My shopping trip to the Castro farmers' market on Wednesday was special because I ran into my friend David Tuller. We go back to the plague years in New York City, both still standing, more grays and wrinkles, surviving and thriving to the best of our Judy Garland goddess-given queer abilities.
Nice to snag another pic of David and I and add it to my collection of fotos of running into cohorts from my activist life
Many moons ago, we were arrested in March 1987, as part of ACT UP's first wavelet of protests over the AIDS epidemic, and we became known with the other arrestees as the Wall Street 17. We got into the streets and blocked traffic near the stock exchange in Lower Manhattan and thus was a movement born.
Who was among the Wall Street 17? Here's a partial list I drew up with assistance from ACT UP veteran Bill Dobbs. If you know the other ten names, please share them with me:
1) Neil Broome
2) Frank Dowd, RIP
3) Prema Lee
4) Rodger McFarlane , RIP
5) Michael Petrelis
6) Charles Stimson
7) David Tuller
When the Wall Street 17 appeared before a judge a few weeks later, where the charges of disorderly conduct were dismissed, the judge was the late Richard Failla. He was a trailblazing jurist appointed by Mayor Ed Koch and at the time we went before him he was a member of the board of directors of GMHC. How's that for interesting homo history trivia?
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