New York City’s Prince George Ballroom, with its gilded columns and soaring ceilings, is no place for the raucous protests and policy meetings Housing Works is famous for. Instead, the 400 or so advocates from around the world in attendance last night at the Third Annual Keith D. Cylar AIDS Activist Awards and Benefit Gala donned their party best to celebrate four shining stars of AIDS activism—and to recall Cylar, the Housing Works cofounder who passed away in 2004 From AIDS.

Awardee Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga  (center) with Housing Works’ Charles King and Robert Cordero
 “Keith Cylar set such a great example of being a fearless activist and I’m honored to follow his legacy,” Bolivian awardee Gracia Violeta Ross Quiroga told POZ. Added David I. Cohen, Chairman of Housing Works’ Board of Directors, “These awards embody the spirit of everything that Keith stood for.”

The Keith D. Cylar AIDS Activist Fund—enriched last night by $150 admission tickets—will help the awardees continue their pioneering work. This year’s winners were Michael Emanuel Rajner (U.S. AIDS Activist 

Awardee Michael Rajner with Housing Works’ Christine Campbell

Award; $10,000 grant); Mark Hayes (Housing Works AIDS Activist Award; $5,000 grant); Ross Quiroga (International AIDS Activist Award; $10,000 grant) and Deborah Peterson Small (Virginia Shubert Courage Award). Click here to read more about them.

The awards ceremony capped several days of events to celebrate the recipients—and take advantage of their abilities in
Deborah Peterson Small
accepts her prize
Washington. Earlier in the week, they joined 45 Housing Works clients from New York City in a series of meetings with legislators on Capitol Hill. Later, the awardees were honored at a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building. And back in New York City, there was a dance party among the dusty stacks of used books at the Housing Works bookstore café.

Among last night’s award presenters were the boisterous Miguel Algarín, founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and the glamorous Essence magazine editor-in-chief, Angela Burt-Murray. When three of the four awardees stepped up to the stage to receive engraved plaques inscribed with quotes of empowerment, the crowd erupted in cheers and whistles.

The event took a somber turn, though, when a video on the screen above the 
King joins the honored activists next to a photograph of the late Mark Hayes
podium chronicled the work of Mark Hayes, who passed away from esophageal cancer on April 3. Hayes’ partner, Bill Keyes, accepted the award on Mark’s behalf and fought tears.

Michelle Lopez, secretary of the Board of Directors for the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), told POZ prior to the presentation that Hayes was her reason for attending the event. “I especially wanted to honor Mark Hayes because the work he’s done has been so significant and meaningful to me,” she said. “He had that flame deep within. Even with cancer, he never let his disease be a barrier.”

Before the floor was cleared for dancing, Housing Works president and CEO Charles King closed the ceremony by lambasting politicians in New York City, Albany and Washington, D.C., for failing to take serious action against the disease. He said the epidemic would not end thanks to anything the government does, but rather, “It will be because of activists like those we have honored tonight, who take it upon themselves to demand a meaningful response, not only to the virus, but to the social and economic conditions that have allowed HIV to thrive and spread throughout our world.”

Photographs by Nick Burns