Video Interview, Mark Hull, November 29, 2011

MARK HULL: Well, all this time I didn't know anything

about that.

Well, then when I got to the Burroughs Corporation,

that was a staid and straitlaced thing.

And they didn't have any young men really working there.

And so I didn't do that.

And then after I left Burroughs, I

went to the Standard Oil Company.

And I remember they had one guy.

And I suddenly became aware that the girls in the accounting

department had the hots for this one young guy

and always wondered what parties Thomas Haringer was attending

and all this and that.

But I didn't do anything about that.

But then there was a guy who came in as an apprentice

in the accounting department.

That's where I was with the Standard Oil Company.

It told you I was a traveling auditor.

And he was very nice.

And at that time, I got an invitation

to be a part of the alumni club at the University of Rochester

and go swimming every week.

So I began taking this cute guy from the Standard Oil Company

swimming with me, just so I could look at his bare body.

I didn't have anything to do and I didn't have any sex with him

or I didn't hug him, kiss him, or do anything like that.

But I was just interested in seeing him naked,

is what I did.

And I took several young people--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Are we rolling?

Oh, OK.

[LAUGHTER]

KEVIN INDOVINO: All right.

MARK HULL: You're interested in--

KEVIN INDOVINO: I'm going to pull you back here.

MARK HULL: All right.

CAMERAMAN: I just need you to slide a little to your right,

or at least stay--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Me?

CAMERAMAN: Yeah.

Your arm--

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you don't want me to lean in?

CAMERAMAN: Yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, I'll lean this way.

OK.

Mark.

Ignore the cameras, ignore the lights.

This is just a conversation between you and I.

MARK HULL: Fine.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So when I ask you something

and you start answering and then you figure--

even if you think, oh, I can say that better,

just say, you know what, let me try that again.

MARK HULL: OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So don't worry about stopping if you need to.

MARK HULL: OK.

CAMERAMAN: I'm just-- I may do you this from time to time.

MARK HULL: You may do whatever you wish.

CAMERAMAN: So that you're recording into the camera.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Sorry, Brian.

Whatever I wish?

MARK HULL: Why do you have to be sorry to him?

You don't owe him any debt of gratitude

I don't think, unless he's your lover

and you think he's getting fresh with me.

[LAUGHTER]

KEVIN INDOVINO: All right, so back to my original question.

We don't need to get into details of your coming out

or the gay thing yet.

I just want you to give me a sense

of what it was like living in Rochester in the 1950s

and '60s.

CAMERAMAN: Kevin, I'm going to stop just for one--

I'm sorry.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Not too long.

[LAUGHTER]

MARK HULL: Off camera, off the record for the moment.

I have to tell you, when I look and when

I look at myself between the ages of, say, 12 and 21,

I was really very stupid.

I mean, I knew so little it was pathetic.

I was a good student.

But I didn't know anything about life and about living

and about sex.

I told you once before when I asked my mother,

she said, ask your father.

And when I asked my father, he said, when you need to know,

you'll find out.

That's exactly what he said.

So I was totally in the dark.

And I had two, three aunts and they all--

they thought it was--

they wondered why I didn't have a girlfriend.

I didn't wonder why I didn't have a girlfriend.

I didn't know why I didn't have a girlfriend.

What the heck did I want with a girlfriend?

I didn't know.

But I was really so dumb.

And then when I was 22 years old,

a Jewish man by the name of Mordecai Greenberg

and his wife Elisbeth--

E-L-I-S-B-E-T-H, Elisbeth.

They were really strict Jews.

And they took an interest in me because they

didn't have any-- they had a girl,

but they didn't have any male children.

And Mordecai took a real interest in me

and so did his wife.

And they were really great people.

They made me aware.

He said if you will be friends to us,

we will be friends to you-- my father didn't like that--

and said, we will show you how the Jews make money.

And they got involved in my investment activities.

They put up money to help me buy into things,

and that sort of thing.

And I had a friendship with them for the rest of my life.

And I became more--

the more money I made, the more worldly I became.

I became more independent.

