West Side Rendezvous is a series of black-and-white photographs taken by Katsu Naito in the mid-1990s, documenting the queer and trans sex workers who lived and worked in New York's Meatpacking District. Made with the trust and collaboration of his subjects, Naito's images capture a community and a neighborhood that has all but vanished from the city. Thirty years on, the work stands as a singular record of a unique moment in queer and trans New York history.

This November, the series will be exhibited at New York Life Gallery, accompanied by a hardcover monograph published by Art Paper Editions. A 76-page hardcover in an edition of 1,000, the book brings Naito's photographs together with new writing from community voices, including Devan Diaz and Porsche Jones. 

 "West Side Rendezvous" is a vital historical record of queer New York. Photo books are how this kind of history survives. Long after an exhibition closes, the monograph remains, on shelves and in libraries, as a lasting witness.

This is an independent publication in an edition of just 1,000, made possible by the people who choose to support it. We're raising $16,000 to bring the book to print, and thanks to early supporters we're already nearly halfway there — and because there's no threshold to clear, your gift is at work the moment it's made. It goes toward the real costs of the book: printing and binding the 76-page hardcover, design, high-quality scanning and color work, and the writing and editorial that accompany the photographs. 

If you can't give right now, you can still help enormously by sharing this campaign; every share brings the monograph closer to print.