Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Part I: Male (Homo)sexual Practices and Identities in the Early Twentieth Century; Chapter 1. The Bowery as Haven and Spectacle; Chapter 2. The Fairy as an Intermediate Sex; Chapter 3. Trade, Wolves, and the Boundaries of Normal Manhood; Chapter 4. The Forging of Queer Identities and the Emergence of Heterosexuality in Middle-Class Culture; Part II: The Making of the Gay Male World; Chapter 5. Urban Culture and the Policing of the "City of Bachelors.";"Above all, Gay New York shows that our most intimate sexual identities are stunningly recent creations. It depicts a complex prewar sexual culture in which men were not divided into homosexuals and heterosexuals but into fairies, wolves, queers, and "normal" men. Many of those "normal" men frequently engaged in sexual relations with other men, because sexual normality was not defined by exclusive heterosexuality." "This book will change forever the way we think about the gay past - and the American past."--Jacket.