In the late afternoon, the buildings blocked the sun and in the dim light, my neighbors would come to sit on the steps of the stoops on East 7th Street between Avenues C and D. This block is known locally as "the old Doctors' block" with Renaissance Revival tenement buildings and a picturesque row of painted-brick brownstones. The block survived the terrible devastation of the surrounding blocks, as the neighborhood degenerated into a ghetto, due to urban decay and arson during the 1970s. These images first appeared in 1987 in "The New Gay Art" by Vince Aletti. Several of these images appeared in the documentary film "7th Street" by actor and auteur Josh Pais.