Audio Interview, John W. Grace and Nelson Baldo, May 11, 2012

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, Marshall Goldman?

JOHN GRACE: He's the father.

EVELYN BAILEY: And Larry Fine is this guy, right?

JOHN GRACE: That's Larry.

Marshall's the big guy.

I was thinking of Marshall today.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, these Albany hearings--

Marshall, RJ, and Bob.

Is that Bjorn?

On the right?

No.

JOHN GRACE: Nope.

No you want to know something?

He was a photographer, I think.

And I should remember, because he

took a series of nude pictures of me.

Remember those?

NELSON BALDO: I wonder if he signed them.

I still have those.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, I'll bet you his name is on them.

NELSON BALDO: Scandalous.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, scandals-- that's

when I was young and had a body.

Remember those days?

EVELYN BAILEY: OK.

I'll make a note of that because--

NELSON BALDO: I'll take those out

and see if his name's on them.

EVELYN BAILEY: Do you have pictures?

JOHN GRACE: They're nudes of me, that that guy took.

NELSON BALDO: But he may have signed them.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then there's this one,

with Bob Osborne and Bjorn--

JOHN GRACE: There is Bjorn.

That's Bjorno.

NELSON BALDO: Oh, yeah.

Oh my god, I remember his face.

EVELYN BAILEY: And do you know who--

JOHN GRACE: No, except isn't this here.

Isn't that Marshall Goldman again?

EVELYN BAILEY: What does it say?

Top left-- Osborne, Bjorn Lawson, and Marshall Goldman.

Yes.

Gay-In, May 16th, 1971.

JOHN GRACE: OK.

And they're saying that is Bjorn, what's his last name?

Lawson.

OK, that would be it.

I don't know why I'm saying Bjorn Borg.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Isn't that a tennis player?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, it's something like that I think.

And I think they had a sex change too.

EVELYN BAILEY: Lawson-- L-A-W-S-O-N.

This is the march in Albany.

I don't know.

JOHN GRACE: Amherst College, pedarist and sodomist.

Well.

EVELYN BAILEY: And there are some other things here, but--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Are you rolling yet?

Are you recording yet?

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, yeah.

And I brought this out because John

said we started to talk to me about going

to the Top of the Plaza.

He and Nelson were in the group that--

NELSON BALDO: I wasn't with them.

KEVIN INDOVINO: John was?

NELSON BALDO: John was.

JOHN GRACE: I was the instigator for that, actually.

EVELYN BAILEY: I thought Whitey LeBlanc was the instigator.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Nah, you all take credit for everything.

JOHN GRACE: We were all--

I mean , we were all at that time together on everything,

believe me.

Whitey, how is the dear doing?

EVELYN BAILEY: Pardon me?

JOHN GRACE: How is he doing?

EVELYN BAILEY: He's doing well.

He's still being a plumber.

JOHN GRACE: Good for him.

EVELYN BAILEY: But this is the stuff

that Larry Fine gave me years ago.

Some of it's Larry's, and I think some of it

came from Bob Osborne.

And I didn't know if the pamphlet that John was talking

about would have been in here.

JOHN GRACE: Actually, all it was was like a flyer.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And this is a flyer

promoting the first dance?

JOHN GRACE: No, what had happened,

was at that period in time the Gay Liberation

Front was already formed.

But at that period in time, the police department

started going around to the gay bars.

And they had two tactics that they were doing.

One of them was they would come in,

and if they saw two men dancing together they

would arrest both of them.

And the other tactic they had done,

was because then people started to have lookouts at the door.

And if they saw the police, they would stop dancing.

So then, the police would come in, and just

arrest for loitering.

And they would always come in and choose--

because you could tell--

people that were in the closet.

And they knew that if they arrested them,

it would be a big thing.

Because, you know, either a wife was

involved, or a good job, or something like that.

And now we had two tactics to stop them.

