80 Fifth Avenue housed from its founding in 1973 until 1986 the headquarters of what was then known as the National Gay Task Force (which became the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in 1985, and is now the National LGBTQ Task Force). The Task Force was the very first national LGBT rights organization in the United States, accomplishing groundbreaking changes in those first dozen or so years and laying the foundation for many more in the years which followed, as well as initiating battles for civil rights which are still being fought today. This was the Task Force’s very first headquarters and its only in New York, and it remained here for more than a dozen years until it moved to the nation’s capital in 1986. The Task Force’s accomplishments during the time they were located here represented several giant leaps forward for LGBTQ Americans. After employing tactics like staffing booths at the American Psychiatric Association’s Convention to challenge the group’s official categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness, in 1973 the Task Force secured the removal of homosexuality from the APA’s official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, reducing a significant stigma attached to LGBT people and paving the way for further legal reforms. In 1975 the Task Force advocated for the successful ruling by the U.S. Civil Service Commission eliminating the longtime ban upon gay people serving in federal government employment, ending decades of witch hunts against government workers suspected of being gay which dated back to the McCarthy era and before. In 1977, the Task Force brokered another historic first – the very first meeting of any LGBT group with the White House. The meeting directly resulted in changes in policies at the Bureau of Prisons and the Public Health Service, while also initiating policy discussions that would continue for decades and contributed to the incorporation of support for gay rights within the Democratic Party platform. In 1978, the Task Force got the U.S. Public Health Service to stop certifying gay immigrants as "psychopathic personalities." Also during its time at 80 Fifth Avenue, in the late 1970s the Task Force staff conducted the first national survey of corporate hiring policies (called Project Open Employment) to determine whether U.S. employers explicitly barred discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This was followed a few years later by another of survey municipal police departments, laying the groundwork for successful campaigns, beginning at this time and continuing to this day, to secure protections by government and private employers against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation (and eventually gender identity as well).

Ed Koch and Bella Abzug with President Jimmy Carter, 1978 Toward that end, the Task Force was instrumental in drafting and securing introduction of the very first federal gay rights bill in Congress in 1975 by local Congressmembers Bella Abzug and Ed Koch, as well as several other representatives. While the bill did not pass then and still has not passed the entire Congress (a current more limited version, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, has passed both the Senate and the House, but not in the same session), it has been consistently reintroduced in various forms in the forty-five years since, gaining increasing support. This bill, first put forward by the Task Force, has become the basis for non-discrimination laws passed by 22 states and the District of Columbia, as well as hundreds of cities, counties, and localities throughout the United States (the question of whether discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity is allowed by federal law remains a subject of debate nearly a half century later).

Jean O’Leary, 1973 During its years at 80 Fifth Avenue, the Task Force also played a critical role in winning support from the mainstream women's movement for lesbian and gay rights, which had previously been cool or even hostile to including or supporting the lesbian cause. This most famously manifested itself in 1969 when NOW President Betty Friedan warned of the ‘Lavender Menace’ faced by the women’s movement becoming too closely associated with lesbians, and dropped the organization’s connections to lesbian groups. The Task Force successfully campaigned for a lesbian rights resolution at the 1975 national convention of the National Organization for Women, reversing NOW’s prior stance. In 1977 Task Force co-Executive Director Jean O'Leary and women board members obtained endorsement of lesbian and gay rights from the U.S.-sponsored conference for International Women's Year. O'Leary was also the only openly lesbian delegate on President Carter's International Women's Year Commission. The Task Force also began the national response to an epidemic of hate crimes against LGBT individuals during its time here. In 1982, it began its Anti-Violence Project, which focused on data-gathering on anti-LGBT hate crimes when almost no other entities were collecting such data, producing reports that were regularly cited as authoritative on the subject of homophobic violence. That same year they set up the first national telephone crisis line designed to provide assistance to people who had been harassed or assaulted, and in 1984 the Task Force issued the first comprehensive report on hate crimes directed at the gay community nationally. During their time at 80 Fifth Avenue the Task Force also laid the groundwork for securing passage of the Hate Crimes Statistics Act by the Task Force co-director Jean O’Leary. House of Representatives in 1987-- the first federal law to address sexual orientation (the bill was finally passed by both houses and signed into law in 1990).

