Gay Rights Activist Forced From St. Vincent's Hospital Into Nursing Home

April 20, 2010 9:55pm4commentsprint

Gay Rights Activist Storme DeLarverie Committed to St. Vincent's Psych Ward Against Her Will, Friends Say

Storme DeLarverie, 89, hoists a batch of flowers in her bed at St. Vincent's Hospital, shortly before she was moved to the failing hospital's psychiatric ward. (Arthur Nash)

By Matthew Nestel

Special to DNAinfo

GREENWICH VILLAGE — After spending the past month in St. Vincent’s Hospital, Stormé DeLarverie, a founding member of the gay rights movement, has been forced into a Brooklyn nursing home as the bankrupt hospital prepares to close its doors.

Stormé (pronounced Storm-ee) DeLarverie, 89, became a legend in the LGBT community after famously punching a police officer during the historic standoff against NYPD in their attempted raid on the Stonewall Inn in the West Village. She was also the famed "Drag King" of the traveling Jewel Box Revue performance troupe.

A now-elderly DeLarverie, who is diabetic, has been a patient in the psychiatric ward at the failing W. 12th Street hospital since March 7, when friends say she suffered a serious bout of dehydration inside her seventh-floor apartment at the Chelsea Hotel.

Reached by phone at St. Vincent's before she was moved to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, DeLarverie sounded lucid and convinced she was heading home soon.

"Of course I know what’s going on, honey," DeLarverie said. "I’m OK. My state of mind is just fine."

Asked about her apartment at the Chelsea Hotel, she said, "Of course I’m going back to live there. I’ve been there for 31 years. That’s my home. That’s it."

A few weeks later, she was committed to the hospital’s psychiatric ward, according to those who visited her there. A spokesman for St. Vincent's said he could not confirm the identity of patients being treated there.

DeLarverie's friends remember when she made regular pilgrimages to St. Vincent's to visit other Stonewall veterans injured during the rebellion, and also when she came back to visit many AIDS-stricken patients during the 1980s.

Stonewall Veterans' Association founder Williamson Henderson explained that DeLarverie played a central role in the organization's outreach from the early 1980s to the early ’90s, bringing food, funds and comfort to AIDS patients at St. Vincent’s.

"It’s true," he said. "There were many people we visited there, spanning years."

Friends and neighbors fear DeLarverie's failing health will mean the end of her tenure as one of the longest living fixtures at the bohemian Chelsea Hotel, which once housed luminaries like Dylan Thomas and Eugene O'Neill.

Her apartment, where she kept a trove of original correspondence and historic memorabilia, was cleaned out by crews with garbage bags days after her hospital admittance, witnesses said.

DeLarverie also owned an extensive art collection, including works by some of the hotel's original tenants, friends said. The whereabouts of those items is also unclear.

Chelsea Hotel president and co-owner Marlene Krauss said she didn't know anything about the crews seen in DeLarverie's apartment.

"Her stuff? I really lost track,” Krauss said. “I’m not the right person to talk to,” she said, referring calls to her partner, hotel vice president David Elder. Elder did not return calls from comment.

Sources said DeLarverie was taken this week from St. Vincent's to a nursing home called "Oxford" in Brooklyn.

Comments 4comments

MAZ very good point: Storme could and should be receiving home care. If there is degeneration in her mental condition its a direct result of her forced incarceration - as someone who spent over 40 hours with her in St. Vincents can bear witness to. There is video of Storme in hospital exhibiting absolutely no signs of distress except for the fact that she was being repeatedly told by Doctors and caseworkers she was going home, and was then never allowed to. This would drive anyone batty, nevermind an 89 year old woman who is not accustomed to spending 30 days laid up in bed but instead spends her time circulating throughout the Chelsea neighborhood. But to get back to MAZ's point...Storme would be receiving the home care she's entitled to if not for David Elder and Marlene Krauss's desperate bid to rid the Hotel of any and all rent stabilized tenants -- just as Elder has stated in court documentation. They played a behind-the-scenes role in this, and should be ashamed. It is NOT however the first time they have gotten creative in their effort to evict, buy out, or otherwise displace the long term denizens of the Hotel Chelsea.
www.myspace.com/BringBackTheBards | April 21, 2010

Storme Delarverie, the famed "Drag King" of the Jewel Box Revue fought valiantly against Police at the infamous Stonewall Riots and she has been a pillar in the LGBT Community for decades but a recent battle to return to her rent-stabilized home of 31 years is taking an unfortunate toll on this beloved and colorful cultural icon. Here's what happened: One year ago, a tenant who fell behind on rent decided to help the hotel's New Management make a power play for Storme's $600-per-month apartment by complaining to New York State's Department of Social Services that she threatened him. The ensuing court case snowballed until March 2010, when Storme was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital to be treated for simple dehydration. It was then that State caseworkers seized the moment and declared Storme incompetent, refusing to let her return home to the Hotel. For over a month now, Storme has been involuntarily -- first at St. Vincent's and now in a Brooklyn Nursing Home -- while her apartment has been ransacked by strangers clad in Haz-Mat suits who hurriedly crammed the bulk of her possessions into trash bags and deposited them along 23rd Street. Storme's emptied-out apartment now sits idle as selfish outside interests control her fate and allege that she's unable to live independently. While a bit forgetful and eccentric, Storme gets through this life better than most. She hasn't lived 89 years, moreover, by lacking competency as anyone who knows her can readily attest. This is ELDER Abuse, pure and simple -- the end result of a greedy, demented, convoluted plan to deprive an aging artist of her home, then convert it into a far more profitable Hotel room for tourists.
www.myspace.com/BringBackTheBards | April 21, 2010

Thanks for an informative article. And, perhaps Storme does have some relatives whom she has lost touch with who will come forward if this story gets widely distributed.
Paws | April 21, 2010

If nothing else, this article may bring attention to Storme's plight, and may help interested friends to locate Storme at: The Oxford Nursing Home, 144 South Oxford St., Brooklyn NY anytime before 8pm. What it doesn't begin to explain is the spiraling nightmare that this last period of Storme's life has taken. An elderly, black, lesbian woman, with no living relatives, who has contributed so much to the communtiy, whose life can end up in the hands of the court due to a series of circumstances that should have never happened. Admittedly, Storme' needs some assistance, but home care is provided by Medicaid in NY state. She is NOT a diabetic; at admission to St. Vincent's, the doctor asked her repeatedly if she took medications. They couldn't believe that at her age, 89, she doesn't, until now...she is 'tranquilized' to keep her from fighting her situation.
MAZ | April 21, 2010

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