And one of them was, when the police came in, I know myself,

Bjorn, Danny Scipione--

we would all rush to the police, and tell them to arrest us.

Because we really didn't give a shit, you know.

And we would rush to them and say, "We're fags, arrest us."

And of course, they didn't know how to deal with us then.

Then, we decided that we needed to do something

to publicize this.

And we talked to newspapers.

We talked to television stations.

Nobody wanted to deal with it.

So we as a group--

EVELYN BAILEY: Not even XXI?

JOHN GRACE: I don't even think XXI was around then, dear.

We as a group decided that what we would do--

the Top of Midtown Plaza was like the place for the upper

echelon to go-- the lawyers, the doctors, all that--

for cocktail hour.

Then, for dinner and dancing.

They always had little jazz quartets and that up there.

So we decided the thing to do would be to pair up--

a gay man and gay woman, a lesbian.

And dress very, very conservative,

and look the part of the straight world--

and go up there.

And there was--

I don't know, there was about twenty of us.

And we went up there, and we had a drink.

And we went on the dance floor, and started dancing--

man and woman together.

And then, we had one of us--

I don't even know who--

was going to cough real loud or something.

And when that happened, we were going

to break off and start dancing man and man together,

and woman and woman together.

At the same time, we had some people up there

that had leaflets.

And they were going around, they were handing them

to whoever would take him.

And the leaflets basically said, if you

won't leave us alone and let us dance in our bars,

then we're coming to you and we're dancing in yours.

And the Top of the Plaza was Foley--

was the manager.

And he somehow, I think, had a little word

that it was going to happen.

Because he had a few goons there.

And then he threw us all out, which

we knew was going to happen.

As a matter of fact, we really anticipated

we'd probably get arrested.

But that didn't happen.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But you eventually did

get thrown out after you started handing out the flyers, though?

JOHN GRACE: Oh, yeah, sure.

But you know, prior to that, I have to tell you that--

when Dick's 43 was on Stone Street.

And then, another bar opened up.

The Rathskeller, was it?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Jesse's Place, you mean?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah-- opened up.

What would happen is, especially at Dick's 43,

they would have a jukebox there.

And the guys would dance to the jukebox.

The police would show up, and they would unplug the jukebox.

And people would stop dancing.

And the police would come in, and come to the end of the bar.

And there would be a discussion.

And either Dick would come out, or Martha would come out.

I mean, I saw this on more than one occasion.

Either the bartender, or Dick or Martha

would go over and open up the cash register,

take out a sum of money, walk over hand

it to the police officer.

The police officer would walk over, plug-in the jukebox,

walk out the door.

And I mean, that's before we even had GLF.

And I mean, those are the things--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So we're talking very late '60s, early '70s,

or even earlier than that?

JOHN GRACE: Right, late '60s, early '70s.

Because I got out of the service in 1969.

And it would've been right about that period.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That was just before the GLF, though?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, because--

KEVIN INDOVINO: It was kind of the same time period.

JOHN GRACE: --we started the GLF, I think, in 1970.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now, were you born in Rochester, John?

JOHN GRACE: No, Pennsylvania.

EVELYN BAILEY: And growing up, did

you know, like, you were gay?

JOHN GRACE: Oh, yeah, yeah.

I think I knew back as far as, well, preschool.

So I always knew.

I didn't know what gay was, but I always knew.

I can remember having fantasies when I was

a kid, watching Tarzan movies.

And Tarzan would somehow get injured or something,

and they would carry him.

And I always wanted to be one of the guys that carried,

and had my hands on his leg.

And I would have been, like, four or five years old.

And I can remember having those fantasies--

so yes, always.

EVELYN BAILEY: In your youth, were there places in your town?

Where--

JOHN GRACE: I'm from Walworth, New York--

total population was 250.

There were more cows than--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So what did you--

you were born in Pennsylvania?

JOHN GRACE: Pardon?