And I began to learn more things.

This is just telling you how I grew up as an individual.

And that's really how I grew up as an individual.

I had no appreciation of--

I had no appreciation of, again, how things were in the world.

Now, in 1947, I guess it was, I was already

at the Eastman School of Music.

I had been there since 1944.

And I had seen--

I was invited to something at Kilburn Hall

and Lyndon Croxford was the man who put on the show

on Edvard Grieg.

And I thought he looked like a good teacher.

And I asked if I could study with him.

They told me, yes.

And in the fall, I expected to study with him.

And I found out he got fired.

I thought-- I wondered why it was that he got fired.

Well, the reason he got fired was

because he was having sex with a boy and was found out about it.

See, I had not heard that that stuff went on.

I didn't know.

And the next thing I knew, they had hired a new person

from Juilliard and his name was Harold Weiss.

And it developed that he was a good teacher,

and he was a nice teacher.

He really was.

And I studied with him for like 15 years.

And I remember the horror I had when I went to Sibley's one

Saturday and found him soliciting

for sex in the men's room--

in the downstairs men's room of--

he's dead now so I'm telling you this.

There's nothing-- no harm going to come of it.

But I thought that was just unbelievable.

Well, then he introduced me to several members--

he saw that I saw that he was in that men's room.

And he said, "Everything is strictly on the QT."

I said, all right.

But he let me know about other faculty

people in the University of Rochester who were gay men

and who never wanted to be exposed.

But he obviously trusted me.

And until this very day, I have not

mentioned to anybody about this business that I knew.

All right, now, this was all developing in that 10 year

period leading up to 1961 and the Dr. Draper business.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let me--

MARK HULL: Go ahead, go ahead.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So you're seeing all this,

and you're hearing about all this.

What were you feeling personally about your own sexuality?

MARK HULL: I was totally ambivalent--

totally.

It's just-- I just was not--

never thought of making any kind of an alliance

with another man, or another person.

But I never fell in love with a girl.

I never really did.

Feelings would stir inside me.

I'd see a beautiful guy come along

and stir of feelings would stir inside me.

And I didn't know what was causing this.

And I really didn't know what was causing this.

But I had no feelings toward the opposite sex at all.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so let's jump to the 1960s.

MARK HULL: All right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's take it from Dr. Draper on.

You eventually came out.

You eventually--

MARK HULL: I came out in 1967 when I was 36 years old.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that.

Talk to me about that experience.

What were you-- what were your fears?

What were your desires?

What were you feeling inside at that moment?

MARK HULL: I never had any fear.

I really never had any fear.

I told you that in '67 I went with Mr. Rochester.

You remember the weightlifter?

And we went to Toronto.

And he had sex in the same hotel room with--

we had one hotel room.

And he brought a young man in and he

had sex with the young man in the next bed.

And they thought I was asleep.

I pretended I was asleep.

I was not asleep.

I was very well aware of what was going on over there.

And I can still think it yet, and I can still hear

the sounds and everything else.

That's that great memory of mine.

KEVIN INDOVINO: We gotta keep this PG.

MARK HULL: I've got to keep it PG?

Oh, PG-- you mean that's the rating.

All right.

But it's really so interesting because I didn't still

have any--

I have to tell you, I have no immense feelings, never had,

for anybody in my life.

Every person that approached me, approached me.

I did not make the approaches.

I became, not the dominant.

I was a very--

I was a very pleasant, kind, nice person.

I told the experience with Brian Cornrich,

the man who I gave the ride to.

You remember that?

And I said-- even then, he thought I was picking him up,

but I wasn't picking him up.

I was just giving him a ride.

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let me ask you then,

when did you first start getting involved with what

we'll call the gay community?

MARK HULL: In 19--

I would say probably 1968 or '69, in that general area.

And I got involved because when I

was going to the Eastman School of Music and studying,

I decided I wanted to go to a Y where there were naked men.

I wanted to see naked men.

Not that I was going to pick up anybody,

but I wanted to see naked men.

And so I joined the Y. I joined the athletic club,

so we could use the-- and it was all male at that time.

