In what has become an annual June Pride tradition in New York, our Alliance joined Amanda Davis and Ken Lustbader, the experts from the award-winning NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, for an LGBTQIA+ walking tour of the East Village. We learned how the neighborhood, shaped by economic forces, became home to some of the most influential LGBTQIA+ artists, writers, activists, and clubs beginning in the 1950s.

Historically part of the Lower East Side, the East Village became a counter-cultural and avant-garde haven that included many LGBTQIA+ figures, from poet Allen Ginsberg to drag queen Ethyl Eichelberger. Its affordable housing drew the likes of young lesbian activist Ellen Broidy, co-planner of the first NYC Pride March (1970), and gay “musical host” David Mancuso, whose egalitarian underground house parties influenced the city’s club scene, including the Saint.

The 90-minute walking tour began in front of architect Louis Sullivan’s Bayard-Condict Building, 67 Bleecker Street, and ended near the Phoenix, 447 East 13th Street, where the group continued. Keep watching for more tours each June!