I used to hate the term “the gays” because the only people I heard saying it were bigots. Now it seems everyone uses it, and it’s shorter than “gay men and lesbians” so it fits in the title, but I still feel weird using it…

Anyway, that said… I’ve heard for a long time that you can tell when a neighborhood is going to gentrify by whether “the gays” move in… Specifically gay men – since we don’t have the same level of safety issues that women have, and we don’t (traditionally) have kids, so we aren’t worried about how good the schools are. Some of us learned how to fix things from our fathers, and some of us have a sense of style. (I’m always amused by the ones who don’t.)

If you subscribe the the “gentrification follows gay men” theory, then you’ll find the following interesting…

WNYC has done a map that plots where gay and lesbian couples live. Here’s the results for Central and South Harlem…

I’m not quite sure what to think of the fact that we dominate Morningside Park, but you can see that the Mount Morris Park neighborhood is pretty popular with gay men and lesbians. Somewhat surprisingly South Harlem doesn’t have all that many gay and lesbian couples – just right on the border with the Upper West Side. The area between Lenox and 5th Avenue around Astor Row seems pretty popular as well.

Now if we could just get a gay bar somewhere near Red Rooster – that would be perfect 🙂

Apparently West Harlem is much less gay…

It seems that the new condo developments just off Bradhurst are popular with gay men and lesbians, but otherwise the neighborhood is pretty average. What’s interesting also is the low number of gay men and lesbians in Hamilton Heights west of Amsterdam Avenue. That neighborhood isn’t as well established as the historic district which is mostly east of Amsterdam.

So the take away from this is that gay men and lesbians seem to gravitate towards quality… Areas with new condos and historic districts have a greater concentration of gays, while areas with large housing projects have far fewer gay men and lesbians. Personally I think the “gentrification follows gay men” theory is generally proven right by the maps above…