In the midst of revising Seeds of the Pomegranate, I keep coming across the story of photographer Alice Austen. My brother and sister-in-law lived around the block from her famous house, Clear Comfort, in Rosebank, Staten Island in the 1990s. She was the founder of the Staten Island Bicycle Club. This 1895 photograph is of a bicycle club tea. Alice Austen was one of the most prominent photographers of the twentieth century. She and her partner, Gertrude Tate, lived at Clear Comfort, which was a haven for queer women.
