History, Natural History & the Arts
New York City’s Stonewall National Monument, the only site in the federal park system focused on LGBTQ history, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.
In a nod to the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, 250 rainbow flags were installed on the fence that surrounds Christopher Park, a tiny parcel at the heart of the monument in Greenwich Village. [Read more…] about A Complicated Birthday: 10 Years of Stonewall National Monument
A Monument of Charity: St. Vincent’s Hospital and Catholic Health Care in New York City (NYU Press, 2026) by Thomas F. Rzeznik provides the first comprehensive history of this remarkable institution, from its humble beginnings to its abrupt closure. What follows is a Q & A with the author: [Read more…] about Manhattan’s St. Vincent’s Hospital: A Deeper Dive
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 19 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include a nineteenth-century church in Jefferson County that developed and promoted Universalism in Upstate New York, a pre-Revolutionary War house owned by seven generations of the Hulse family on Long Island’s North Shore, and additional documentation for New York City’s Hotel Chelsea recognizing its significance as a center of LGBTQ cultural and creative life. [Read more…] about 19 NY Places Recommended for State and National Registers
Staten Island photographer Elizabeth Alice Austen (1866–1952) is best known for her street photography and intimate depictions of women’s lives and relationships in the Victorian era.
“New Eyes on Alice Austen,” a groundbreaking permanent exhibition at the Alice Austen House Museum finally puts her into an appropriate LGBTQ+ history context with respect denied her during her lifetime. [Read more…] about New Eyes on Alice Austen: Queering the Museum
St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village began in 1849 with a simple, but radical mission: to care for all those in need regardless of race, creed, or financial means. For more than 160 years, the hospital carried out that work, serving notables and the nameless alike, from impoverished immigrants and those stricken by devastating nineteenth-century epidemics to AIDS patients and the victims of the attacks of 9/11.
Part of the former Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers healthcare system in New York City, St. Vincent’s closed on April 30, 2010, was demolished two years later and has become luxury condos. [Read more…] about St. Vincent’s Hospital: New York City’s Other ‘Ground Zero’
Launched in July 1900, the transatlantic liner S.S. Vaderland (Flemish for fatherland) sailed the route between Antwerp and Hoboken on behalf of the Red Star Line. Catering for 340 first-class, 200 second-class, and over 600 third-class (formerly steerage) passengers, the liner was one of “mid tier” elegance rather than opulence and designed to compete with its rivals of the Cunard and White Star lines. She played a key role in the early history of mass emigration from Europe to the United States.
On May 25, 1912, the liner left Antwerp, arriving at Ellis Island for immigrant inspection on June 4th. On board was a talented twenty-year-old Polish woman keen to break free from traditional Jewish domestic constraints and find intellectual and sexual freedom in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Lesbian History: Eve Adams, Monocles, Tearooms & Deportations
Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York: From the Suppressed to the Strange (SUNY Press Excelsior Editions, 2026) by Jonathan Ezra Goldman offers a fresh look at 1920s New York City, unearthing stories of everyday life and marginalized communities.
In sections that intertwine entertainment, politics, art, technology, crime, shopping, eating, and recreation, the book portrays sweeping events such as the Harlem Renaissance, Prohibition, and immigration through anecdotes of individual experiences that counter the era’s popular conceptions of ballooning wealth and uproarious celebration. [Read more…] about Hidden Histories of Jazz Age New York
Historic landmarks are important resources in part because they help make the lives of the past more tangible — and help each of us see ourselves in history. Places significant to LGBTQ+ communities, however, can be overlooked because many of these communities formed out of the public eye by necessity, often receiving little mainstream attention at the time.
As people age and disperse, and as many sites close or are repurposed under new ownership, knowledge of these places’ significance can fade, along with the irreplaceable opportunity to document and preserve them. [Read more…] about Help Preserve Western New York’s Historic LGBTQ+ Community Sites
New York City has been home to a remarkable breadth of transformative women, and the scene of innumerable movements for women’s equality and empowerment.
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has numerous ways to celebrate and explore women’s history in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Many of the women in these collections have had statewide and national impacts. [Read more…] about Village Preservation’s Women’s History Resources
The Trump regime removed the Pride Flag flying at the first and only National Park dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.
The removal of the flag at Stonewall National Monument comes exactly one year after the National Park Service removed references to transgender and queer people from their webpages, including the page on Stonewall. The move is the latest in a string of removals and changes censuring information on signs and exhibits on public lands that has picked up pace in recent weeks. [Read more…] about Pride Flag Removed from Only National Park Dedicated to LGBTQ+ History
An outspoken critic of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, Jewish photojournalist Gisèle [Gisela] Freund fled her native Germany in 1933 with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. Having settled in Paris, she obtained her PhD at the Sorbonne in 1936 and would become the most talented chronicler of the vibrant and multi-national bohemian community of artists and writers that made its home in Paris during the 1930s.