KEVIN INDOVINO: You were born in Pennsylvania?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But then moved up to Walworth?

JOHN GRACE: Right.

Born outside of Altoona in Pennsylvania,

moved to Walworth in '50--

I don't know, like, 2, '51.

Because you couldn't get work in Pennsylvania.

My father moved up here because my mother had a sister up here.

EVELYN BAILEY: And so your high-school years

were in Walworth?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, in Central High School.

EVELYN BAILEY: And did you know about Rochester?

JOHN GRACE: I knew about Rochester, but--

I remember the first time I ever heard the word gay,

or knew the word gay.

And that was--

I would have probably been about a freshman in high school,

maybe a little earlier-- about a freshman.

Life magazine ran a story on gays.

And I had saw a hard copy of it.

And it said the word gay.

And until then, I never even knew

that that's what that meant.

Or, that that was actually a word that meant that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Roughly, what year would this have been?

JOHN GRACE: I would have been probably in seventh grade.

I graduated in '65, so it would've been late '50s--

'59.

Pardon?

KEVIN INDOVINO: '59, '60?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I'd be curious to find that Life magazine

EVELYN BAILEY: We'll look for it.

And then, when did you-- you graduated high school in '60--

JOHN GRACE: In '65.

I left for the service in '65.

I mean, I left for the service five days after graduation--

something like that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Was that-- you volunteered to go to the Army.

KEVIN INDOVINO: In the middle of Vietnam.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, but I mean there was the draft.

If you didn't volunteer, you--

KEVIN INDOVINO: You would have been drafted anyway.

JOHN GRACE: Exactly.

And you would have went--

NELSON BALDO: Army.

EVELYN BAILEY: In the Army?

JOHN GRACE: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, he was in the Air Force.

He enlisted in the Air Force, so he would

get drafted into the Army.

JOHN GRACE: Nelson joined the Air Force also.

We're an Air Force family.

EVELYN BAILEY: Did you meet in the Air Force?

JOHN GRACE: In a way, after.

Right after he got out.

JOHN GRACE: We used to have a bumper sticker,

we are an Air Force family, on the back of our little Gremlin.

EVELYN BAILEY: Can you share, either of you, or both of you,

a little bit about--

well, did you know, Nelson, that you were gay when

you went into the Air Force?

NELSON BALDO: Yeah, definitely.

EVELYN BAILEY: And did you grow up in Rochester?

NELSON BALDO: East Rochester.

Born in Pennsylvania as well.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, isn't that interesting?

EVELYN BAILEY: And did you know about downtown Rochester

when you were in East Rochester?

NELSON BALDO: Ah, I think, you know, I first went--

I'm thinking of when Jenny first brought me out.

I was home on leave from the Air Force.

My neighbor underwent a sex change.

And she was the high-school athlete in East Rochester.

She did everything.

She drove cars, and played baseball.

Ended up playing in a woman's rock

band that used to play around--

all lesbians.

And she had a sex change.

But when I was home, she really clued me in

as to what was going on with me.

And she brought me to a bar down off of State Street

JOHN GRACE: That's the one where it was straight at the bar,

and you walked in back and there was dancing.

NELSON BALDO: They had shows.

Yeah, they had drag shows.

JOHN GRACE: It was on Brown Street.

NELSON BALDO: But I ended up going home with a bouncer.

JOHN GRACE: Well, the funny thing

is Jenny Bolivia used to race Corvettes, drag race Corvettes.

And little did I know at that time, all the men in Walworth

idolized her.

They just thought she was it.

She drag raced, man.

Of course, they had no idea she was

a lesbian, or anything else.

And I never thought anything about it.

Until I was talking to him and his mother once,

and they told me about Jenny.

I said, "Oh, she used to race."

NELSON BRANDO:: Yeah, she's quite well known.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Jenny was a man who became a woman,

but a (interposing voices) woman became a man.

