A former Village Voice staffer in town for the weekend, was jumped, badly beaten and called a faggot by a group of young men on the Upper East Side in the wee hours of Saturday morning. 36-year-old Joe Holladay of Boston was smoking outside the friend's apartment on East 85th near York around 4 a.m. Saturday when the group of five or six men came up to him and hit him with an object, possibly the butt of a gun. Holladay told the Voice, "It's very blurry. But yeah, they said 'faggot.' And the next thing I know I'm in the hospital." A neighbor said they spotted a group of young white men with crewcuts, wearing wife beaters and smoking pot nearby before the attack. It's believed that they hopped in a gold Subaru older model station wagon after the attack. Upon reading about the incident, State Senator Thomas Duane got involved with the possibility of pursuing it as a hate crime and said, "Hate and prejudice of any kind are unacceptable in New York City or anywhere and there is a heightened injustice that this apparently anti-gay incident occurred during Pride Week." more ›

Gay Pride Week is coming to a close with today's Gay Pride March along Fifth Avenue and a number of other events. But while you celebrate, please remain vigilant also, because a reader tells us he was attacked on the 2/3 from Christopher Street late yesterday afternoon, after volunteering at a pride event:

"The guy kept asking us to move because he didn't like us and that we made him sick. There was no place else for us to go. He started hitting me and then his girlfriend started clawing me with her nails...I took a cab to St. Vincents, filed a police report and got two black eyes, 7 stitches, multiple chipped teeth, broken glasses."

With Gay Pride Week coming to a close this weekend, Gothamist Health wants everyone to feel good and to get out and enjoy the festivities and big Parade. On that note, the Department of Health released a list of 10 tips this week to promote a healthy LGBT lifestyle. While we understand that we are all at risk for most health problems, there are a few conditions are a bit more common in the gay community. Some are more obvious than others, but it never hurts to review - many of them are applicable to people of all sexual orientations: more ›