Julio Rivera was attacked with a hammer and wrench and stabbed with a knife near 78th Street and 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights on July 2, 1990. The press mostly ignored this murder of this openly gay, 29-year-old man, and police alleged a drug deal gone bad.
However, the community responded with outrage, activism, and candlelight vigils, sparking the creation of several local LGBT organizations and the establishment of the Queens Pride Parade. Eventually, the murder was re-classified as a bias crime and the perpetrators were convicted. (Plus, the intersection where the victim collapsed is currently co-named “Julio Rivera Corner.”)
Learn more during Julio Revisited at the Queens Historical Society on Saturday, Feb. 24, at 2:30 pm.
Richard Shpuntoff, who directed Julio of Jackson Heights, will lead a live audiovisual discussion about the 2016 documentary that premiered at the Queens World Film Festival where it won the Social Impact Award.
Attendance is free.
Born and raised in Elmhurst, Shpuntoff was Queens Pride’s official photographer for its first 20 years (1993-2012). He has spearheaded several projects that share the LGBT community’s history in Queens. His most recent documentary, Everything That is Forgotten in an Instant, made its New York premiere at Museum of Modern Art’s Doc Fortnight, an annual international festival of nonfiction film, in 2021.
Julio Revisited will take place at the Queens Historical Society’s headquarters at 143-35 37th Ave. in Flushing. Also known as “Kingsland Homestead,” the two-story Long Island half house (wide side hall with double parlors off to one side) dates to around 1785. It has a gambrel roof, a crescent-shaped window in a side gable, a Federal-period chimney piece with an iron Franklin stove, and a Dutch-style, two-level front door.
Event attendees are welcome to tour Kingsland, which features a 1,350-square-foot exhibition-and-lecture space and a collection that includes textiles, art, photographs, maps, manuscripts, family papers, and other materials that encompass about 300 years of local life. Attendees are also encouraged to ask docents about the Weeping Beech in the backyard.
Image: Julio of Jackson Heights Director Richard Shpuntoff and Alex Florez