In 2017, the historic house was designated as a National LGBT Historic Site. She was also the first woman on Staten Island to own a car and the founder of the Staten Island Garden Club. Some of her early works included images of women embracing and cross-dressing. Alice and Gertrude shared a loving relationship for 53 years, 30 of those were spent living together at Clear Comfort, now known as the Alice Austen House.Īlice was a trailblazer on many fronts. Here are highlights of some of those stories told in our parks: Alice Austen House, Alice Austen ParkĪlice Austen (1866-1952) was a prolific photographer, producing thousands of photographs that captured life in NYC. She lived at Clear Comfort (inside what is now Alice Austen Park) with Gertrude Tate. Many notable New Yorkers, artists, and writers helped shaped the pride of the LGBTQ+ movement and gay rights. Held on the Saturday before the NYC Pride March, this annual event now ends in Washington Square Park. The march began in Bryant Park and ended in Union Square. Twenty-four years after the first Pride March, the New York Lesbian Avengers organized and held the first NYC Dyke March in June 1993. Learn more about the Gay Liberation Monument and the Stonewall riots The First NYC Dyke March In 2018, Christopher Park became a national park and the first-ever U.S. This sculpture at Christopher Park, opposite the historic Stonewall Inn, honors the gay rights movement and commemorates the events at Stonewall. Learn more about Washington Square Park's Pride history Gay Liberation Monument, Christopher Park The third Pride March began in Central Park and ended in Washington Square Park, which was the kickoff point of a July 1969 march to Stonewall in protest of the police raids. It started out from Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village and was followed by a "Gay-in" at Sheep Meadow in Central Park.
The Christopher Street Liberation Day March took place in 1970, on the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Riots-in protest of a police raid at Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, on June 28, 1969-sparked the modern movement for LGBTQ rights, as well as advocacy for the legalization of gay bars and the organization of the first NYC Pride March (then known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March). The Stonewall Riots and NYC's First Pride March A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.Join us as we celebrate Pride this June with performances, Urban Park Ranger-led tours, and more! Check out our Pride Month EventsĮxplore parks and historic sites in New York City that commemorate the history and legacy of the LGBTQIA+ movement and community. If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "The Essential List". In honour of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, BBC's The Travel Show returns to The Stonewall Inn to meet Mark Segal, who was just 18 years old when police confronted him inside the bar and had no idea that the world would still be feeling the effects of that steamy summer night 50 years later.įor more on this and other stories, watch The BBC Travel Show – every weekend on the BBC News Channel and BBC World News. Instead of accompanying officers to the police station, Marsha Johnson, an African-American trans woman, fired the first shot – literally: she picked up a shot glass, threw it through a mirror and sparked a multi-day riot that birthed the modern gay rights movement and the inaugural pride parade in 1970.Īs people around the world take to the streets to revel in pride marches this June and July, it's easy to forget that these early public demonstrations weren't parties, they were defiant feats of resistance. So, when police burst through the doors just after 01:00 and demanded to see 200 patrons' identifications and physically verify their gender, one drag queen wasn't having it. The Stonewall Inn didn't have a liquor license, running water or fire escapes, but in an era when being gay was viewed as a crime, this scruffy Greenwich Village pub was one of the few sanctuaries where members of New York's LGBTQ community could openly express themselves without fear of harassment. Fifty years ago, in the early-morning hours of 28 June 1969, a police raid at a Mafia-run dive bar in New York City changed the course of history.