NELSON BALDO: She's Jay now.

She lives in California.

He lives in California, god, the first time.

In fact, the first time he came home, I was at a party.

And I got a phone call-- we had a restaurant at the time.

And they put him on.

And he said, "Nelson, this is Jay."

And we were having this conversation--

and we have a good friend, Jay, up in Boston.

And I said, Jay from California--

I said, "I'm sorry, I just can't place Jay from California."

And then he said, "Nel, this is Jenny."

And he came into the restaurant the next day.

You know, we had decided to meet there.

And I was all apprehensive.

I had no idea what he was going to look like.

You know, because some of them look like your aunt dressed up.

And he's perfect, and happy.

And he was always just so masculine, and good

at anything he wanted to do.

And lives in California, married.

JOHN GRACE: Didn't he marry Miss America or something?

NELSON BALDO: He was involved with a couple of things,

and had his own company.

But he told me-- he said, "I've always just wanted

to be the guy next door."

There's nothing sensational in it.

He's just living as a suburban schmuck, you know.

That's what he said to me--

I always just wanted to be the guy next door.

And my family knows, of course--

and very accepting.

And I haven't heard anything from him.

He keeps in touch with Cheryl Martin, the photographer.

And when I run into Cheryl occasionally,

she'll catch me up on it.

But I haven't heard anything now for years.

I haven't seen Cheryl for a while, actually.

EVELYN BAILEY: Was the bar Jim's?

NELSON BALDO: No, he met me at my restaurant.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, but the bar on State Street--

NELSON BALDO: It was behind Kodak-- maybe on Brown Street.

And the guy who owns it was Louis.

And he still owns strip clubs.

Really unsavory type, it's great.

EVELYN BAILEY: The Red Fez?

The Brown Derby?

JOHN GRACE: Wait a second, something Derby.

EVELYN BAILEY: Blue Chip?

NELSON BALDO: Could have been the Blue Chip.

JOHN GRACE: The Blue Chip.

NELSON BALDO: I remember that.

JOHN GRACE: There we go.

That's what I think.

NELSON BALDO: I wonder if that was it?

Think that was it?

JOHN GRACE: I think it was.

EVELYN BAILEY: Ma Martins was on Front Street way back.

NELSON BALDO: No, that wasn't it.

EVELYN BAILEY: And then, Dick's.

NELSON BALDO: So it must have been

the Blue Chip That's the only bar I can remember, now

that you said it.

JOHN GRACE: See you're going back--

Nelson is older than me actually.

I know it doesn't look that way.

But you're going back with him when this happened,

probably '67,

NELSON BALDO: I don't know (unintelligible)

when Jenny brought me out.

EVELYN BAILEY: How old were you?

NELSON BALDO: Somewhere around twenty.

EVELYN BAILEY: And when were you born, if you don't mind?

NELSON BALDO: No, not at all.

I was born in '44.

EVELYN BAILEY: So it would have been 1964, or 1965.

NELSON BALDO: Yeah, because after high school

I messed around with college for a while.

And then, I was drafted into the Army.

And I could not believe--

they were really scraping the bottom

of the barrel on that one.

So I went through in Buffalo, is where

I went through all the testing.

You had to stay overnight.

I think I joined the Air Force the next day.

I said, I'm not going to spend time with these people.

And it was really the dregs of society.

I could not believe it.

EVELYN BAILEY: So having said that about one armed services

branch, what was your experience in the Air Force like?

Were you out?

NELSON BALDO: Not out.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, you couldn't be out.

You could not be out.

See, that's something that I don't think--

and I was thinking of this today--

anybody has ever addressed.

And that is, exactly what it was like prior to Don't Ask,

Don't Tell, and all that.

Because there was something called a Section 8.

First of all, you either went in the service,

or you had another choice.

Because we had the draft.

You could tell them that you were homosexual,

and they would not take you.

But if you did that, then they had something

called a Section 8 that they labeled you as.

