People in Asbury Park today know Sal Susino as “Daddy Sal” — the man who with his late husband, Dion Daly-Susino, changed Asbury Park for good. While there was a time when Asbury Park was considered wicked, Sal and Dion had a vision of building community and creating positive change for everyone in town. Susino continues that work today with an army of love and light.
Susino was born and raised in Brooklyn and Queens and moved to New Jersey at 19, when his family moved their bakery to Monmouth County. While he was working in the family business, he was adventuresome, strong-willed, and gay. And when you work in a family business, there may not be as much room for free thinking.
Susino moved on from the family bakery to working with homeless people living with HIV and other marginalized communities in the 1990s. Much of his work in helping treat and prevent HIV was volunteer. Ultimately the grassroots change he made served as the groundwork for organizations preventing and treating HIV today. He and his husband were visionaries who started the New Jersey chapter of the NAMES project — the first people to do work around the AIDS Memorial Quilt in the Garden State.
“These days, I aspire to be more of a mentor, and my goal is to bring the community together, wherever and whoever is there,” Susino said. “When you’re a young gay man in Monmouth County and you’re looking for where gay life was in the late ’70s/early ’80s, Asbury Park was it. I think of it as the home of the LGBTQ community — at some point or other you end up here.
“There are a lot of people who have their own Asbury Park stories. It’s a huge area at the Shore that’s filled with folks who found family here and still live around the area.
“Some of the fiercest, toughest women were the lesbian feminists of the 1970s and they taught me what was necessary. They instilled in me the importance of changing what you can. They were the people who told me to do the work. They showed me that I am just a part of the story. I was shown that I had a certain voice and that I needed to use it to bring the issues I saw to light.”
Starting with the earliest days of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s, Susino used everything he learned. “My HIV work came from what I saw and while I recognize that I cannot fix everything, some of MY sweat and MY tears are in everything I do. I am very aware that in the world that I grew up in as a sexually active gay man, the fact that I am HIV negative and I survived the 1980s when there was a greater likelihood that I would not survive, that is not lost on me. By the time I was 30, I had lost most of my friends to that first pandemic.
“The lesbians who came to help, the women who told me not to stay quiet, the men who no longer could live their lives — that’s where it all began. My life in and out of the ‘vanilla’ world, though I’ve never really been a part of that world, required me to represent all the people who were not seen in that world. Most of those people are no longer here.
“In my HIV work, I’ve had to tell the state that we’re not doing it right. I’ve had to tell the world that we need to make sure everyone is remembered. We’re not going to stigmatize or judge people. Though when I’m not wearing that hat, I’m a proud leatherman.” Sal reminisces about a time many young activists never knew. “I remember when the bear community became a thing. I remember working within the LGBTQ community to remind people not to judge one another. Fighting the world sometimes creates bullies in the queer world, even though each person has their own struggles. We didn’t need to fight amongst ourselves.
“Queer didn’t mean then what it means today: a political statement,” said Susino. “In my generation, ‘queer’ meant a brick in the back of the head. Even in Pride parades and marches, I’ve worked to make sure that leather and kink marchers are not at the back. Leather people have the same struggles we all had, and people don’t always remember struggles other than their own. Telling the stories of those who came before is so important. Few remember a time when lesbians used to spit on leather women. People don’t always remember how cruel we can be, dismissive of one another.”
Susino has worked at many jobs throughout his career, some close, some far away in time or mileage. “These days, it only takes me eight minutes to get to work now at my job in Asbury Park (Prevention Resource Network, Manager of Special Initiatives at the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey). I’ve done a lot of sexual health and HIV planning around prevention and PrEP. PrEP and U=U is a game changer — and it’s how we will end HIV.
“For years I worked on the HIV planning process and if this had been available when we were first starting out, it would have been a different world. Being a gay man of a certain generation has certainly given me a perspective that’s so important to the work I do today.
“When I judged the International Mr. Leather contest, I made sure that people know that leather in the suburbs is really a thing. I am proud of my leather identity and leather is everywhere. While we may identify with NYC or Philly, we ARE New Jersey. We’re a liberal state that often has conservative ways of thinking. In my polyamorous life, my husband of 40 years and I were fully involved together. For the last several years of Dion’s life, we had a special man, Loyal Susino, who is now my husband. We were all together. We shouldn’t be judged by who and how we love.
Over time, we have seen a huge amount of LGBTQ businesses close and the buildings that housed them destroyed.
“I’m currently working on a new project: the Asbury Park Rainbow Walk Project. We are creating both a virtual and a full-on historical piece documenting the LGBTQ presence here in Asbury Park. Prior to World War II, Asbury Park was popular with the gay community. Over time, we have seen a huge amount of LGBTQ businesses close and the buildings that housed them destroyed. A whitewashed and generic Asbury Park has taken their places.
“Part of this project will be restoring the memory of where places have been by placing plaques where history was made. We are creating a virtual walk; we are recording the stories of the people who were such a vital part of that community. We are excited to bring to life the history of New Jersey that includes the legislation that made gay bars legal, that there was a bathhouse in town, that when most of the white people fled during the riots in the 1970s, the gay people and the people of color kept the town going. The non-queer folks flocking in to Asbury Park in 2025 need to know this history. That could be an article in itself, right? We are working to preserve the queer history of Asbury Park, for everyone.
“Generational changes are also in my thoughts. Many will say, ‘These young people don’t understand what we went through. We worked hard to make sure they would never have to go through the hatred, fear, and violence we experienced.’ My response is that’s because we have worked so hard for people to NOT be told by their government that they have no right to exist. We are in this together. We live in an interesting world where no one gives a fuck that trans women of color are being killed daily and no one seems to care.
“We have to prioritize the stories of ALL the people who made history in Asbury Park. There is so much we need to document. It’s a team effort, not just me, though I’m co-chairing this project with Beth Bicoastal who is the reigning Ms. New Jersey Leather this year. We also have a lot of support from Garden State Equality, whose headquarters is right here in Asbury Park.
“Producing the Mr./Ms. NJ Leather Contest has done a lot of community building, while we’re on that topic, he continues. “We first held this contest in the Fall of 2000 for the titleholder to reign for 2001. We added Ms. NJ [Leather] in 2004, and that was pretty early on, in the context of these events, though women’s contests have been happening since the 1980s. These days, post-COVID, we moved the event to March and each of the titleholders has charities that they support within the leather community. Fundraising to help those in need is always the heart of the matter. Pup Yellow and Beth Bicoastal [hosted their final walk in late March] at the Paradise/Empress Hotel and we look forward to seeing everyone there.”
Susino continues moving forward, saying, “In early November, I received an award from Hyacinth AIDS Foundation (Deloris Dockrey Community Advocate Award) shared with Shannon Preston who also received this award. When we look at HIV in New Jersey, we tend to look at the larger urban centers. Asbury Park, however, is the center of a lot of activity and there is a clear connection between prevention as an Asbury Park issue and how to limit transmission when people go home. We are a community-state where we are all ‘dating’ people all over the state.”
Susino is always working, always walking in someone else’s shoes, and, with his husband, Loyal, continues to make great changes in the Garden State.
Wanna meet him? Sal is the handsome devil smoking a cigar and presiding over leather events at Paradise and Georgies in Asbury, and The 244 Spot in South Amboy. He is always looking for a few good people to keep making good trouble.
