Rachel Sadon
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By Rachel Sadon and Maria Carrasco
What began in 1986 as a group of drag queens making a spontaneous drunken sprint between a bar and a steakhouse has become one of the District’s most iconic community events. And starting this year, the annual 17th Street High Heel Race is now officially a production of the city government.
As has been the case for years, the 2018 race will take place on the Tuesday before Halloween; dozens of costumed drag queens will make a mad dash (or a leisurely strut) down 17th Street NW while thousands of spectators cheer them on. But it is the final year that Dave Perruzza will serve as a chief organizer, after nearly two decades in the role.
City officials have already taken over the permitting and logistics, and advertising for the event bears the branding of the current administration. On social media, it is being billed as “Mayor Muriel Bowser Presents the 32nd Annual 17th Street High Heel Race.”
Perruzza—the former manager of JR’s Bar & Grill who left to start Pitchers, his own bar in Adams Morgan, earlier this year—will still be working on the night of the race to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch, and a city official will tag along to see how it’s done.
When asked how he’s feeling about handing the event over, Perruzza says: “I’m the most relieved I’ve ever been in my life … It’s always been a pain in the neck.”
For much of its existence, the race—a glittery, 0.1-mile run between JR’s Bar and Annie’s Paramount Steakhouse—was an informal cavalcade for those in the know. The cops were aware of the tradition and helped shut the street down, and that was about it, Peruzza says. At some point, it got big enough that organizers moved it from the night of Halloween to the Tuesday before to help with crowd control.
By 1999, when Peruzza got involved in organizing the race, the city started requiring permits and fees to cover the police presence. But as a free, grassroots event, there wasn’t revenue to pay for it, resulting in an annual series of bureaucratic hurdles (the Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets became a 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor in 2011).
“The mayor has always had to find the funding,” Perruzza says. “Every mayor we’ve ever had has been so supportive. We haven’t had one mayor that’s said ‘no we’re not going to help.'”
In recent years, the D.C. government has played an increasingly large role (the city was an official sponsor for the first time in 2017), but this is the first time the mayor’s office is officially organizing the race, according to Sheila Alexander-Reid, the director of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs.
“I know Mayor Bowser loves this event and I know she’s proud to present it,” Alexander-Reid says.
But there’s been some pushback to the handover. “How the eff is this her effin’ event?” one person asked on the official event page. “What the eff is up with that?”
Perruzza has heard the criticism, too.
“They think [the city is] going to make it very corporate. I’m trying to tell people that they haven’t done it yet [in all the years they have been involved]… I just think it’s important for people to realize that the mayor’s office has always helped out,” he says. “The people that are critical, I say something like ‘dude, they have been paying for forever, and who else is going to do it?'”
The mayor’s office says it got involved to ensure the High Heel Race’s long-term stability.
“This race has changed from being a small community event to be a citywide event, and it continues to be a safe event,” Alexander-Reid says. “We’re really proud to be a part of it every year and we want to step up our involvement.”
There’s some symbolism to the moment: the campy race has completed its transformation from subversive tradition to city-sponsored spectacle.
“Everyone is there. You have children looking at drag queens. You just see it all.” Perruzza says. “D.C. is a whole mix-up of everything, and the High Heel Race is what symbolizes D.C. better than any other event in the city. It really does bring everyone together, and there’s no drama. It’s good that it’s a city event—and now it finally is—and it’s going to go on forever.”
As for what he’ll do next year, Perruzza pledges that he’ll be back as a regular old volunteer—it’s the best way to get a good vantage point, he notes—or, he adds: “I might even dress up and run it, you never know.”
The 17th Street High Heel Race is set to take place on Tuesday, Oct. 30. A pre-race happy hour starts at 5 p.m. at Level One/Cobalt (1639 R St NW); the parade kicks off at 7 p.m.; and the race begins at 9 p.m. Free tickets are not required, but the city is asking for RSVPs to help figure out the headcount.