And that was the end of your life.

You did not get a job.

You were a third-class citizen--

not even a second class--

all the rest of your life.

And if you were in the service, and you told

somebody you were gay--

and you got discharged because of that--

or if you got caught with somebody, and you were gay,

they gave you a Section 8 discharge.

And I mean, literally, colleges would not accept you.

You did not go into any kind of gainful employment

that was worthwhile.

It just was the end of your life.

And I was thinking about that today.

And I was thinking about how controlling it was--

how society was, if you were gay.

I mean, I used to be in the Speaker's Bureau for the Gay

Liberation Front.

And the one thing I used to always tell people--

I used to go, you know why there's so many homosexuals,

don't you?

I said, Christ, they advertise you everywhere.

I mean, they just advertise you everywhere.

Why wouldn't there be, you know?

EVELYN BAILEY: So you didn't meet in the Air Force,

or did you?

NELSON BALDO: No, we met after.

JOHN GRACE: We met Dick's 43.

Either Dick's 43 or the Rathskeller.

We met at the Rathskeller.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Where was that again?

NELSON BALDO: Behind midtown, behind the bus station

at midtown.

JOHN GRACE: I had a white T-shirt on.

I was in Britain--

with a big English flag on the front of it.

And he couldn't resist me.

And that was 45-plus years ago.

EVELYN BAILEY: Wow.

So when you were involved with the GLF,

you were not a student at the University of Rochester.

You were a "community member."

JOHN GRACE: All that's very interesting,

because the very first meeting for the GLF

happened in Eva Scipione living room.

And Eva Scipione is the mother of Danny Scipione

who has died now of AIDS.

But that was the very first meeting,

was in Eva's living room.

Have you ever talked to Eva Scipione?

EVELYN BAILEY: No.

JOHN GRACE: You should make a point of it.

NELSON BALDO: She's still involved.

She got the quilt here.

She worked on getting the quilt here.

EVELYN BAILEY: She got gray hair?

NELSON BALDO: Oh yeah, short.

EVELYN BAILEY: And glasses, short?

I have met her.

I didn't know--

JOHN GRACE: Wonderful woman.

EVELYN BAILEY: --that's who it was.

JOHN GRACE: Well, at the time, of course

it wasn't the way it is today.

I mean, I can remember Eva coming home.

And the meeting amounted to--

there was me, there was Bjorn.

There was Danny Scipione and there

was somebody else that I can't quite--

EVELYN BAILEY: Bob Crystal?

JOHN GRACE: Could be, yes.

EVELYN BAILEY: Not RJ?

JOHN GRACE: No, it wasn't RJ.

Because it wasn't anybody from the U of R.

And we had the meeting, and we formed--

whatever that means.

But then we all looked at each other and said--

Eva came home while we were having this meeting.

Danny got up and chased her out.

And we all said, well, we're not going to be meeting here.

Where are we going to meet?

And this won't do as a group.

And somehow-- and I think it was through RJ-- somebody got

talking with RJ about what we had done before in this group.

And somehow, it got moved to the U of R.

But in order to be at the U of R,

there had to be U of R people.

Because we couldn't do that as non-students.

I mean, they gave money.

They never really gave money--

what they did was give a room to meet in, stuff like that.

And somebody from the U of R had to be involved.

And of course, most of the students

there were very closeted.

And why don't you be?

I mean, we're going back to, like, 1970.

EVELYN BAILEY: The first meeting at the University

of Rochester of the Gay Liberation Front was,

according to the history that I know, October 3rd, 1970.

Bob Osborne and Larry Fine invited

a member of the Mattachine Society,

and a member of the Cornell GLF to speak at Todd Union.

And there were about 100 people who came.

And out of that meeting, came the GLF,

the Gay Liberation Front.

Now, that's--

JOHN GRACE: Well, first of all, I

think you need to look at the poster,

because those dates don't jive.

