Mark Krone

For nearly 35 years, he’s been helping New England LGBTs get the healthcare they deserve By Mark Krone Go ahead, try to shock Jerry Feuer, Fenway Health...

Fifty years ago this month, on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Lem Billings had just returned from lunch when he heard the news. He was an advertising executive at Lennen and Newell in New York and as he approached his office building at 380 Madison Avenue, Billings saw immediately that something was wrong. Waves of people rolled out of the building onto the street, some looked confused, others wept. According to David Pitts, author of Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship, a face in the crowd approached Billings and said, “I’m so sorry about the president.”

For the first time in years, a troop of Boston mayoral candidates sift city neighborhoods for votes. At T stops and in coffee shops candidates reach for every hand, seeking just enough votes to lift them into the final when the bulky field shrinks to a two-person runoff. It’s hard work. After so many years with the same mayor, Bostonians are not used to choosing from such a large field. For the longest time, it was either the Mayor or the fly in the ointment. And the mayor won, no problem.

He may just be the most influential gay rights pioneer you’ve never heard of Prescott Townsend may be the most influential Boston gay rights pioneer you have never heard of. If so, hang on; before we’re through, Townsend will cross paths with Andre Gide, 1960s hippies, John Waters and his star, Mink Stole. And that’s not counting the army of young men who lived with him on Beacon Hill and in Provincetown, as long as their waist sizes hovered very close to 30-inches.

Boston’s most formidable gay poet, activist and arts and poetry editor is also responsible for the iconic name of LGBT newspaper Bay Windows Before gay...