When I moved into the abandoned ”Lena’s Lunch” restaurant on South Main Street in White River Jct., I soon learned — even before I had learned what day of the week our errant landlord was sup- posed to have the dumpster emptied —— that I was going to be living in the ”Old South End.” In her glory days ”the cops wouldn't even dare” set foot into the Old South End for fear of mayhem at the hands of the rambunctious citizens. I arrived in the summer of 1992, but many of my neighbors had been there for their entire lives —— in not a few cases over eighty years. They weren't timid people. ”I remembered eating here,” said one ”old timer,” sit- ting down at our dusty former lunch counter at the filthy former eatery. I asked him if he remembered Lena’s Lunch. ” Yes,” he said, but this was before that. Before that I thought the place had been a bar. ”Yes, but before that,” he said it had been an Italian res- taurant called Papa Guiseppis Italian...”Yeah, I ordered my sub, and they were closing up, and then what happened but the waiters and whatever all came out they were all dressed‘ as women and they all started doing impersonations of -— o, you know —— Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand.” Oh my God, I though, I'm living in a former queer bar — what hallowed memories. There ought to be a plaque! I wondered how those girls sur- vived in a town like this. The ”Old South End” you see, is the rough section of a rough town, a neighborhood that could serve as a definition for the ”Wrong Side of the Tracks,” although — running virtually at my back door and through- out White River Junctions Downtown — the tracks are prominent and neither side can be said to be nudging its way into respectability quicker than the other. — A tiny, brand new ham- let of not over thirty structures in 1860, by the turn of this cen- tury White River obtained its identity through the over forty passenger and freight trains a day that passed through her epicenter. Barely edging above the 2,000 mark in the perma- nent population, this meant a significant percentage of her community was just ”passing through.” Those that weren't actually transient worked at jobs related to the rail road -—- road repair, freight, shoveling coal. This living tide of hu- mans, arriving and departing daily and nightly with time to spare and money to spend, also spawned numerous ser- ' vice industries, both legitimate and ill. But it was during prohi- bition that the town really came into its own. Crates came down the river in barges, large boats, and small and those crates were full of bottles con- taining something stronger than Moxie. Children in the neighborhood were paid by bootleggers to unload boats and pile bottles in impromptu ”storage” dug in the muddy river banks. Rumors of tunnels from river to Main Street are still active. And when a raid was effected,’ as much contra- band as possible was dumped overboard. When the ”heat was of ” those same children would be pressed into service as divers, and given a nickel a bottle salvaged from a watery grave. By the turn of the century there were at least in town, the eatery at the depot seating 150 people. Along with a commo- dious dining room, there was a bar at the Hotel Coolidge, the center and the largest building in town. Featuring semi—circu- lar booths, a mural painting and art-deco / rustic decor, the bar was a popular hang-out for men, and a very cruisey joint. While not a queer bar, it was a reliable place to go and expect to find regulars who were ”members of the community” as well as plenty of furtive strangers, waiting for the next day's train, who would enter- tain anonymous liaisons in the rooms. Thus, a combination of the Volstead Act, large tran- sient population housed in an immense and rambling hotel, and unscrupulous tenement landlords, made White River jct. — much to the vexation of its hardworking full time resi- dents — a hangout for toughs, a haven for bars, and South Main Street ”the most danger- ous neighborhood in Ver- Curbside Drew sugrjestcé I ‘try wr’.+in9 down _ does, so her; ‘l‘haI\g...I really dOr\'l' Know 1-F ‘l'l\lS'll work ‘For me._I'm /\o‘l' A wri+er...I'/vx oscé in s1u+‘+‘ HKP. he not sure wkst I’/'\ even Su Lonte 3l_ogu_1’. But OK,I gue £I‘|\s1'ar+ with the dream I: lxaa last /11 kt... mont,” according to a member of the local police in the mid 1990's. A In the 1960's, the town was host to the notorious biker gang, the "Mind Benders,” who once caused mayhem by squatting on the bridge from the railroad underpass to the Municipal Building and de- manding a toll of all unlucky travelers. At some point dur- ing the 60s or 70s, the small basement space just inside this underpass housed a queer bar, habituated primarily by men . and perhaps called the ”Side Door Lounge.” And then, of course, there was Papa Guiseppis Italian Restaurant. There may have been brawls between the transvestite wait- ers and the Mind Benders, but these are, at present unsub- stantiated. 