That's the first dance there.

And the first events weekend.

And that was in October of 1970.

So the dates don't really jive.

It's all very vague, what the history was.

NELSON BALDO: It's a long time ago.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That is a long time ago.

I just want to step back a little bit,

and I want to talk a little bit about that meeting

at Eva's house.

I mean, tell me what it was like.

What were you talking about?

What were your initial ideas of what you were trying to do?

JOHN GRACE: We don't really know.

Except that it had happened at Stonewall--

all that had happened at Stonewall.

We were experiencing problems here in Rochester.

And we met as a way to just advance us as people forward.

I mean, that was our whole idea.

EVELYN BAILEY: What made you come together?

JOHN GRACE: You have to understand something.

When I got out of the service--

First of all, when I was in the service, I got sent to England.

And I met an English gentleman there, George Pritchard.

And until that point, I had never

fully connected in my brain that a man could really love a man.

I'd had plenty of homosexual sex, but it was simply sex.

And I met this guy-- and I did, I fell very much in love

with him.

And it was just entirely different.

It just opened up this whole different realm to me.

And yet, I couldn't do anything with it.

I mean, because if I would have ever gotten caught, as I said,

life was over.

When I got my discharge from the service in June of 1969--

I remember when I got in the airplane,

and I landed in New Jersey.

I changed into my civilian clothes.

I took all of my military clothes,

and I threw them in the garbage.

And I just said to myself, this is a promise to me,

no one will ever control my life like that again.

That is never going to happen in my life.

And that's really where my motivation came from

to get with Danny and Bjorn.

I mean, Bjorn was being thrown in prison

for being a drag queen.

Do you know what I mean?

It was a horrible experience in this city.

NELSON BALDO: She was very brave

JOHN GRACE: Yes.

Bjorn was very brave.

And of course the thing about Bjorn,

was that he had the backing of his family.

Because his family was out in, like

I said, Sweden or something.

And his mother used to sew his gowns and that for him.

So I mean, he came from a family that was very understanding.

And Danny had his mother, who was an--

Eva Scipione is an incredible woman.

She knew what Danny was, and was always right

there for him, and behind him.

And even the day he died of AIDS,

she was right there with him.

And then took care of one of his lovers until he died.

And that's just the way Eva is.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you got back here

in June of '69, which is basically

when Stonewall happened.

Did you land actually when the riots were happening?

JOHN GRACE: Very shortly after.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Then, you came back up to Walworth

immediately?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, I did really.

Actually what happened was, I had

a Triumph TR4 that came over.

I had bought it in England.

So I went from the base--

what is the name of that base in New Jersey?

Dix.

I went from there to--

it was north New Jersey, to the docks.

Picked up my Triumph TR4, and drove to Walworth.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And try to give folks-- since the time

that you came back, were discharged from the service,

to when that first meeting at Eva's house.

When did that meeting happen?

JOHN GRACE: Well, let's see.

Nelson, you and I met--

we met literally within a week from me getting out

of the service, two weeks.

NELSON BALDO: It was real close, because we got the dog.

He had-- holding a sheep dog he had sent back,

and we picked it up together at the airport.

So it wasn't long.

JOHN GRACE: So it was just a matter of weeks and we met.

EVELYN BAILEY: So, 1969.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, that's when we met.

NELSON BALDO: So it was June or July.

JOHN GRACE: Well, I got out June 28th.

And we would have been together--

you went to the Cape for July 4th.

And I was going to go with you.

And I got out, and I landed a job at Xerox.

And they said to me, "Well, you can't go."

I wanted to go with him to the Cape,

and I said, "I want some time off to go."

And they said, "If you do that, you've lost this job."

So I stayed.

EVELYN BAILEY: And so, how soon after that did you and Danny--

JOHN GRACE: I would say within six to seven months--

maybe a little bit more than that.

Because we went from living on next, to the art gallery.