“Save Our Children” campaign fundraising card, 1977 Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Task Force also led national response to a growing backlash against gay rights laws and increasing gay and lesbian visibility. Right-wing groups and the newly-constituted ‘Moral Majority’ were leading campaigns to repeal gay rights laws in Miami-Dade, St. Paul, Minnesota, Wichita, Kansas, and other locales across the country, and to prevent states from Hawaii to Massachusetts from passing gay rights laws. Anita Bryant, who said “What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life... I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before” led a campaign called “Save Our Children.” Its intent -- often successful -- was to block or repeal laws prohibiting employment discrimination against lesbians and gay men, using fear of recruitment of children into “the homosexual lifestyle” as an organizing tool. These efforts laid the groundwork for the right wing’s promotion of anti-gay referenda in the 1990s and 2000s, and their more recent efforts against bills which prohibited discrimination based upon gender identity. The Task Force also led the successful opposition to the so-called ‘Family Protection Act’ introduced in Congress at the behest of the Moral Majority in 1981, which would have had disastrous consequences for LGBTQ Americans if enacted. The bill would have banned federal funding of any organization which in any way supported gay rights or even preached tolerance of gay people; allowed any state, local, or private entity to fire teachers on the basis of sexual orientation; amended the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to specify that anti-gay discrimination is legal; and prohibited any federal agency and the federal government itself from enacting or enforcing any non-discrimination measures based upon sexual orientation – illustrating the steep barriers the Task Force faced, and overcame, at the time. In 1985, the Task Force secured the favorable Supreme Court decision of NGTF v. Oklahoma, which partially overturned a law prohibiting gay teachers from discussing gay rights – one of the few positive Supreme Court decisions regarding LGBT rights during a decade that saw a significant backlash against gay and lesbian rights.

Dr. Bruce Voeller During its time at 80 Fifth Avenue, the Task Force also took a lead role in the fight against AIDS, at a time of indifference at best, and overt hostility and discrimination at worst, from many institutions and branches of government. The Task Force’s Executive Director, Dr. Bruce Voeller (who lived nearby at 186 Spring Street), conducted early research establishing that condoms prevent the spread of AIDS, and established the use of the term Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, rather than the inaccurate and stigmatizing “Gay Related Immune Deficiency” -- the name by which what came to be called AIDS was originally known. In 1983 the Task Force hired the first AIDS lobbyist from a gay organization to work the halls of Congress and federal agencies. That same year the Task Force’s Executive Director Virginia Apuzzo testified before Congress to excoriate the Reagan Administration for the lack of federal response to AIDS. In 1984, she and others raised funds to launch the AIDS Action Council, the country’s first advocacy organization focused on public policy and funding to meet the AIDS crisis, securing the first federal funding for community-based AIDS education and helping to negotiate FDA approval of the first HTLV-III antibody test. All of this work took place at a time when thousands of people, initially largely gay men in cities like New York, were being infected with HIV and eventually dying from AIDS, with little to no federal government response or assistance. From the beginning of its existence, the Task Force also lobbied heavily for overturning the ban on gays serving in the military, and advocated for fair treatment for gay and lesbian servicemembers who were still being dishonorably discharged by the thousands simply on the basis of their sexual orientation. With the tremendous growth of the Task Force during its thirteen years at 80 Fifth Avenue and the increasing need for a day-to-day presence in Washington D.C. to respond to the AIDS crisis and other federal legislative matters, the organization moved its headquarters to the nation’s capital in 1986. Its time at 80 Fifth Avenue, however, was one of historic accomplishments, challenges, and laying the groundwork for decades of advocacy and social change which would follow.

David Rothenberg, 2017 David Rothenberg, one of the Village’s most prolific activists, discusses his work on the Board of Directors of the National Gay Task Force (now the National LGBTQ Task Force) in his oral history. Listen to David Rothenberg’s Oral History here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Several of the key players involved in The Crisis magazine and other groundbreaking African American institutions located at 70 Fifth Avenue were gay, often openly so and at times at considerable peril to their careers and lives.

"The Brownies’ Book" issue, June 1921 Augustus Granville Dill founded DuBois and Dill publishing along with W.E.B. DuBois, which was located here. While here, DuBois and Dill published The Brownies Book, the first-ever magazine geared towards African American youth.

