The NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, launched in 2015 by historic preservation professionals, is an award-winning cultural heritage initiative and educational resource. Its mission is to broaden people’s understanding of LGBT history by exploring the places where that history was made. Through an interactive website, public programs, and social media, we make visible hundreds of historic places, from the 17th century to the year 2000, that reflect the diversity of LGBT New Yorkers and the community’s influence on America.
The Project is a national leader in the documentation of LGBT historic sites, highlighting the community’s contributions to the visual arts, theater, literature, dance, music, healthcare, activism, business, and other fields. Bars, clubs, and community centers, historically the only places where LGBT people could gather openly, are also featured. View all historic sites on the website.
Anti-Police Brutality Protest in Response to the Blue’s Bar Raids
In 1982, as policing of Times Square intensified and plans to redevelop the area began to make headway, the police twice raided Blue’s, a predominantly working-class Black and Latino gay bar that also attracted lesbians and trans people.
In response to the raids, arguably the last LGBT bar raids in New York City’s history, a coalition of interracial LGBT groups organized an anti-police brutality protest in the Times Square neighborhood to call out the media’s silence and condemn the raids as a racist, homophobic effort at moral cleansing and gentrification.
Stop the Hate Radio Actions at the Spanish Broadcasting System Headquarters
In 1994, a coalition of mostly Latina lesbians from three lesbian activist groups executed a months-long protest campaign against homophobic radio show El Vacilón de la Mañana and its parent company, whose headquarters and studios were in this building.
The coalition’s actions included infiltrating the station’s studios during a broadcast, as well as pickets and a protest march in which over 100 multi-racial lesbians rallied outside of the building.
Ana María Simo & Kelly Cogswell Residence
From at least 1983 until 2018, Cuban exile writer, playwright, and activist Ana María Simo owned and lived in the third-floor apartment of this tenement building, where she hosted a dinner in 1992 that culminated in the founding of direct-action group the Lesbian Avengers.
While living here, Simo emerged as a more prolific playwright, established DYKE TV and The Gully online magazine, and led Lesbian Avengers actions and sub-groups focused on issues pertinent to lesbians of color, for which this apartment served as a meeting place.
Muriel Miguel Residence & Spiderwoman Theater Headquarters
Two-Spirit theater director, choreographer, actress, and educator Muriel Miguel was born and has lived much of her adult life in this Brooklyn rowhouse, which has served as the headquarters for Spiderwoman Theater for most of the years since its founding in 1976.
Combining Indigenous oral traditions with her experience in modern dance, avant-garde theater, and consciousness-raising, Miguel has confronted racist and sexist stereotypes, cultural appropriation and commodification, weight and age stigma, gender-based violence, classism, and taboos among lesbians.
Geoffrey Hendricks, Brian Buczak & Sur Rodney (Sur) Residence & Studio
From 1976 until his death in 2018, Geoffrey Hendricks, a painter and early gay performance artist central to Fluxus, lived in this rowhouse with his two long-term partners, first with painter Brian Buczak until his AIDS-related death in 1987, then from 1995 with Black writer, archivist, and curator Sur Rodney (Sur).
Hendricks and Buczak restored the building, transforming it into their home, studio, and headquarters for their artists’ press, Money for Food Press. Later, Hendricks and Sur joined in their commitment to preserving the artistic legacies of those lost to AIDS with the Visual AIDS Archive Project.
Assotto Saint & Jan Holmgren Residence
From 1981 until his death from AIDS-related complications in 1994, Assotto Saint lived in apartment 2D of this Chelsea building with his life partner, Jan Urban Holmgren.
As a Haitian-born American poet, playwright, editor, and activist, Saint increased the visibility of contemporary Black queerness, elucidated the Black immigrant experience during the AIDS crisis, and fought to make visible the disproportionate physical and cultural toll that the epidemic was having on Black gay men.
Maurice Kenny Residence
Poet Maurice Kenny, widely regarded as one of the first Native American writers to publish literature exploring Two-Spirit identity, rented a studio apartment on the top floor of this Brooklyn Heights rowhouse from 1967 to 1987.
While living here, Kenny entered one of his most prolific and transformative periods as a writer, publishing his first poetry with overtly queer and Native themes.
WeWah & BarCheeAmpe at the American Indian Community House
Emerging from the American Indian Community House, WeWah & BarCheeAmpe was established in 1989 as the first Native American Two-Spirit (2S) organization in New York and the third in the United States.
From 1989 until the mid-1990s, WeWah & BarCheeAmpe was involved with several educational, cultural, and activist initiatives that ultimately heightened Two-Spirits’ visibility in the larger Native American and LGBT communities.
Félix González-Torres Residence & Studio
Artist Félix González-Torres was known for his conceptual, minimalist art installations that employed everyday objects to reflect on his experiences as an openly gay Cuban-American wrestling with both the personal and communal impacts of AIDS, discriminatory public policies, and censorship of LGBT artists.
While living in this small studio apartment, from 1985 to 1990, González-Torres became a member of the art-activism collective Group Material, began teaching at NYU, had his first solo exhibitions, and initiated experiments with new mediums.
Chelsea Hotel
The Chelsea Hotel, the storied residence hotel on 23rd Street, has played host to a succession of countercultures throughout the 20th century, serving as a hub and inspiration for the Beat Generation, Postmodern artists, rock and punk musicians, drag performers, and the Club Kids.
Until 2011, when new developers evicted many long-term residents and began controversial decade-long renovations, the Chelsea was a creative sanctuary that fostered collaboration among numerous LGBT writers, musicians, artists, designers, filmmakers, and actors.