National Register Listings
overview
In 1999, the team that would later found the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project successfully nominated the Stonewall Inn to the National Register of Historic Places, the first site to ever be listed on the register for its significance to LGBT history. Overseen by the National Park Service, the National Register is an honorary federal list that includes over 93,500 sites across the country, yet the LGBT community remains vastly underrepresented with less than twenty sites. Building on our Stonewall nomination, this curated theme highlights our ongoing efforts to nominate more LGBT sites to the National Register.
Sites below have also been listed on the New York State Register of Historic Places, which leads the country in nominations that specifically call out LGBT history. We are pleased to be working with the New York State Historic Preservation Office to ensure that the LGBT community’s contributions to American history are recognized on both the state and national registers.
Our work has been funded, in part, by a lead grant from the National Park Service Underrepresented Communities Grant Program to add diversity to the National Register.
Historic Sites in National Register Listings
In the early 1970s, the Women’s Liberation Center was founded as an important meeting space for many women’s groups, including those that specifically served the lesbian community. The Center operated... Learn More
From 1953 to 1960, playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry resided in the third-floor apartment of this building. While here, Hansberry lived parallel lives: one as the celebrated playwright of A Raisin... Learn More
Literary icon and civil rights activist James Baldwin used this Upper West Side remodeled rowhouse as his New York City residence from 1965 until his death in 1987. Although he... Learn More
From 1969 to 1974, the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea was one of the most important meeting places in New York City for organizations of the early post-Stonewall... Learn More
The Student Homophile League, the first gay student organization in the country, was founded at Columbia University in 1966 and held many of its activities in Earl Hall. In 1970,... Learn More
The Caffe Cino is widely recognized as the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway theater and was located on the ground floor of this building from 1958 to 1968. It is also highly... Learn More
Pioneering female photographer Alice Austen grew up in her family’s home where she later lived with schoolteacher Gertrude Tate, her partner of 55 years. Austen’s work includes early images of... Learn More
On April 21, 1966, a “Sip-In” was organized by members of the Mattachine Society, one of the country’s earliest gay rights organizations, to challenge the State Liquor Authority’s discriminatory policy... Learn More
Bayard Rustin, one of the most important yet little-known figures of the Black civil rights movement, lived in an apartment in this Chelsea building complex from 1962 to 1987 (his... Learn More
From June 28 to July 3, 1969, LGBT patrons of the Stonewall Inn and members of the local community took the unusual action of fighting back during a routine police... Learn More
In 1893, public health nurse and progressive reformer Lillian Wald co-founded the Henry Street Settlement to provide no-cost medical services to poor immigrants living in cramped tenements on the Lower... Learn More