By 1939, Freund had photographed many of the greatest writers and artists of the twentieth century, amongst them Henri Matisse, Samuel Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Jean Cocteau, André Breton, Colette, André Malraux, Paul Valéry, Tennessee Williams, Peggy Guggenheim, Simone de Beauvoir, and Jean-Paul Sartre. [Read more…] about The Battle for Ulysses in Paris & New York
As Lower Manhattan’s elected representative for 35 years, Deborah Glick has been a leading advocate for civil rights, reproductive freedom, animals and environmental preservation, the arts, and tenants’ rights.
Glick was the first openly LGBTQ+ member of the State Legislature when elected in 1990 and a leader in the fight for marriage equality. [Read more…] about New LGBTQ Oral History: Assemblymember Deborah Glick
The Stonewall Inn, a state and national historic site, is the most well-known place in LGBTQ American history. In June 1969, following a routine police raid, patrons at the Mafia-run Stonewall Inn, as well as young queer and trans people who lived or regularly congregated in Greenwich Village, spontaneously erupted in multiple nights of protest.
The event was a turning point in the ongoing LGBTQ rights movement and sparked its growth in New York City, New York State, and across the nation. Organizations and groups formed around the country to promote LGBTQ rights, and thousands of people became active in the movement. [Read more…] about Lavender Hill Commune: LGBTQ Liberation in Central NY
The New York State Board for Historic Preservation was established in 1972 and expanded by the New York State Historic Preservation Act of 1980. It works with the State Historic Preservation Office to review nominations to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
In honor of the milestone 200th meeting of the Board for Historic Preservation (on September 10, 2025), below are some of New York’s most interesting resources in the National Register, either as individual sites or as parts of historic districts. [Read more…] about Some Unique National Historical Register Listings in New York
The New York State Museum has unveiled its latest exhibition, “New York Pride: The Fight for Marriage Equality.” This exhibit chronicles the state’s journey toward marriage equality, beginning with the fight against the stigma surrounding healthcare for gay people, particularly during the HIV/AIDS crisis, which helped bring visibility to the lived experiences of the LGBTQ+ community and spotlight the inequalities they faced.
This growing awareness and advocacy laid a crucial foundation for broader civil rights advances, ultimately paving the way for the legalization of gay marriage by characterizing it as a matter of dignity, equality, and human rights. [Read more…] about New State Museum Exhibit on the Fight for Marriage Equality
The Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (State Parks) has announced the most recent recommendations by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to add 20 properties and districts to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.
The nominations include John Steinbeck’s writing cottage in Sag Harbor; Cluett, Peabody buildings in Troy; Lake George’s Mohican Point; a small surviving commercial historic district on Seneca Street in Buffalo; the architecturally significant post Vatican II St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan; the home of prominent Black community leaders George and Theodora Bragg in Elmira; as well as additional documentation of LGBT history for the Louis N. Jaffe Art Theater Building in New York City. [Read more…] about State Parks Announces 20 Nominations for State and National Registers of Historic Places
A particularly seminal event in LGBTQ+ history was the 1966 “Sip-In” at Julius’ Bar in Greenwich Village, around the corner from the Stonewall Inn, where the Stonewall Riots would happen three years later.
Drinking while gay in the early 1960s was considered illegal in New York State (and most states). In response to laws that prevented businesses from serving members of the LGBTQ+ community, gay rights organization the Mattachine Society organized the “Sip-In,” based on the “sit-ins” against segregation at Southern lunch counters. [Read more…] about The 1966 Julius’ Bar Sip-In: Prelude to Stonewall
Situated in the 18th century taverns and inns, coffeehouses or even private rooms and suites of the sprawling English Colonial World, “molly houses” were clandestine locations where gay men and cross-dressing individuals found community. They represented safe spaces to interact and socialize, places filled with the possibility of social negotiation – and of social connection, which was crucial due to the ever-present threat of capital punishment. [Read more…] about Molly Houses: Community, & Homosexuality in the 18th Century
People arriving in New York City for the first time have had reactions ranging from fascination to astonishment to horror. Here are six of their perspectives ranging from 1915 to 1967, from a journalist, a poet/artist, a Socialist, a suffragist, a travel writer, and a songstress. [Read more…] about New York City Newcomers: Six Perspectives, 1915-1967
Born in Brooklyn in 1810 in a family of Irish immigrants, John McCloskey became the first American-born Archbishop of New York. When he died in October 1885 after two decades of leadership, the Catholic Church had seen major changes in its place in society. He oversaw the construction of eighty-seven new churches, including the first parish for Black Catholics, and doubled the number of Catholic schools. The Roman Church had gained a voice in society. [Read more…] about Catholic Converts & Rose Cleveland’s “Boston Marriage”
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