This curated scavenger hunt celebrates Pride and tests your LGBT history knowledge. Where did civil rights activist and literary icon James Baldwin reside? At what community church did transgender activist Sylvia Rivera find community on the Far West Side (the congregation renamed the food pantry in her honor)? Know the answers? Take part in the hunt! To get credit for solving a clue, check in at the location (tap the lock button to the left; if you’re in the right place, it will turn green). Each location you check in to is worth a single point. For clues that start with a camera emoji (📸), tap the image to re-create the historical photo for an additional point. After you’ve lined up your re-creation, please remember to tap the “submit to hunt” button.

Explore Lower Midtown. Observe skyscrapers vying for height 🏙️ and glimpse the grandeur of historic hotels, theatres, and public buildings. Join the hustle and bustle of NoMad and wander the quiet, quaint blocks of Gramercy Park🌳.

On May 3rd, 1913, marchers arranged themselves, as the New York Times described, “In straight and graceful lines which were brightened with resplendent decorations, passed in attractive and impressive dignity up Fifth Avenue…it was the greatest spectacular triumph ever won by women in this country in their pursuit of the ballot.”

Statue of William Henry Seward, Madison Square Park, March 20, 1936. Seward served as the a U.S. Senator, the Governor of New York, and Lincoln's Secretary of State as part of the "Team of Rivals," responsible for the 1867 purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7 million — known as "Seward's folly."

Woman's Suffrage parade, 1915. On October 23, 1915, 50,000 people took to the streets for the country’s largest women’s suffrage parade up until that time. The parade route took the participants from Washington Square Park to 59th Street along 5th Avenue. (This photograph was taken on 5th Avenue at Madison Square Park.) Along with the 50,000 marchers, more than 250,000 people lined the route and were largely a supportive crowd. Unsurprisingly, participants carried signs and banners for added advocacy. Some of the signs included “YOU TRUST US WITH THE CHILDREN; TRUST US WITH THE VOTE” and “GETTING THERE AFTER TRYING FOR FORTY YEARS," which was a crowd-pleaser, being carried by an elderly woman on the parade route.

Washington Centennial Celebration Parade, along Fifth Avenue at Madison Square Park, 1889. The Arch seen here was one of many, including one that would inspire Stanford White's stone arch in Washington Square Park.

The images gathered here attest to the Forward’s unwavering commitment to public service journalism and to the importance of enhancing Jewish community engagement here and abroad. The paper was founded by socialists and read by a community of workers who saw calls for social justice, protests and demonstrations as means to attain their democratically achieved rights – and also as a way to inform the public.

By Sally Raudon In the twelve months before January 2021, 2,225 people were buried on Hart Island, New York City’s public burial ground. At a time when the Island’s operations are undergoing the most significant organizational changes in its modern history, that’s the highest number of such burials recorded since the 1918-1920 influenza pandemic. Today, people are buried on Hart Island because their families cannot afford the average $10,000 expense for a funeral in the city, or because the Medical Examiner can’t identify them or find their next of kin. A rare handful choose it for themselves. Most burials are now conducted with family consent, but that is often compelled by a lack of alternatives. Hart Island’s City Cemetery is commonly referred to as a mass grave, but this term is misleading, suggesting a pit where bodies are piled. Rather, it is a “massed grave,” where the dead are carefully and communally stacked in trenches and documented to facilitate disinterment if needed. The burials there transpire without ceremony. The dead are unmarked and unmemorialized, interred three-deep in plots holding 150 adults or 1,000 babies. Approximately one million New Yorkers lie here at the City’s periphery, on an uninhabited, seemingly abandoned island in Long Island Sound in the Bronx. For decades, Riker’s Island jail inmates — themselves marginalized citizens — have performed the gravedigging and burial. The Department of Correction restricted public access, making it difficult for mourners to visit.

Originally known as the South Asian Gay Association (SAGA) when it formed in 1989, the volunteer-based organization was renamed the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA) two years later when several women joined. SALGA currently serves Desi LGBT people who trace their roots to countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tibet, and those of South Asian descent from countries such as Guyana, Trinidad, and Kenya. The group has met at the LGBT Community Center since its founding. Madison Square Park was an important gathering spot for SALGA to protest in the years when the group was banned by the Federation of Indian Associations (FIA) from marching in the India Day Parade, an annual event on Madison Avenue that has been organized by FIA since 1981. These protest gatherings were called “Desi Dhamaka” (a SALGA member said that “dhamaka” essentially means “blast” in Hindi). SALGA first marched in the parade in 1992 after the New York City Human Rights Commission intervened on its behalf. However, a year later, FIA stipulated that SALGA could only participate if its members did not carry signs that stated their homosexuality, which the group refused to do.

The Constitution of the United States of America establishes the laws and governmental structure of the United States. It was first drafted by James Madison and explains which rights are reserved to the national and state governments. The Constitution was ratified in 1787, four years after the official ending of the Revolutionary War. In the years between the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war, and the Constitutional Convention, the United States was governed by a document titled Articles of Confederation. This document gave more power to the various states instead of a single national government. This made important decisions regarding trade, taxation, and defense, very hard to make. Many people recognized the serious situation the new nation found itself in and met in Philadelphia to create a new guiding document. After intense debate, they produced the US Constitution, which still forms the basis of our government. In fact, the US Constitution is the oldest constitution still in use today. While not perfect, this document laid out the fundamental rights that all Americans enjoy today. These different locations throughout New York help to highlight some of the powers and rules laid out in our founding document. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards 7.4 & 11.2 For Teachers: US Constitution Lesson Plan

In August 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving some women—but not all—the right to vote at the national level. Celebrate the centennial of suffrage with a tour of New York locations that were important in the history of women’s rights.

World War I-era U.S. Navy recruiting station in Madison Square Park, ca. 1917. In the foreground, the front page of a New York Evening Telegram is visible, with above the fold headlines reading “Save Venice Allies; Mr Poincare Acts to End Cabinet Crisis; Kerensky Wins; Finn Report,” dispatches from the wartime and political crises on the Continent. In September, 1917 (a possible date of this photo), Venice endured aerial bombardment, French President Raymond Poincaré endeavored to form a government, and Alexander Kerensky, then the Russian Premier proclaimed the short-lived Russian Republic.

My Archive Summer 2019 “My grandmother. Born in 1911 and from Merrick, Long Island. She worked at MetLife. In the background, New York Life is being built which places this photo around 1926. Her mother was pissed when she quit MetLife and went to work in a 34th street Barber Shop as a men's manicurist. She also modeled stockings. Oh, the scandal!” —Richard Becker

Are you ready for a closeup? Try your hand at re-creating these historic photos at Madison Square Park! This challenge is only available to our iOS app users. If you don't yet have the Urban Archive App, download it here. Each location in this challenge has an address and a historic image tied to it. Check-in at each location by tapping the lock icon to the left of the clue. If you’re in the right place, it will turn green. Your challenge today is to take as many then-and-now photos as you can. Tap the image, and then the recreate button to line up the historical image with your present-day view. Once you’re happy with your photo, hit save to add it to your camera roll. Please share these photos with team@urbanarchive.nyc once you’ve completed the challenge. Happy snapping!