Co-sponsored by East Village Community Coalition and Lower East Side Preservation Initiative

This program is part of Village Preservation’s Semiquincentennial series of programs celebrating our Revolutionary Village. Revolutionary Village not only celebrates the founding of our country, but the exceptional role our neighborhoods played in its development and the realization of its ideals over the last 250 years and beyond.

Greenwich Village and the East Village are widely known centers of LGBTQ+ history, with critical sites like the Stonewall Inn recognized and protected by NYC landmark designation. But there’s an incredibly rich and oft-forgotten LGBTQ+ history in our neighborhoods that remains largely unrecognized and unprotected, in the crossroads where Greenwich Village meets the East Village, which we call “South of Union Square.”

There you will find the homes and workplaces of some of the most prominent LGBTQ+ artists, musicians, photographers, and writers of the 20th century; some of the most impactful and influential early LGBTQ+ civil rights organizations; early cross-pollination between Black and LGBTQ+ civil rights movements and cultural expression; the city’s earliest lesbian bars; and centers of drag and transgender activism and entertainment..

Join Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman as he reveals this incredibly rich, hidden-in-plain-sight history, and discusses how Village Preservation is seeking recognition and landmark protections for these critical sites.