So you didn't wear bathing suits and everybody was swimming

naked and all the rest of it.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But that wasn't really the gay scene.

MARK HULL: That wasn't really the gay scene.

No, it was not.

In 1966 I bought the building on West Main Street--

870-- where I eventually allowed the Gay Alliance to meet, OK.

When I bought that building, I went down to Critic's one day

to eat my lunch.

And a man by the name of David Russell,

who was then in his late 60s, was the chef

in Critic's Restaurant.

And he said to me, "Do you have--

do you have a wife?"

And I said, "No."

He said, "Well, do you have a boyfriend?"

And I said, "I don't think so."

And he said, "Would you be interested in maybe

hearing about how it is to have a boyfriend?"

And I said, "Yeah, what do I have to do?"

And he said, "Well, I think I want to go shopping with you

and buy you some clothes."

And he bought me a pair of white shoes

and a pair of white pants and a beautiful white shirt

because he wanted me all dressed in white because he

thought I would look better.

And I said, "Where are we going?"

He says, "We're going to a gay bar."

And he says, "They have purple lighting or black lighting

from the ceiling."

And he said, "When you come in, your white clothes

are going to look really white and so will mine."

And he got me getting into the gay bar.

He was the one that caused me to relax

all my defenses and everything.

He said, "There's nothing to it."

He says, "It's just nice," and he says, "It's

nice to have a boyfriend."

And he had an apartment at the corner of Union and--

oh, Union Street and I can't think--

and Scio, Union and Scio.

And he would invite me up to his apartment,

but I never had sex with him.

But then I--

KEVIN INDOVINO: --take it back to your first moment

of walking into the bar.

Do you remember what bar it was?

MARK HULL: The first bar I walked into

was not with David--

not with David.

I had been-- I walked in-- the first bar

I walked into was Dick's 43 on Stone Street.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about Dick's 43.

What was Dick's 43 like?

What was it like walking into that place?

MARK HULL: Well, it was noisy and everybody was smoking.

And I didn't smoke.

And nobody knew who I was.

And the first time I walked into Dick's bar,

it was like everybody was looking at me.

And they said, "That must be some new queen."

I love that.

And one of the voices hollered out and said,

"I think he's a super queen!"

I didn't know what any of that stuff meant.

And then, subsequently, the police came in.

And I told you all about that.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But you got to tell me again

because we're on camera now.

So let's just--

MARK HULL: But I never was as at home, comfortable,

in Dick's 43.

I didn't become comfortable until David Russell from

Critic's--

that would have been in '68, '69--

took me over to Jim's Bar on North Street.

And then I was with David, and David

made me feel very comfortable.

He says, "Now look, I'm with you and you're with me."

And he said, "I'll introduce you around."

And he says, "That'll work out very well."

And of course, I picked up on everything very quickly.

And I was very happy with that.

And after that, I stopped going to the Dick's 43,

and I went almost exclusively to Jim's Bar.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about Jim's then.

Again, what was it like?

What did it look like?

What kind of people went there?

MARK HULL: Well, James Van Allen--

and he was the man who owned that.

And he was a--

he was a-- he did odd jobs.

He was like a carpenter, that sort of thing.

And he was in the insurance business.

And he had a lady friend who was in the insurance business.

And the lady friend helped him come up

with the money he needed to start Jim's Bar over

on North Street.

And then he met Donald Schultz, a man that they called Duckie.

And he worked for General Motors.

And he had money, and he partnered in

with James Van Allen.

And the two of them sort of were the two people

who ran Jim's Bar.

And it was really a nice--

it was a nice bar.

It was a clean bar.

They had a stage in the back.

They had guys in little g-strings

that used to do dancing in the back.

There was no overt nudity, but it was nice.

And you could meet people there.

And a lot of the students from the universities around who

were interested in the gay scene would come to Jim's Bar.

I believe they came to Jim's Bar more

than they came the other bars.

But of course, right around the corner from Jim's Bar,

was Tara.

And that was owned by Irvin Wegman.

And I knew Irvin Wegman.