And we moved over to Westminster Road-- he and I did.

And it was while we were at Westminster Road we formed it.

We got together and did that.

See, but everything was gelling at that time.

Because Stonewall happened, and Stonewall was a major event.

I mean, there were gays threatening

to burn down a city if they didn't get what

they thought they were due.

And they were due, you know what I mean?

EVELYN BAILEY: Here in Rochester?

JOHN GRACE: No, Stonewall and I mean, people here in Rochester

were saying, we're not going to sit in this bar

and let the police come in here and intimidate us any more.

It's just not going to happen.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So we're looking at, probably like,

fall or winter time when you guys are eventually meeting.

JOHN GRACE: That's what I would think.

See, if you look at this--

now, unfortunately there is no year on that.

Somebody told me you never put a year on a

KEVIN INDOVINO: That makes no sense.

JOHN GRACE: But see, it's October 23rd.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But do you know if this

was the first liberation dance?

JOHN GRACE: Yeah.

Look at it, it says there.

EVELYN BAILEY: I believe that was in--

JOHN GRACE: I think it was '71.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes, it was in '71.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That would make sense,

because you wouldn't throw a dance immedately after forming.

JOHN GRACE: No.

And we had the office at the U of R for a while,

and then put this together.

EVELYN BAILEY: See, Patti Evans--

JOHN GRACE: Patti Evans, I was going

to mention her to you earlier.

EVELYN BAILEY: Bob Osborne and Larry knew Patti.

And Bob Osborne wouldn't leave Patti alone,

and got her to come to a Gay Liberation Front meeting,

early in 1971--

maybe mid 1971--

July maybe.

And she talks about that first dance

as being the most wonderful experience of her life.

JOHN GRACE: See, I believe Patti Evans--

that flyer I talked about for Midtown Plaza,

I believe Patti Evans authored that.

That's what I think.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Is that the flyer

she also took to the parks?

Or was that later on?

That was like '74, I think.

EVELYN BAILEY: I don't know.

JOHN GRACE: Well, Patti is still around, isn't she?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

And we've interviewed her, and we've filmed her actually.

But that-- the specifics of things are--

see, no one wrote it down.

I mean, it is written down, but--

JOHN GRACE: See, but then you have

people, which is so strange--

there is a woman, I don't even know

if I should give you her name, that I danced

with at the top of the plaza.

She was very out.

But now, she has went way back into the closet.

And she is a preacher, and has a church somewhere.

And the last time I saw her, she was like absolutely desperate

that I didn't tell anybody that she's gay,

because she had this church.

And I thought, boy, that's sad.

She could shed a lot of light on this

too, because she was my dance partner there.

Have you spoke with Marge David?

EVELYN BAILEY: I have.

Kevin hasn't.

And Marge thought she'd be able to come today,

but had a dinner engagement.

So we're seeing her next week or the following week.

But she was a part of that.

JOHN GRACE: Oh, she was part of the whole thing,

right at the beginning.

As a matter of fact, her--

I'm just going to say the woman's name, Liz Bell--

Elizabeth Bell.

EVELYN BAILEY: Oh, she's out now.

NELSON BALDO: Karen said the same thing.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, we talked to her.

JOHN GRACE: To Liz?

So Liz is back out again?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

NELSON BALDO: I think the last time I saw Karen,

she told me that she had spoken to her.

JOHN GRACE: OK, she's back out again.

OK.

Liz Bell and Marge David were lovers at the time.

And they lived over in Sanford Street.

And that's how this whole thing got onto the University

of Rochester.

We got introduced to Larry Fine and all of that.

Through that, we met Patti Evans.

I mean, it just all happened.

And I don't think it's a matter of anybody taking

a lot of credit for anything.

Yes, Larry-- or Danny, Bjorn, and myself

got together in his mother's living room.

But is that really the beginning?

