Walking Tour: LGBTQ History in Chelsea

Join Amanda Davis and Ken Lustbader, the experts from the award-winning NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, for its exclusive, first-ever LGBTQ walking tour of Chelsea.

For LGBTQ people in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chelsea emerged as an affordable yet still-centrally located alternative to neighboring Greenwich Village. In fact, over the next two decades, Chelsea gradually overtook the Village as the city’s gay hub. Influential artists, from composer Virgil Thomson to poet Assotto Saint and photographer Tseng Kwong Chi, called Chelsea home. By the 1990s, gay-owned venues like the Big Cup and Barracuda were located on and around Eighth Avenue. The neighborhood also played a key role in LGBTQ rights and AIDS activism, as seen at sites connected to Lesbian Feminist Liberation, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, pioneering openly transgender psychiatrist Dr. Jeanne Hoff, bouncer and activist Stormé DeLarverie, and activist and film historian Vito Russo.

The tour will also feature the Project’s new research about the iconic Hotel Chelsea, bringing to light its rich LGBTQ history and expanding how it is interpreted today.

This 90-minute walking tour will begin in front of the Hotel Chelsea, 222 West 23rd Street, and end near The Lost & Found (372 8th Ave, New York, NY 10001), for networking and drinks. Rain or shine.

Speakers:
Amanda Davis, Project Manager, NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
Ken Lustbader, Co-founder and Co-director, NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project

About the Speakers:
Amanda Davis is an architectural historian who has managed the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project's initiatives since its founding in 2015. In this role, she has written National Register of Historic Places nominations and a diverse range of historical narratives for the project's website. Davis has also developed and led public programs and walking tours and spoken to various stakeholders at the city, state, and national levels on the importance of documenting the LGBTQ community's cultural heritage. She previously worked for Village Preservation, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the Central Park Conservancy.

Ken Lustbader is a co-founder and co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. For over 30 years, he has been a national leader in issues related to LGBTQ history, documentation, and historic preservation. His prior work experience includes serving as the Historic Preservation Program Officer at the J.M. Kaplan Fund, consultant for the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund, and Director of the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites Program. Lustbader holds a B.A. in Economics from Vassar College and M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University.