9 And then there was the Dartmouth connection. The ivory tower and White River Jct. —— the tough town just five minutes down river — have always been engaged in an uneasy dance, with local people getting a ”leg up,” so to speak, through ivy league connections and the academics of all categories coming down to ”Tunnel Town” for less gen- teel entertainment. This remi- niscence, from the late 1930s, gives us one perspective, from the Junction point of view. ”[A parade of drunken Dartmouth boys] essayed full possession. [At the Bijou The- ater, they were] repulsed at the entrance,-put up ladders and swarmed in second—story win- dows. They tore down curtains and threw out seats. The fire OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — MARCH 19§8 -15 alarm ws sounded and the firemen turned water on the _mob. The boys retaliated by throwing stones gathered at the nearby sand—bank. The firemen withdrew to the vicin- ity of thewhydrants to protect hose lengths. The students could throw the farthest. Dur- ing a sortie, students were driven back through an alley. They undertook a surprise at- tack from the rear, at which, with 140 pounds hydrant pres- sure, the fireman knocked them all flat. One of the drenched students stuck his head around a_ corner and yelled, "Say, you fellows are real firemen!” People on Gates street, caught within range of the melee opposite the theatre, rushed into stores. Merchants locked stores and safe doors. Railroad men entered the fray in behalf of the townspeople. The severest casualty was when "Bill St. John, an energetic plumber defending the water supply, broke a student's jaw with a hydrant wrench...The state of siege lasted four hours. [Charles R. Cummings, edito- rial in The Vermonter, magazine, vol. 38, p. 71, White River Jct., 1933] According to several sources who were good look- ing White River Junction boys in the 1940s and 50s, there was a member of the Dartmouth English Department faculty who was quite notorious for his quite notorious parties. Only the best looking boys from the col- lege and young "men of the area were invited and the usual re- sult was an out—and—out orgy. The old ”Alumni Gym,” had a men's room. that was very well known as a meeting place for men interested inex- ercising muscles and hor- mones as well. The east batti- room. at Baker, accordingjto numerous sources —— as well as the author's own experience, has been a cruising spot ”for at least a hundred years.” Al- though this librarywas actu- ally built in 1928, its graffiti the abrasion of generations of Dartmouth maintenance teams, attest to its service. The Hopkins Center herself, down- stairs from Spaulding Audito- rium, is said to have had a men's room with large com~ _ fortable stalls, open — no doors — ”you could watch for hours.” There were greasy holes carved in the partitions as well. Maintenance teams, again, patched over these buddy-holes time and time again. Activity finally subsided with the advent of co—educa- tion. lMuch to the relief of ad- _ ministrators intent on 'a squeaky clean image for the ivy league institution, it be- came a women's bathroom. Another site for a potential plague. Dartmouth. men's rooms were so active, in fact, that the College had a security officer and would—be NARC who set up semi-permanent surveil- lance to prevent any horny tools being exercised incog- nito, or otherwise. According to members of the Dartmouth staff, this officer prosecuted his "moral enforcement” rather over-zealously and is still spending an unusual amount of time at the glory holes. With the advent of the electronic age, but before the internet, CUCME and the. newsgroups, came the first QUEER, p21 31! ROBERT K1 RBY """‘“* .;°:.‘3‘:..?‘Jt‘“ o¢.S no Iwasin 'l‘l{:§ ban) ané we. were ' mg lug-aSS_3f‘er\Aw«'l’h lxj _ eoflc scream:/x3 vs W: N) H lAO\/I/\ A C ' Helfm /:9. I I w35,pla«1}1rL~5 mxj aoélencg was all these -{-2335 Jumpin alowrx azxb -H{.s was ,3 clf‘€a/V\ aml noukerr. /\;e_a_rreal.+«1 lneaé at-F am) ‘Wal- I looKcé out at Thi mos+u, what I 53105 “A omg walcl, So you ‘/(exact) T .'l It wA5 5,} goal. Areamg 30, -‘+3 3no‘H\€_r dag. s can Then an of 3 $u<5cl music ou++her~e.'! 7 sum Dre w uIAA‘_+3otora+,no ar+er -fgqil m. V .wka.S+u1l,r'\_k«1la¢ .41: — l ”I\_.)aK¢ ‘up w'.‘l’l\ 3 rajanj lxar-3-orx. I 'l'l\:I‘\K TTMS 11 3A3 'l’l\3’l' I Shoulzl work Cue./\ la clr‘e¢rv\l$ reall $'Ijn'rF{c?sr\+ znl U HEY, wt-\A1"_; up? ’ 7! (.\\ . /Q \\\ . hllp://www.visi .c0m/-npr;.jrie/