We’re excited to partner with our friends at the Neighborhood Preservation Center for an exciting new program sponsored by WeWork!

At this event, learn about the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project and our newly launched interactive map that documents LGBT place-based history and conveys its impact on American culture. We’ll be on hand to discuss the website’s many features, including the map’s initial 100 LGBT historic sites and ten curated tours, from sites that highlight the city’s pre-20th century LGBT history to those related to LGBT activism before Stonewall.

Program attendees are highly encouraged to suggest NYC sites that matter to them, either at the event itself or through the project’s online suggestion form.

Find out more about the project and our goals to make an invisible history visible in our intro video below.

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Yesterday our co-director Ken Lustbader spoke at a “100 Days of Impact” workshop hosted by Impact Hub NYC in its Tribeca office. The daily workshop series features organizations working on issues that have been impacted by the current administration’s first 100 days in office. Attendees learned how our project could be affected by the administration’s policies and what we’re doing to keep LGBT history visible.

After the workshop, Ken spoke with Monica McCarthy, Events Producer at Impact Hub NYC, in a Facebook Live video about the importance of the project. If you missed it, watch it below!

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Courtesy of Impact Hub on Facebook

Our project manager Amanda Davis wrote the following piece for the blog of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It covers a bit about the years leading up to the founding of our project and why documenting LGBT historic sites is so important. Thanks to our friends at the National Trust for providing us with this platform just after our website launch.

Read the full article over at the National Trust’s Preservation Leadership Forum.

Today we launched our interactive map of 100 LGBT historic sites across the five boroughs of NYC! This is only the beginning. We have hundreds of sites in our database waiting to be researched and added to the map.

While we work on that, we wanted to thank 6sqft, a blog of City Realty, for covering the launch of our project and for highlighting some of the features you’ll find on our website. You can read the article over at 6sqft.

Yesterday our co-director Andrew Dolkart spoke to students and faculty at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden on the importance of documenting LGBT historic sites and making this history visible to the general public through our interactive website. It’s always a great opportunity to reach out to our friends overseas! See the event listing.

Andrew was co-author of the Stonewall nomination to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 and, in the past year, has authored the nomination for Julius’ bar and the amended nomination for the Alice Austen House. The latter two nominations are part of our ongoing efforts to recognize LGBT history on the National Register.

This year’s American Planning Association (APA) annual conference will be held in New York City! Our co-director Jay Shockley will be speaking at the Tuesday May 9th morning session, “Preserving Community History and Identity: National and Local Perspectives,” at the Javits Center, Room FD Hall 1E14 (JCC). At the session, Jay will be discussing landmark designations at the city and national levels as well as our project. He will be joined by Abdulla Al Shehhi; Richard Dorrier, AICP; Joshua Laird, National Park Service; and Michael Levine, AICP.

All that follows is from the APA website:

The Stonewall National Monument in New York City was designated as an historic and notable American symbol for LGBTQ equality in June 2016. This session discusses the history and issues with this designation process and its relevance to other sites and communities across the U.S.

You’ll learn about:

• Issues with new park designations (Federal, state & local) that celebrate our community identity and history
• Overcoming challenges associated with establishing LGBTQ site, parks, memorials and monuments
• Planning for new sites to educate the public about LGBTQ rights and contributions to American society

Following the 2016 National Register designation of the Stonewall National Monument, where the LGBTQ community’s uprising sparked the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement in the U.S., the Gays and Lesbians in Planning Division (GALIP) and Federal Planning Division (FPD) are co-hosting a session to discuss the relevance and means of preserving other spaces important to the LGBTQ community. This discussion will bring together representatives of the National Park Service, LGBTQ cultural historians and historic preservation specialists to discuss different ways in which spaces important to the LGBTQ community – or any community – can be preserved and protected. Together with notable professionals whose roles are critical to state and local landmark processes, the audience will examine the relevance of historic preservation in a planning context – from a local perspective and a national perspective. The audience will also be introduced to innovative ways of collecting and maintaining historical information about places of importance to community identity and history.

Join us at this free workshop as we talk about our project and our ongoing efforts to make LGBT historic places visible in New York City.

From the Impact Hub website: Join Impact Hub NYC from noon-1pm every weekday between Jan 23rd and May 1st for free workshops in direct response to Trump’s first 100 days plan. “100 Days of Impact” is daily workshops run by the best organizations in NYC doing work on issues impacted by the policies of the new administration. The purpose is for attendees to learn about an issue that will be impacted, what is currently being done to fight back, and how individuals can take action and help make a difference. Learn more about the program and our list of workshops.