- Events
- Panel
Co-sponsored by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives
On World AIDS Day, join us for a powerful conversation exploring the fierce, community-led resistance that defined New York City’s response to the AIDS crisis.
Spanning the critical years from the first reported cases of AIDS in 1981 to the introduction of life-saving protease inhibitors in 1996, this panel brings together key voices who shaped history through policy, protest, and memory. Featuring trailblazing former City Council Member and State Senator Tom Duane, Village Preservation Executive Director (and former chief of staff to Duane) Andrew Berman, and historian and curator Stephen Petrus, the discussion will look back at how grassroots mobilization forced a negligent government to act, changed the landscape of healthcare, and permanently transformed the fabric of New York City. The program is inspired by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives digital exhibit Panic, Politics, and Policy.
Panic, Politics, and Policy: New York City During the AIDS Crisis, 1981-1996 chronicles the AIDS crisis in New York City from 1981 to 1996, from when the media first reported on the illness to the transformation of HIV from a typically fatal diagnosis to a manageable chronic condition through the advent of protease inhibitors. It illuminates the alarm, fright, and untruths of the early years of AIDS in the city, and the stigma and discrimination faced by people living with HIV. In the absence of government action, organizations like the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the Minority AIDS Task Force, and the AIDS Center of Queens County (ACQC) emerged to provide caretaking, counseling, and advocacy. These efforts were mostly led by volunteers for those neglected by their families and society.
Panelists:
Tom Duane is a trailblazing former New York State Senator and one of the most consequential progressive leaders in modern New York politics, serving from 1999 to 2012 after seven years on the New York City Council. The Senate’s first openly gay and openly HIV-positive member, Tom helped drive landmark advances in LGBTQ+ equality, health care, civil rights, tenant protections, and marriage equality, leaving a legacy of principled leadership and historic change.
Stephen Petrus is Director of Public History Programs at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College. He is a twentieth-century urban historian. Since 2017, he has curated six LGBTQ exhibits, including Panic, Politics, and Policy: New York City during the AIDS Crisis, 1981 – 1996, which inspired tonight’s program. He is currently writing a book on the struggle to pass the New York City gay rights bill from 1971 to 1986, to be published by Columbia University Press. His previous book, published by Oxford, is Folk City: New York and the American Folk Music Revival.
Andrew Berman has been Executive Director of Village Preservation since 2002. In that time, VP has secured landmark designation for over 1,300 buildings and spearheaded trailblazing preservation efforts geared towards elevating and protecting underrepresented and marginalized histories and historic sites, including African American, LGBTQ+, women’s, Hispanic/Latinx, and radical and progressive political, social, artistic, and literary movements. Andrew previously worked in New York City and State government, focusing on issues like housing policy, tenants’ rights, environmental justice, civil rights, transportation, and education.
- Date
- Tuesday, December 1, 2026
- Time
- 6:00 pm
- Details
In Person
Free
Pre-registration requiredVenue:
Room 101 at the LGBT Community Center
208 W 13th St