Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1514626
have was access. So, we added a crew staircase and proceeded to create the headquarters roof with a false door, exhaust pipes, TV antennas and tar— only to be cut from the final film. Bayard's apartment itself was a typical, nondescript space with parquet floors and eight-foot ceilings. As mentioned, it would have been brand new during the events of the film, so the new flairs in the details of the early '60s are what seem quaint to us now as they still exist in our world. The character of the place was helped by the presence of the balcony, which we kept in the design, as well as the depth and sophistication of Bayard's antiques and collections of antiquities. In visiting Walter, I took note that there was no furniture that was comfortable. I asked if the Jacobean chairs and hard benches meant more to Bayard as artifacts and what they represented, which he confirmed, adding that he also just didn't want people to stay too long. Details. Bayard had a huge collection of canes and walking sticks. Clocks. Medieval art and illuminated manuscripts. Lutes and statuary of various sizes. He also had multitudes of crucifixes on the wall. He had travelled through Europe collecting and had relationships with dealers in the city for trade and barter. The period of the film was indeed earlier than that captured in the research photos of later years, so in discussing this with George and Amy, we elected to scale back the layers slightly and tone down the excess but let enough of his flair and eccentricity shine through. As an out gay man in 1960s New York, Bayard was not shy about that aspect of his life and the script included a bar that transforms during the course of the evening to men only. I assumed we would land in a period-correct location, but the challenge would be finding one with a good exterior for additional scenes, which included a large police raid. I imagined we could cheat the two together if need be. What we eventually found was a great exterior location that happened to have a gutted restaurant interior on the corner. The windows to the street were big enough that they justified constructing the entire bar inside as a complete interior set to take advantage of the single environment. During the day, the view to the street would show the life of New York, and the corner windows let dusty late-afternoon light pour in. As dusk comes, the curtains would draw, block views from the street and the patrons would subtly shift as well. I also liked how the architecture of the block evoked a sense of the Meatpacking District in NYC, and an area of Christopher Street by the river that has a rich history of gay life in the shadows at the edge of the city. The crew transformed the A. MARCH HEADQUARTERS ROOFTOP. PITTSBURGH LOCATION. ILLUSTRATION BY JOANNA BUSH. B. BAYARD RUSTIN'S APARTMENT. RESEARCH BOARD. C. BAYARD RUSTIN'S APARTMENT. SET BUILT ON STAGE. SET PHOTO. D. BAR EXTERIOR. ILLUSTRATION BY JOANNA BUSH. E. BAR INTERIOR. ILLUSTRATION BY JOANNA BUSH. A B C