And I used to go into the Tara Bar.

And they had a grand piano there.

And I played that, and they called me the Horowitz of Tara.

That's what they called me, really.

And that was really so interesting.

But my main bar was still Jim's Bar.

That's really where I--

I was very comfortable there, and I met a lot of people

there.

And I always sat at the same table

with my cup of Classic Coca-Cola.

I was always in the same exact place.

And people got very accustomed to seeing me.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Again, talk to me a little bit more about

the kind of people that you were meeting at Jim's or at Tara's.

What were you learning about the gay community

by meeting these people at these bars?

MARK HULL: That the people who are coming into the bars,

in many cases were university educated people.

They were not only university students,

but they were older people.

Now, I never met Harold Weiss or any

of that group of teachers from the Eastman School of Music

in the university, whom I knew were gay because of what

Harold Weiss had told me.

I never met any of those people in any of the bars.

So they did not frequent the bar scene.

But I remember I had a contract with a man

to do some heating work.

And he was a straight man, Lewis Lawrence.

And he did some contract heating work for me

in the building at 870 Main Street West.

And one night, my god, there he was in Jim's Bar.

And I knew he was married, and I knew he had a couple of kids.

And I thought, well, gee--

when he came in, he was shocked.

I guess he didn't expect to see me there.

And I thought, well, what are you doing here?

You don't belong here.

And he says, "How do you know where

I belong and don't belong?"

I said, "What does your wife think?

Does she know you're down here?"

He says, "No, she doesn't need to know."

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you--

outside of the bars, did you have

any sense of any other venue for the gay community?

MARK HULL: No.

KEVIN INDOVINO: For the people who

didn't want to go to the bars?

MARK HULL: Well, now in Midtown--

everyday in Midtown, David Russell,

the man from Critic's--

he worked in Critic's from in the morning, 7:00,

until 2:00 in the afternoon.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, he

went home, cleaned up, and went over to Midtown

and had a table at Midtown.

And he'd watch for high school students--

good looking guys walking through.

And he'd say to them--

he'd be very-- he was very brave.

And he went right up to them and would say, "Would you

enjoy a cup of coffee with me?

I'll treat."

And then they'd sit at his table.

And many times, he would take them home with him.

And he would have sex with them, and he took them home.

So I knew that that little--

there was that table of his where

he tried to pick up people he thought were gay prospects.

I didn't do that.

I watched.

I sat at his table sometimes and watch what he did.

I was very much--

I was very nonaggressive.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to get back to the bar scene.

I want to get to the stories about the bars being raided.

Because you experience that at some points, right?

MARK HULL: Right.

When I say that they were raided,

I mean that the police came in, and would just

come walking in the front door.

And everybody would be scared to death

and would run out the back door.

But I didn't run out.

I said, "I don't know why you guys are here,

but go ahead and arrest me.

I really don't give a damn.

And I'd like to get it in court and see

what you think you can do because I

think we're being violated of our first amendment rights."

I remember that.

And nobody arrested me.

Nobody did anything.

And I thought to myself, well, that's interesting.

The whole thing is just a bunch--

it's a sham.

And they're trying to scare the hell out

of these poor guys in the gay community.

And the poor guys are afraid of either losing their jobs

or being arrested or something.

I wasn't afraid of any of those things.

And I'm not afraid of them today even.

I'm very, very outspoken.

I don't know what else--

KEVIN INDOVINO: No, that's-- because I'm going to follow up

with you here.

MARK HULL: Go ahead.

KEVIN INDOVINO: With that happening--

I mean, you stood up to them.

MARK HULL: Yes, I did.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But most people didn't.

MARK HULL: No, they did not.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Did you ever get a sense

that your gayness was something that you

should hide from society?

MARK HULL: Never, never, never.

I didn't hide it from my own parents.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that.

Talk to me about the relationship with your parents.

How did they deal with it?

MARK HULL: Well, my mother and father,

I don't know whether my father really thought about it.

Recently, one of the retired scoutmasters came to visit me.

And he said to me, "You know, your father

knew that you didn't like girls."