Who knows.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It sounds to me like there

were a couple of things going on at the same time.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, there was a lot of things going on.

And remember, there was no place where we had all of us to meet.

You didn't go to a gay bar and meet, like,

Marge and Elizabeth.

Because they didn't go the same gay bar as I went to,

and Danny went to.

Do you know what I'm saying-- and Bjorn went to.

EVELYN BAILEY: I can throw out names

to you, such as, yes, well, Whitey, of course.

Mark Hull.

JOHN GRACE: Oh, I remember Mark Hull.

Mark Hull was older, right?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

JOHN GRACE: And he had the place in Bullshead.

Right, where, yes, okay.

Is Mark still around?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

JOHN GRACE: Oh good, OK.

EVELYN BAILEY: And Jay Baker.

JOHN GRACE: Jay Baker.

Jay Baker was a prof at Monroe Community.

EVELYN BAILEY: Then, he became editor of the Empty Closet.

JOHN GRACE: Did he really?

Jay and I had some difficulties.

EVELYN BAILEY: Whitey LeBlanc twisted his arm, apparently.

Maybe more than his arm, but I'm not sure.

JOHN GRACE: Because Jay tried to form a group--

I forget the name of it.

It promoted

NELSON BALDO: Man-boy love, or--

JOHN GRACE: Man boy love or something like that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Oh, Amanda?

JOHN GRACE: Amanda, yeah.

And I mean--

EVELYN BAILEY: Roseanne Leipzig.

JOHN GRACE: You know, I'm not sure.

EVELYN BAILEY: A fellow by the name of Earl.

Joseph Johns.

JOHN GRACE: There, I was trying to think of his name today.

I was trying to think of Joseph Johns' name

today before I came over here.

He was lovers with Dick Recent-- probably still is.

He was an interior decorator.

Joseph and I, for some reason, always did

a lot of speaking engagements together.

Joseph, myself, and Danny Scipione-- the three of us.

For some reason, it always happened that way.

One of the things was, that a lot of people

didn't want to do speaking engagements,

because you had to really be out to do it.

It was almost like an AA meeting.

You walked in, you sat down, you said your name.

And you said, "I'm a homosexual, you

must have a lot of questions, please ask them."

And you just made your life an open book.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When you were going out

on these speaking engagements, who were you talking to?

What kind of groups were you talking to?

JOHN GRACE: It was like college groups.

There were some high-school groups, not many.

I know they went to--

Tim Maine set it up to go to Greece Athena, or one

of the Greece high schools.

I did not go on that.

But it didn't go well.

That was about a riot-- the students freaked out.

And they ended up having to take the gay speakers

and get them in the cafeteria, and then

get them out the back door to a car

and get them out of town there.

It just didn't go well.

But I remember, we did a speaking engagement at the JYO.

It was a very strange group, I thought.

It was people in their 40s and 50s.

And it was a small set of people in their 40s and 50s,

from some Jewish group.

And their questions and everything

were absolutely fascinating.

I mean, they were all extremely well-thought out questions,

and everything like that--

had great conversations with them.

And it was some kind of study group, whatever,

within the Jewish community, about homosexuality.

A couple of them were rabbis.

But we went wherever we were requested.

EVELYN BAILEY: Do you remember any particular GLF meetings?

Say, the meeting at which it was decided--

when Mark Hull made the offer to go to Brown Street.

JOHN GRACE: Yeah, I mean, we were being thrown off U of R.

And the reason we were being thrown out of the U of R

is, the U of R had figured out that the U of R students that

belonged with us were just figureheads.

You know what I mean?

They were with us so that we could claim that there

was U of R student presence.

And they wanted us out of there.

So, no, I don't remember that meeting,

but I remember Mark Hull did offer that.

And I remember going down there and looking at it at one point.

EVELYN BAILEY: What were the GLF meetings like?

What did you talk about?

What was the atmosphere?

JOHN GRACE: It was very casual.