"The Crisis" magazine issue, July 1918 Dill was also one of the prime movers along with DuBois of The Crisis magazine, headquartered and published here, which has been called “the most widely read and influential periodical about race and social justice in U.S. history.” The Crisis played a major role in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s and the African American civil rights movement beginning in the 1910s when it was located here.

W.E.B. DuBois, 1918 In 1928 Dill was arrested by vice-squad detectives for homosexual activity and fired from The Crisis by DuBois. In his 1968 autobiography DuBois expressed regret for the decision regarding Dill (who died in 1956, saying “I had before that time no conception of homosexuality. I had never understood the tragedy of an Oscar Wilde. I dismissed my co-worker \[Augustus Dill] forthwith, and spent heavy days regretting my act").

Langston Hughes, 1936 Dill knew and helped advance the career and showcase the work of several gay Harlem Renaissance figures, including Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, whose writings were featured in The Crisis.

Countee Cullen in Central Park, 1941 Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This building served as the home of the groundbreaking Pearson’s Magazine and bookstore. Pearson’s began as a progressive British magazine in 1896 with a socialist bent and focus on literature, publishing works by Upton Sinclair, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells, among others. However, the American version, founded in 1899, began to diverge in its content and focus more on American writers and issues, especially under the editorship of Frank Harris in the 1910s and 20s, when it was located here.

Harris (1855-1931), an Irish immigrant who became a naturalized U.S. citizen during his editorship of Pearson’s Magazine, was a noted author, journalist, editor, publisher, and provocateur. His autobiographical My Life and Loves was banned in the United States and Britain for 40 years due to its sexual content. In addition to publishing this and Pearson’s, Harris wrote two books about Shakespeare and biographies of his friends, the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poet and playwright Oscar Wilde. Wilde, who was found guilty of engaging in acts of “gross indecency” in 1895, became an icon in the emergence of the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Harris’ close friendship with Wilde is portrayed in Moises Kaufman’s Gross Indecencies: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, as well as several other literary portrayals of Wilde’s life. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

From 1926 until 1934, 55 Fifth Avenue was the home of Columbia Phonograph Recording Studios and OKeh Phonograph Recording Studios.

Bessie Smith, 1936 Several openly-LGBTQ performers recorded at this address, including Blues singer Bessie Smith, who completed her last records here.

Garland Wilson, c. 1938-1948 Jazz pianist Garland Wilson recorded here are well. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The celebrated “New York School” poet Frank O’Hara lived here in the late 1950s during the height of his career.

Frank O’Hara The openly-gay O’Hara published a poem entitled “Homosexuality” in 1954.

"Meditations in an Emergency" by Frank O’Hara, 1957 This was not long after the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance, and President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any of its private contractors. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

From 1952 to 1959, the ground floor of 86 University Place housed “The Bagatelle” or “The Bag,” a popular lesbian bar run by Barney Gallant.

Audre Lorde, 1980 "The Bag" was frequented by famed lesbian writer and activist Audre Lorde, and pulp-novelist Ann Bannon.

"Odd Girl Out" by Ann Bannon, 1957 Like many other gay and lesbian bars in Greenwich Village at the time, the Bagatelle was run by the Mafia, since such establishments were considered illegal, and frequently raided by the police. “The Bag” was known to attract a largely working-class clientele, had a small dance floor, and employed guards to keep gawkers and other “undesirables” out.

Ann Bannon, 1955 Employees at the Bagatelle would switch on a red light when the police were entering for a raid, so patrons knew to scatter or try to hide any activity for which they could be arrested, which included dancing with someone of the same sex or wearing clothing considered inappropriate for their gender. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Grove Press, called “the era’s most explosive and influential publishing house” and “the most innovative publisher of the postwar era,” produced incredibly important pieces of 20th-century literature while working aggressively and effectively to transform American culture in relation to issues of censorship, sexuality, race, and class. Founded in 1947 on Grove Street in the West Village, Grove Press fully rose to prominence after it was purchased by Barney Rossett in 1951.