He was familiar with my father.

He says, "He didn't know that you didn't like girls."

But he said, "You never mentioned anything to him

that you didn't like girls."

I thought, I didn't think it was important to mention it to him.

But he did bring that to my attention just recently.

My father never mentioned anything about it.

He never said to me, "You should get yourself a girlfriend."

I had one--

I had one boy from high school who came

to my house every Friday night.

And we spent Friday night together.

He didn't spend the night together.

He came over, and then I would take him home.

And then-- and one day we were thinking of experimenting,

but we never-- it never really amounted to anything.

And that high school student that chummed around with me

in high school was Dr. Draper.

He eventually went to the University of Rochester,

because I went to the University of Rochester,

and enrolled in medical school and got to be a doctor.

And that's why I was seeing him as a doctor

after he had gotten his MD.

That's what led to that.

But he has been my friend, actually, since high school.

He was born in 1933, and he was about two years younger

than I was.

And my aunt had a fit to think that I had him

for a good friend.

She says, "I don't know why you want

to hang around with that kid."

She says, "Why don't you get yourself a girlfriend?"

This was my mother's sister.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me jump ahead a little bit here.

MARK HULL: Go ahead.

KEVIN INDOVINO: When did you first start getting

involved in gay activism?

MARK HULL: Well, it was certainly

after I started attending Gay Alliance meetings.

I went to the Gay Alliance meetings.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Can you tell me the first time

that you went to a meeting?

And more importantly, what were you hoping to experience?

MARK HULL: I didn't know.

I was totally not knowing what I was going

to experience when I got there.

I had been to gay bars at that point.

And as I say, by that time, I had

had at least a couple of gay experiences with people

whom I knew.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let me take you back.

Let's start at the beginning here.

Let's talk about the Gay Liberation Front

at the university.

MARK HULL: At the University of Rochester.

OK.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about your first experience

with them.

What did you know of them?

MARK HULL: Well, because of being an alumnus,

I got a copy of the alumni news.

And in the alumni news, there was a little article

and it said, Gay Liberation Front organization

is meeting at the University of Rochester--

Gay Liberation Front organization meeting

at the University of Rochester.

And so then-- and there was a phone number.

And I called the phone number.

And I said, "I'm a graduate of the U of R,

and I want to know if I could attend one of your meetings."

And they said, "Are you a gay man?"

And I said, "I don't know."

And then whoever talked to me at that time--

I think it was a lady--

said to me, "Well, we meet at such and such a time

at the river campus and we meet like once a week,

or whatever the meeting was, once a week."

And I started going to those meetings.

And I don't think I really participated very much.

I think I sat there and listened because they

were trying to get organized.

I know that one of the guys that was interested in that

was Eddie David--

Cheesy Eddie's-- and his sister Marjorie.

And they were both-- she was a lesbian, and he was a gay man.

And they started Cheesy Eddie's over

on the University of Rochester campus, the river campus.

And so I got to know who they were, and got

to know about their business, and got

to see them at those Gay Liberation Front meetings.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Tell me what was happening at those meetings.

What was being talked about?

What were the challenges that they were trying to address?

MARK HULL: They were trying to figure out

what they could do in the community

so that they would have--

that people would recognize who they

were and would feel that they were not a danger

to the rest of the community.

They didn't want-- the people in the gay community didn't want

to be--

didn't want the rest of the community

to feel as though they were a danger

to the community, a danger to their children

or anything else.

And that most of all, we weren't trying to convert.

They wanted to show the people on the outside

that we weren't trying to convert anybody.

We wanted to be there so if people

thought they had gay leanings, they

would have a support group.

I think they viewed themselves as a support group

more than anything.

And that made it really quite nice.

And they would tell about things that they were doing.

And Wilfred LeBlanc-- you know, "Whitey"--

he used to have little parties at his house.

And I used to attend those little parties.

And James Van Allen who ran Jim's Bar,

he had little parties at his house,

and I attended those parties.

I attended a lot of parties around.

