Latex & Leather: Folsom Street East Returns to West Chelsea

Perhaps few people noticed the [longest day of the year on Friday (slow news day]?), but the Summer Solstice is still celebrated in varied ways in the city. [Folsom Street East](http://www.folsomstreeteast.org/), an annual tradition that also serves as a kickoff to the city's Gay Pride celebrations, attracted a horde of leather and latex clad locals and visitors despite the rain and humidity.

The "blue gimp" (pictured above) and his crew of gas mask-wearing, latex-clad comrades received plenty of attention on W. 28th Street as men and women lined up for the beer truck, fondled dildos and tried on nipple clamps. Flogging demonstrations (with a tip jar for a "scholarship fund") and drag performers kept things feeling somewhat subversive, but it wasn't clear overall what the majority of people were getting out the event. The gawkers just liked pointing and laughing to some old man's bare ass in chaps, the hardcore fetishists looked disappointed they were withering in the summer sun without much to keep their focus.

Perhaps the biggest reason to show up was to witness the oddity of having folks parade around in their fetish drag in an area that is quickly going upscale. How much longer can an event like this happen as condos and bourgie boys flood the once deserted streets? For now the naked man dressed in a leather penis sheath was humored, but it's easy to imagine those 311 complaints in a few years time. And then we'll be bemoaning the loss of our randy revelers and will have to suffer through summer without a celebration of any sort.

[Photo by Tom Giebel (Atomische.com)]