"City of the Night" by John Rechy In 1959, Rosset moved Grove Press to 64 University While here, Grove Press continued to push boundaries by publishing gay-themed fiction like John Rechy’s City of Night and the previously banned writings of the Marquis de Sade. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Grove Press published the unedited manuscript of Naked Lunch by William S. Boroughs as it was intended in 1962 while at 64 University Pl. The book was banned in Boston and in 1966 its case for obscenity charges was heard at the Boston Supreme court for which Grove Press was the defendants. Notable American writers such as Norman Mailer and Allen Ginsberg gave testimony on behalf of the novel. The appeals court found the book did not constitute any obscenity charges and went as far as to state the book held social value. Click hear to learn more on our Grove Press Tour. . . .

The Hotel Albert was an unprecedented hub for radical and creative figures, many of whom were LGBTQ. This includes Salvador Dali, Walt Whitman, Anais Nin, and Andy Warhol. Samuel Delany, an acclaimed writer of non-fiction and science fiction, lived at the Hotel Albert during the 1970s. While here in 1971, he wrote, directed, and edited the film The Orchid. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Igal Roodenko was a printer, anti-capitalist, socialist, and anti-war and civil rights activist whose parents were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Over the course of his life, Roodenko participated in a number of the most significant civil rights and social justice movements of the twentieth century, including the first Freedom Ride. During World War II, Roodenko was a conscientious objector, and served 20 months in federal prison. In 1950, Roodenko started his own press, which he maintained for about two decades. In 1957, his business was listed at 36 East 10th Street.

Igal Roodenko In his later life, Roodenko spoke openly about being gay, and supported the Gay Liberation movement. Upon his death, he was part of the group Men of All Colors Together, which confronted racism in the gay community. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This 2-story commercial building was originally constructed in 1846-47 for Peter Lorillard Jr., and altered to its present form in 1927.

Robert Mapplethorpe, 1980 In the 1970s and 80s the building was the home of the Robert Samuel Gallery/Hardison Fine Arts, a gallery which specialized in photography by gay male artists, showing the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Hujar, and Christopher Makos, among others. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

One of the most celebrated DJs and remixers of his time, house music innovator Junior Vasquez had a recording and mixing studio in this building. Vasquez (b. Donald Gregory Mattern, August 24, 1949 in Lancaster, PA) was also the co-founder of the legendary Sound Factory dance club. Vasquez first entered a career in fashion illustration and design, but later decided upon life as a DJ. While working as a clerk at a New York record store, he made the acquaintance of music producer Shep Pettibone and slowly began to build a reputation on the strength of his appearances at small clubs and house parties. In the latter half of the 1980s, Vasquez became one of the hottest figures on the club circuit, honing a trademark fusion of bass-heavy house beats with obscure samples, and utilizing innovative mixing techniques such as spinning records backwards or at the incorrect speed.

“If Madonna Calls” by Junior Vasquez In 1989 he co-founded the Sound Factory Club in Chelsea. During its six years of its existence, the Sound Factory was among New York's hottest night spots and highly influential in the nightlife and music world. Catering to an ethnically diverse, primarily gay crowd, the Sound Factory became the place for new dance records to be debuted by Vasquez during his marathon Saturday night sessions. After its closure in 1995, Vasquez DJ'ed at the Tunnel, the Palladium, and Twilo, where he hosted a Saturday party called "Juniorverse." Vasquez has produced albums of original remixes under his own name, as well as produced and remixed recordings for Madonna, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, Cher, David Bowie, Donna Summer, and Justin Timberlake, among many others. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The openly-gay artist Robert Indiana, best known for his iconic “LOVE” sculpture, lived and worked here in the 1950s.

"LOVE" stamp issued in 1973, designed by Robert Indiana At this time, the area south of Union Square was at the center of the New York School of artists and the art world. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

In 1985, the funeral mass for transgender performer Jackie Curtis, a “superstar” in Andy Warhol films, was held at this location.

Jackie Curtis, undated Curtis grew up around the corner from the building and lived in the vicinity through adulthood. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This world-famous gathering hall, which in its early years was the scene of union rallies and political organizing, was also known for its drag balls in the 1910s and 1920s which were the place for gay, lesbian, and transgender New Yorkers to see and be seen.

