Mr Hammond, 67, was born in Union City, NJ, and earned a B.A. at Columbia College, majoring in English and minoring in art history. He also did postgraduate work in English at Rutgers University.
In his career, Mr. Hammond was an editor at Moorehouse/Barlow, New York University Press, the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the New York Native, and wrote reviews and features for the Native, TheatreWeek, and InTheatre magazines. He had a special affinity for cutting-edge off and Off-Off-Broadway productions. He was a member of the Drama Desk from 1996 to 1998.
He compiled the theatrical listings for the Defunct TheaterWeek, then the most complete listing of Off-Off Broadway plays, according to colleagues.
From 1988 to 1997, he was an editor and staff writer for That New Magazine, Inc., publisher of TheaterWeek, Opera Monthly, Christopher Street (the literary magazine), and New York Native (the gay community newspaper).
He was also a general editor, critic and reporter for The New York Theatre Wire (www.nytheatre-wire.com). Mr. Hammond became involved with the Gay Liberation movement in the early 1970s, and co-founded the International Gay History Archive in 1981, which is now housed in the Rare Books and Manuscript division of the New York Public Library.
Mr. Hammond was a passionate fan of New York who, for 30 years beginning in 1961, gave walking tours of New York City neighborhoods for the Museum of the City of New York.
In 1997, he was the first editor of Curator's Choice (www.nymuseums.com), the original website of museum news and criticism on the World Wide Web. He compiled the first interactive online guide to Museums in the New York area.
Mr. Hammond immigrated to Canada in early 2001 and became passionate about historic house museums in Toronto. He launched and edited The Spadina Advocate, a newsletter for volunteers of the Spadina House and Garden Museum in 2002, which grew into a four-museum newsletter renamed The Old Toronto Advocate.
On March 24, 2004 Mr. Hammond married his life partner Bruce Eves at City Hall in Toronto. Eves, of Toronto, survives him, as do sister Hildegarde Hammond of New York, and cousin Geraldine Heydt of Plainfield, NJ.
A memorial service is planned, please contact [email protected] for more information.
Financial contributions in Mr. Hammond's memory are requested to be donated to the Spadina House and Garden Museum at 285 Spadina Road, Toronto Ontario Canada M5R 2V5 and/or LEGIT-Toronto (Lesbian and Gay Immigration Task Force) at P.O. Box 111 Station F, Toronto Ontario Canada M4Y 2L4.
