Read as part of CBR17 Bingo: black cover
Greenwich Village is perhaps the most beautiful neighborhood in the world’s greatest city.
I love walking through it: the winding streets, the townhomes, the cafes and bars, the rich history. It feels like the best the city has to offer.
I remember passing by the spot where the Women’s House of Detention was and thinking how beautiful the new building looked. I was curious to see where Mae West had been locked up and assumed when I picked up this book, it would teach me more about it. West was actually locked up in the House of D’s predecessor building, the Jefferson Market Court House. The House of D opened in 1931 and there’s nothing charming about it.
Hugh Ryan does an excellent job focusing on the lives of the gender/sexual queer persons who were imprisoned there, what their lives were like, and how they contributed to Greenwich Village’s LGBTQIA+ history just by existing. This is a queer history yes but as Ryan makes clear, it’s also a working class history: how working class lesbians, trans masculine folk, gender non-conforming persons and all risked and braved prison just because they wanted to live openly as they were.
It’s a story that is both enlightening and infuriating. Enlightening because it sheds a light on an underdeveloped but important part of Village LGBTQIA+ history. Infuriating because it is still a prison and while there are fascinating stories, it was, like every prison, an overcrowded house of horrors where the vast majority of persons there were there in service to hetero-patriarchal criminal justice.
All the while, Ryan streamlines the narrative effectively to make this readable, while still keeping sight of the fascinating story.
I don’t know if this is the best non-fiction I’ve read in 2025; I’d have to go back to look. But it’s definitely my favorite. An excellent book, comes with the highest recommendation.