I got invited to a lot of places because I was there,

I was relatively quiet, I listened, and really

enjoyed suddenly being assimilated

into the whole gay scene.

I was very happy being assimilated into the gay scene.

It was what I really wanted because I suddenly

realized that this is what the business of my being

drawn to men--

that's what the gay scene meant.

And I was learning that.

And that was a wonderful--

in that regard, that was a wonderful learning time,

even though I wasn't going out and having

a lot of wild sex with people.

I was not doing it that way.

I've really always been very passive.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to follow up on this a little bit

because I don't want to lose this moment.

When you were going to those meetings,

what was the benefit for you personally?

What were you really getting out of it?

You actually kind of already answered.

I just want you to talk about it again.

MARK HULL: I wanted to be--

I was looking for acceptance.

I'm sure that was the case.

I was looking to be assimilated by the gay community.

And I was very happy.

I knew that I was attracted to men--

not wildly, but just, I was attracted to men.

I thought men were just wonderful.

And I still think men are just wonderful.

I really do.

I just like us.

I think we're nice people.

I truly think that we are nice people.

And that's what I was going to that gay meeting for.

If I had to--

I did not have a sexual involvement with women.

I didn't really have much of a sexual involvement with men.

But I wondered where we--

where I stood or where we stood, or if there

were other elements in the community,

people who wanted to--

they were looking for a safe haven.

I think a lot of the people, a lot

of the kids that were coming to the gay meetings--

not the students at the University of Rochester,

although some of them were.

I remember one specific student at the University of Rochester

and he said to me, "I want to tell my mother

and father that I'm gay and I don't know how to do it."

And I said, "Are they coming to Rochester to see you?"

And he said, "Yes."

And I said, "Bring them over to my parents'

house on Whitney street, and I'll

introduce them to my parents."

And I said, "In the course of conversation,

I'll tell them that you and I know each other

and that we both like men and that your son likes men."

And I said, "I think I can break the news to them

in a very gentle way that won't really upset them too much."

And I did exactly that.

And it had a good effect.

And that was a good thing.

And then there was there was another young doctor

by the name of Harold Hahn.

And he is a young doctor.

And he introduced me to--

they were from Katonah, New York,

and he introduced me to his mother and the family

friend who was a judge.

And I'm not sure that they knew what

the feelings were between us, Harold and I.

But we had feelings.

We did not go to bed with each other.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I don't want to lose the Gay Liberation

Front here.

MARK HULL: Go ahead.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's stay with that--

after Michael fixes you up.

MARK HULL: Fix me up, Michael.

Fix me up.

That's what I need.

Fix me up.

That's what I need.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I want to stay with the Gay Liberation Front.

MARK HULL: Go ahead.

All right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: At some point, the University of Rochester

started having problems with you guys meeting on campus.

MARK HULL: It was quite abrupt.

It was quite abrupt because it--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Start from the beginning of that story

and just kind of walk me through it.

What happened with the university,

and how did you get involved?

What did you do to help solve the problem?

MARK HULL: Oh, well, they announced that the university

had said, as a matter of policy, city people would not continue

to be allowed to meet at the university premises

because of certain donors-- they didn't mention the McCurdy

family at that time--

had agreed to withdraw their substantial funding

of university projects if it appeared

that the university was backing this sort of lifestyle,

rather than just having it as a campus activity.

And they said, it's going to be necessary that the city--

that the city people go and find their own place to meet.

And at that very meeting I got up and said,

"I have an unused building at 870 Main Street West,

and I would be willing to let you meet there at no charge."

That's exactly how it happened.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so now take me from that point on.

How did it all come about?

Eventually-- well, let's start there.

Just talk to me about--

MARK HULL: Well, I gave them a key

to the area in the building that they were

going to be allowed to use.

And they came over and they started meeting there.

And they met there for as long as they

wanted to meet there until they had another location that they

were going to go to.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Where did this leave the students, though,

that were at the university?

Did the group split, or did the students

come over with you guys?

MARK HULL: No, the students, I don't think,

really came over with us.

It was all city people at that point.

