed in a dark haze, the room looked like an new age version of the enchanted forest, and offered many hidden corners where one could disappear to take care of some private businesses.
Outside, on the stage, Leather celebrities - including the recently crowned Mr. Leather and his heirs – take to the stage to keep the crowd entertained, alongside New York’s own Imperial Court, which brings a dash of burlesque to the event. In 2006, Miss Trai LaTrash dazzled the audience with her rendition of Madonna’s Hanky Panky accompanied by Leather Daddies armed with a spanking board as backup dancers.
Further down the street, expectedly, the Eagle Bar is enjoying one of its busiest day of the year. The venerable establishment gets packed to the rafters with a dense crowd of sweaty, bare chest men, pouring down their throats an unstopping flow of draft beer, while trying to navigate across the different floors, many aiming to gain access to the rooftop which provides a nice vantage point on the festivities and the sea of naked flesh down below.
