You wake up leant against a trash can in a dark alley, and wonder what life choices led you to this moment. Before you can fall into a deep malaise, you remember that you did not exactly choose to be thrust back decades in order to save the queer timeline, but you better dust yourself off and get out there if you’re gonna find a way to make it home.
You stumble out of the alley, onto a New York city street. A pair of women are stood nearby, puzzling over a map and conversing in frustrated tones. You immediately recognise them as Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Rivera! Undoubtedly they have been presented with some kind of problem that only a time-travelling queer weirdo can help them solve, so you offer your assistance.
Marsha and Sylvia explain that they have been wandering around the Lower East Side trying to find an apartment building where they can set up a house for trans and queer youth experiencing homelessness, using funds raised by their activist organisation, STAR. Some friends told them about an ideal place, but they’re struggling to find it, because literally no-one in history seems capable of providing helpful information.
Marsha P Johnson (left) and Sylvia Rivera (right) lead the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) contingent, Christopher Street Liberation Day NYC June 24, 1973 Photo by Leonard Fink. Courtesy of The LGBT Community Center National History Archive (Fink collection: 24-03)
Can you help Marsha and Sylvia find the right building to set up the STAR house to create a safe home for vulnerable trans and gay youth?
Marsha and Sylvia have 4 friends who each live in a different apartment building near the intersection of two roads. Their friends have provided a map showing all their apartment buildings, plus the building Marsha and Sylvia are looking for, but have somehow failed to mark which building is which!
The map shows five buildings, numbered 1 to 5, and a T-shaped intersection of two roads. One road is running east to west, and halfway across there is an intersection with a road running south from it.
There is one building to the north of the east-west road, which is directly opposite the intersection: this is building 1. To the west of the road running north-south are two buildings: numbers 2 and 4. These two buildings are next door to each other, with number 2 north of number 4. To the east of the road running north-south are two buildings: numbers 3 and 5. These two buildings are next door to each other, with number 3 north of number 5.
Fortunately, Marsha and Sylvia remember a few things about where their friends live:
Stormé lives farther north than Victoria, who lives farther east than Bunny
Lee lives further south than Bunny, who lives further west than Stormé
Victoria lives further north than Lee
Bunny has to cross the street to visit Lee
Which number building is the apartment block they’re looking for?
Additional Tools:
A printable version of the map!.
Listen to Nicole read the puzzle aloud and describe the map:
I think I must be missing something here, I’m getting a contradiction.
Ah! What is the contradiction?
Victoria farther west than Bunny + Bunny farther west than Stormé –> Bunny is in house #1.
Stormé farther north than Victoria + Victoria farther north than Lee –> Stormé is in house #1.
I’m getting a contradiction too. I’m wondering if there’s a typo with something saying west where it’s supposed to say east or something like that?
Fixed it! It was indeed a typo with the first west needing to be east!
Sorry about that!
Btw you both get extra bonus QSAT points for realising it must have been an east/west typo!
I’m so glad y’all worked this out because I love logic puzzles and I was REALLY UPSET that somehow I kept getting this wrong?????
My favorite part of this was that you knew my effort to help with the diy was gonna be half-hearted. (Unless I got to play with the right tools)
Solved it with a grid!! Lol
(and the map)
Hmm, is there an extra clue? Or maybe I just misread in a way that helped me this time!
This was the first one of these that I did, and it was fun! And I got it right. :)
I tried to draw a grid for this one, but just couldn’t get it to work. The method in the hint was much easier than what I was trying to do lol. Thanks for the hint!
Love this one!