Project Directors

For over 30 years, the three project directors have been national pioneers in issues related to LGBT history, documentation, and historic preservation.

Andrew S. Dolkart

Andrew S. Dolkart is a noted New York City architectural historian and a Professor of Historic Preservation in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) at Columbia University. From 2008 to 2016, he served as Director of the Historic Preservation program. He is the author of several award-winning books, including The Row House Reborn: Architecture and Neighborhoods in New York City, 1908-1929; Biography of a Tenement House in New York City: An Architectural History of 97 Orchard Street; and Morningside Heights: A History of Its Architecture and Development. He was also the author of the first edition of the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s Guide to New York City Landmarks.

Andrew co-authored the Stonewall nomination, which resulted in the first-ever National Register of Historic Places (1999) and National Historic Landmark (2000) listings for an LGBT site. He served as a panelist for “Beyond Stonewall: Recognizing Significant Historic Sites of the LGBT Community” at the 2011 National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Buffalo, New York and was also a participant in the 1994 map project, “A Guide to Lesbian & Gay New York Historical Landmarks,” created by the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Architects + Designers (OLGAD). In addition to writing scores of other National Register nominations, he authored the nominations for Julius’ bar in Greenwich Village and Earl Hall at Columbia University and amended the nomination for the Alice Austen House on Staten Island for their significance to LGBT history.
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Ken Lustbader

Ken Lustbader is a historic preservation consultant based in New York City. Between 2007 and 2015, he served as Historic Preservation Program Director at the J.M. Kaplan Fund where he was responsible for developing and implementing US and international grant initiatives. Prior to that he was lead consultant for the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund, a coalition of five preservation organizations that was formed in response to the September 11 attacks. In that capacity he developed and implemented a comprehensive preservation strategy that included the conservation of in situ elements of the World Trade Center that are now integral components of the National 9/11 Memorial Museum. Between 1994 and 2002, he was the Director of the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites Program.

In graduate school he authored “Landscape of Liberation: Preserving Lesbian and Gay History in Greenwich Village,” for which he received the 1993 Outstanding M.S. Historic Preservation Thesis award at Columbia University. In 1994, he helped create the map “A Guide to Lesbian & Gay New York Historical Landmarks” and, in 2011, served as a panelist in “Beyond Stonewall: Recognizing Significant Historic Sites of the LGBT Community” at the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Buffalo, New York. In collaboration with the National Parks Conservation Association, Ken co-authored the text for the “LGBT History Tour, Greenwich Village, NYC” walking tour brochure and map, created in 2017, that highlights LGBT historic sites around Stonewall National Monument. In 2019, he guest-edited the LGBT heritage issue for Change Over Time.
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Jay Shockley

Jay Shockley retired in 2015 as senior historian at the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission where since 1979 he researched and wrote over 100 designation reports covering all aspects of the city’s architectural, social, and cultural history. In 1993, he helped pioneer the concept of recognizing LGBT place-based history by incorporating it into the Commission’s reports. This effort culminated in the full essay, “The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community’s Presence in the South Village” in the South Village Historic District Designation Report (2013). That year, he also co-initiated an online landmarks guide that reinterpreted already designated Landmarks to highlight their LGBT history.

Separately, Jay was the author of the chapter “Preservation of LGBTQ Historic & Cultural Sites – A New York City Perspective” in the National Park Service’s LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer History (2016), which received the 2018 Buchanan Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. He also co-authored the Stonewall nomination, which resulted in the first-ever National Register of Historic Places (1999) and National Historic Landmark (2000) listings for an LGBT site. Jay was the creator and leader of the panel program, “Beyond Stonewall: Recognizing Significant Historic Sites of the LGBT Community” at the 2011 National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in Buffalo, New York. As part of the Organization of Lesbian and Gay Architects + Designers (OLGAD), Jay also co-created the pioneering 1994 map, “A Guide to Lesbian & Gay New York Historical Landmarks.” In collaboration with the National Parks Conservation Association, Jay co-authored the text for the “LGBT History Tour, Greenwich Village, NYC” walking tour brochure and map, created in 2017, that highlights LGBT historic sites around Stonewall National Monument. He has co-authored (with artist and historian Susan Tunick) a series of articles on the early 1850s development of American terra cotta and has also lectured and written on various other cultural heritage topics.
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Project Manager

Amanda Davis

Amanda Davis is an experienced architectural historian who has overseen the Project’s documentation initiatives since its founding in 2015. On behalf of the Project, she has spoken to various audiences at the city, state, and national levels, and authored the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Caffe Cino. In 2018, she was named to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s inaugural “40 Under 40: People Saving Places” list, in recognition of her efforts to help tell America’s full history. Amanda previously worked at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Architectural Resources Group (in Los Angeles), the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Central Park Conservancy. She holds a BA in Architectural History from the University of Virginia and an MS in Historic Preservation from Columbia University.
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Advisory Committee

The project team would like to thank the following group of historic preservationists, authors, and historians who form our advisory committee. Their support of the project and their in-depth knowledge of LGBT and NYC history have been invaluable.

• Joan Berkowitz

  Preservationist

• Richard Burns

  Not-for-Profit Consultant

• George Chauncey

  Historian

• Kenneth R. Cobb

  Assistant Commissioner, NYC Municipal Archives

• Deborah Edel

  Co-Founder, Lesbian Herstory Archives

• Donna Graves

  Public Historian

• Kathleen Howe

  Survey and Education Coordinator, New York State Historic Preservation Office

• Perin Hurewitz

  Heritage of Pride and Committee Chair of InterPride

• Jonathan Ned Katz

  Author and Founder of OutHistory.org

• Kathleen LaFrank

  National Register Coordinator, New York State Historic Preservation Office

• Eric Marcus

  Founder and Host of Making Gay History Podcast

• Diana Rodriguez

  Founder, Pride Live Nation

• Eric Washington

  Historian & Author

• Shayne Watson

  Architectural Historian and Preservation Planner