And the students continued to meet as the Gay Liberation

Front on the River Campus.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And at some point,

the Gay Liberation Front became the Gay Alliance.

MARK HULL: That's correct.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Walk me through that story.

MARK HULL: Well, the reason for that

was because the name Gay Liberation Front was really

the activity title of the group that met

at the University of Rochester.

The students always wanted to take a stand.

That was the whole thing.

That's why it was called a front.

The students wanted to take a stand.

Students always take stands.

And they wanted to take a stand.

And they thought that there were enough students who

had this lifestyle that they should take a stand

and let the community know, or at least let

every people around them know, that they were not-- they

didn't feel that this lifestyle was a hateful lifestyle

and that you could be a good, upright citizen

and still have this lifestyle.

And this is what that was about.

And it was necessary that the community people--

if the University of Rochester students

were still using the title Gay Liberation Front,

it meant that the city students had to come up with a new name.

And the new name was the Gay Alliance.

And because it was an alliance of the men and the women,

that's why it was the Gay Alliance.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Talk to me about that

a little bit though because the whole men and women together

didn't really happen right away.

MARK HULL: No, it did not happen right away because I had--

EVELYN BAILEY: When they moved to Brown Street

to your building, it was the Gay Brotherhood.

MARK HULL: It was--

yes, you're right.

Right, it was called the Gay Brotherhood.

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so let's start from there then.

Let's talk about the move to Brown Street

and it being called the Gay Brotherhood.

MARK HULL: Well, and they had their meetings there.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But I need you to tell me that so we

can get it on camera.

MARK HULL: OK.

Well, after I offered the location to them,

the men, I guess we might as well say,

decided that they would avail themselves of that offer.

And I gave them the keys to the building

so that they could get in and be there and feel

as though it was theirs to use.

Pardon.

Stop the camera.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, I'm coughing.

Did I move anything?

EVELYN BAILEY: Want some water?

I can get you some water.

MARK HULL: That might help.

If there's a-- if there's a nurse out in the hallway

there-- if you go right into the room two doors-- not

this next room but the very next room,

you'll see a sink over there.

And if you can.

But if you can't, just walk down the hill and then down--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah, so let's take it back.

Let's talk about the move from the University to your place

and in that particular time period,

tell me again the story of what happened

and what came out of it.

MARK HULL: Well, they announced one night

at a meeting of the Gay Liberation Front

that people from the city would no longer be allowed

to participate in that activity because it

was endangering a funding source from the University

of Rochester.

And I got up immediately and I said,

"I have an unused building over 870 Main Street West--

Brown Street, she calls it.

It had a double address--

870 Main Street West and 816 Brown Street."

And I said, They could do that."

And she got me a glass of water, and that's wonderful.

I appreciate that--

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK, so let's again start back

at the beginning again.

Back to where you started before.

MARK HULL: And I was on friendly terms

with all the city, all the city men who were meeting.

It was James Olin and Bob Crystal

and all these city people from the city.

And I was very happy to have that group of men meeting

in my building, if it could be of assistance to them.

And it was for, what, a year, a year and a half,

something like that-- whatever it was--

until they moved over into the co-op.

And now, I don't know where the women were, now

that I think about it.

Did the women go directly to the co-op?

OK, so the women went directly to the co-op.

What else do you want me to talk?

KEVIN INDOVINO: So let's go back--

I'm just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle

together here.

So let's go back to--

OK, the men moved over to your building.

So pick it up from that point and tell me

what happened over the next year or so.

And then where did they go from there?

MARK HULL: Well, they met in the building.

They had meetings.

They talked over a lot of different things.

I was there for the meetings.

I know I was.

I was there for the meetings.

And they-- you know, I can't remember

exactly what they talked about.

I knew that I was going to the meetings

because I was looking for a haven.

And I felt that most people that attended those meetings were

looking for havens.

And like any group that meets, they

were trying to figure out what activities.

I remember they used to have picnics at Genesee Valley Park.

And I attended those picnics.

I was trying to think what other social activities they had.

But I did attend those social activities

because I enjoyed them.