A collection of schools across New York City.

Numerous health facilities were established in New York City following the outbreak of HIV and AIDS cases in the 1980s. From 1993 to 1994, this building was converted to Rivington House, a VillageCare-operated nursing home for people living with AIDS. The architecture firms of Perkins & Will and Davis, Brody & Associates were responsible for the conversion. Rivington House opened in 1995 as the largest residential healthcare facility for AIDS patients in New York City and, perhaps, the nation. Equipped with 219 beds and an outpatient treatment center, it was originally considered an end-of-life nursing home for most of its patients; length of stay was 12 to 15 days and the death rate stood at nearly 50%. By 1997, new drug therapies were prolonging the lives of many people living with AIDS and, as a result, the death rate at Rivington House declined by 20% and the length of stay increased to 120 days.

A collection that maps and celebrates NYC LGBT history for the month of October!

P.S. 20, Rivington Street, 1920. P.S. 20 opened in 1899 when the Lower East Side was a neighborhood of poor immigrant families living in crowded, dark and decaying tenements. In contrast, the public schools designed by C.B.J. Snyder offered a rigorous education in classrooms that maximized natural light, fresh air and ventilation. The fifth story of P.S. 20 contained a library, reading room, separate gyms for girls and boys and manual training rooms for carpentry, drafting and modeling. The rooftop playground offered a large space for a variety of open-air activities, far above the congested and dirty streets below. The red-brick school later became the Rivington House, a nursing home which provided hospice care to AIDS patients. The building was sold to a private developer in 2015, after deed restrictions were lifted, leading to public outcry and scrutiny of de Blasio administration practices.

In 1981, a “rare cancer” first seen in a group of gay men primarily in New York and San Francisco eventually became a widespread epidemic more accurately known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This curated collection includes the residences of influential AIDS activists and artists, venues where fundraising events were held, and meeting and demonstration locations of AIDS organizations.