Emma Goldman, c. 1911 It also welcomed “free love” advocates such as speakers like Emma Goldman. In the post-War II years, Webster Hall became a recording studio, and in the 1980s, a dance and musical performance venue. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This building housed Grove Press and Barney Rosset’s Evergreen Theatre as well as later theaters with LGBTQ significance. Rosset and Grove Press were advocates for sharing art that spoke to the world beyond the accepted social norms. Among Evergreen Theatre’s notable showings were films by Kenneth Anger, one of the first openly gay filmmakers. Anger began actively making films in 1941, but reached success with Fireworks in 1947 for which he was put on trial for obscenity charges. Anger’s work addressed homosexuality in an undisguised way and made gay culture visible in cinema before it was legal to do so. . Click here to visit our Grove Press Tour.

In June of 1968 Andy Warhol’s “I, Am Man” showed in the Evergreen Theatre. The brief success of the newly opened theatre and the notoriety of Warhol’s work led Rosset to acquire many films, which were ultimately much less successful. The Evergreen Theatre reverted to live shows by 1971, and by April of 1971 it was renamed to SoHo Cinema (later renamed the SoBo Theatre), which showed gay erotic movies.

The existence of this theater was significant in 1971 because, among other reasons, same-sex sexual activity between consenting adults would not be legalized in New York until 1980 with the case of New York v. Onofre. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Playwright, screenwriter, author, and librettist Terrence McNally (Nov. 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) lived at 41-43 University Pl (also known as 29 East 9th Street.)

Called “the bard of American theater” by the New York Times and “one of the greatest contemporary playwrights the theater world has yet produced” by Rex Reed, McNally won five Tonys, including a lifetime achievement award, an Emmy, and two Obies, and was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame and received the Dramatists Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.

McNally’s works often thoughtfully illuminated the conflicts, joys, and daily life of gay men. Subject matter included coming out, the AIDS crisis, marriage, children, and relationships. McNally was openly gay from early in his career, when doing so was both unusual and highly risky. His first play, which received scathing reviews, 1964’s “Things That Go Bump In The Night,” featured a romance between two male characters, which was almost unheard of in Broadway plays at the time. In spite of the harshly negative reaction from critics, McNally continued to integrate gay themes and characters into his work throughout his career, eventually winning audiences and critics, and gaining a reputation as a chronicler of gay life in the latter part of the 20th and early 21st centuries – a time of great change, progress, and challenges for LGBT people. The New York Times said “his works “traced the same arc that many gay men were experiencing in their lives over the same period, from the closet to rebellion, and from disaster to marriage and parenting.”

McNally’s first big hit play, “The Ritz,” opened in 1975, offered audiences a farcical view of the goings-on in a Manhattan gay bathhouse. Other gay-themed plays include “The Lisbon Traviata” (1989), “Lips Together, Teeth Apart” (1991), and “Love! Valour! Compassion!” (1994); both “the Ritz” and “Love! Valour! Compassion!” became successful movies as well.

Starting in the 1980s, McNally’s plays tackled the AIDS crisis and the attendant overt, often religious-based, homophobia gay men faced. “Corpus Christi” (1997), McNally’s retelling of the story of Jesus' birth, ministry, and death, in which he and his disciples are portrayed as gay, was the subject of intense protests. The play was initially canceled because of death threats against board members of the Manhattan Theatre Club, which produced the play, but the board relented after several other playwrights, including Athol Fugard, threatened to withdraw their plays if Corpus Christi was not produced. A crowd of almost 2,000 protested the play at its opening. After it opened in London in 1999, a group called the "Defenders of the Messenger Jesus" issued a fatwa sentencing McNally to death. In 2008, the play was revived by Greenwich Village’s Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre.

From 1960 until 1965, McNally was involved in a relationship with playwright Edward Albee, who was not publicly open about his sexuality at the time – a great point of tension between him and McNally. “Edward didn’t want to be reviewed as a gay playwright and was never comfortable coming out,” Mr. McNally told The San Francisco Chronicle in 2018. “That’s one of about a million reasons why that relationship was never going to go anywhere. I became invisible when the press was around or at an opening night. I knew it was wrong. It’s so much work to live that way.” He met his husband, theater producer Tom Kirdahy, in 2001; they lived together at 29 East 9th Street until McNally’s death from COVID in 2020. McNally’s plays are considered an important record of quotidian LGBTQ life during an era marred with personal tragedy and loss. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .