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[Home movie: Mario Perez Video Collection, circa 1999, Greenwich Village, Jose with Peggy, summer of 1999]

Mario Perez

Synopsis A home movie by Mario Perez circa 1999 exploring different locations in Manhattan. There is footage of the New York City coast, the docks, the Statue of Liberty and the ferry. Then, he documents Greenwich Village, with footage of different gay bars on Christopher Street. At the end, there is footage of some of his friends hanging out at his apartment with the dog Peggy. Collection description This film (Perez_0006) is part of the Mario Perez Video Collection . The Mario Perez Videotape Collection consists of 20 8mm videotapes and 28 mini-DV tapes. The tapes capture Mario and his friends in the gay community from about 1996 to about 2009. They are very personal and show Mario and his friends hanging out on Christopher Street, on the piers, at the Chelsea Gym and in the gay bar called Sneakers, which was on West Street at the corner of Christopher Street. The collection includes video on the following subject matter: Christopher Street and environs – gay bars, bookstores, and street life in the late 1990s including footage of bars with an ethnically and gender diverse clientele that no longer exist. These provide a view of gay life that has disappeared from Greenwich Village. 2. The Closing of the Chelsea Gym – the Chelsea Gym was an important part of New York City Gay Culture. Gym culture was a crucial corrective to the abuse and bullying that many gay men received in Phys. Ed. at school when they were children. It was a place that gay men could be themselves and assert their own particular brand of masculinity. 3. Funerals – the funerals/memorial services for 1 or 2 men who died of AIDS 4. Return to Cuba – an exile returns to Cuba 2001 – 2009. Footage of friends, relatives, and street hustlers. A rare documentation of ordinary life in Cuba. 5. September 11, 2001 – footage shot outside of St. Vincent’s Hospital after the attacks on the World Trade Center 6. Vacations in Texas, California, and Montreal Mario’s collection also contains a number of reels of Super-8 film that are not part of this grant. Mario first started filming on Super-8 in the 1980s. He was working as a nude dancer at the Show Palace on 42nd Street. Customers would give Mario and the other dancers Super-8 film. The customers would then give the dancers copies of the films. Mario is hesitant about having the Super-8 digitized because it contains footage of men who have died or who could not be located in order to obtain permission. This collection was conserved and digitally captured through the 2023 Al Larvick National Grant awarded to Mario Perez by the Al Larvick Conservation Fund in partnership with its lab partner Media Burn Archive. For more information about this collection, visit: https://www.allarvickfund.org/mario-perez-video-collection The mission of the Al Larvick Conservation Fund is to preserve historical and cultural heritage through conservation, education, and the public accessibility of American analog home movie, amateur cinema, and community recording collections. For more information, visit allarvickfund.org. *Please respect the Creative Commons licensing assigned to this collection. Specifications: Collection Title: Mario Perez Video Collection Original format : Video8 and MiniDV, color, sound Digital format: Uncompressed Quicktime .MOV at original aspect ratio Collection size : 20 Video8 tapes, 28 MiniDV tapes Circa: 1 996-2009 Lab Sponsor: Media Burn Archive Label from Original Can/Box: The Village and Jose con Peggy, Verano del 1999

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