Press Release
December 09, 2019
Dan Keefe | Brian Nearing
(518) 486-1868 | news@parks.ny.gov
State Parks Receives Additional Federal Grant for Continued Survey of LGBTQ Historic Sites in New York City
Six Sites Already Added to NYS & Federal Historic Registers
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation has received a $25,000 federal grant from the National Park Service to expand public recognition of property in New York City associated with LGBTQ history.
The grant was made under the National Park Service's Underrepresented Community Grants Program, which works towards diversifying nominations submitted to the National Register of Historic Places.
"This work is helping to reveal a history that up to now has been largely invisible," said Parks Commissioner Erik Kulleseid. "It will help generations going forward to better understand and recognize the LGBTQ community and its influence on a great American city, and well beyond."
Under the grant, State Parks will oversee preparation of up to two new or amended nominations for historic register status on properties associated with LGBTQ history in the city.
In 2014, State Parks received a $49,999 federal grant to launch the program. That was followed by another $49,999 federal grant in 2016.
So far, six New York City properties have been listed on the National Register as a result, with the most recent being the Upper West Side residence of African American writer James Baldwin in September 2019. Another nomination to the register is currently in process.
The Stonewall Inn State Historic Site, a New York City tavern and site of a 1969 uprising widely recognized as a key turning point in the LGBTQ rights movement, was the first such site of its kind in the nation to be added to the Register of Historic Places in 2000.
State Parks has subcontracted the register listing project to the not-for-profit NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, which so far has documented nearly 250 sites across the city, including residences, stores, performance venues, bars and restaurants, organizational and community spaces, medical facilities, and cultural and educational institutions.
The project has outlined these locations on its website http://www.nyclgbtsites.org/ and disseminates its content through social media at @nyclgbtsites.
In 2018, State Parks honored the NYC LGBT Sites Project team with a state Historic Preservation Award for its ground-breaking, nationally significant work.
Since 2014, the National Parks Service has awarded almost $3 million nationwide in grants to encourage greater historic recognition of previously-marginalized communities. Learn more about the program here.
This year's other funded projects elsewhere in the U.S. include development of a historic context for women's suffrage sites in Nevada, documentation of significant tribal sites for the Pala, Saginaw, Ysleta, and Muckleshoot Indians in California, and a survey of the Great Migration and its impacts on the development of African American neighborhoods in Detroit.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation oversees more than 250 parks, historic sites, recreational trails, golf courses, boat launches and more, which are visited by 74 million people annually. For more information on any of these recreation areas, call 518-474-0456 or visit www.parks.ny.gov, connect with us on Facebook, or follow on Instagram and Twitter.