ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates how Jackson Heights, Queens developed into a cosmopolis, and even more remarkably into a queer cosmopolis. It uses variety of primary and secondary data including interviews, a documentary on Jackson Heights, and a review of the literature to explore the ways that immigrants and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities are often ignored in urban planning decisions. It is ironic that a neighborhood originally intended as a homogenous place that used planning interventions to exclude the other is today diverse even by New York City standards, and a unique queer cosmopolis. Urban policymakers and planners must intercede in the housing market before all middle-class and lower-income neighborhoods in New York City are destroyed. Longtime gay community activist Daniel Dromm, who was elected to the New York City Council for Jackson Heights in 2009, co-founded the Queens Pride Parade in 1992 to raise visibility of the LGBTQ population in Queens and further memorialize Julio Rivera's death.
