New York City’s first ever Pride March was held on Sunday, June 28, 1970 (the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall uprising), and, much to the organizers’ surprise, attracted thousands of participants. Known at the time as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, the route began on Washington Place between Sheridan Square and Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, moved north up Sixth Avenue, and ended with a “Gay-In” in Central Park’s Sheep Meadow.

The first Brooklyn Pride Parade took place on Saturday, June 14, 1997, becoming the third such march to be organized in New York City after those in Manhattan and Queens. By the 1990s, Park Slope was a popular neighborhood with lesbians (some of whom affectionately referred to it as “Dyke Slope”) and their families, and a number of lesbian-associated groups and businesses were located here. This made the area particularly appealing for the march. A month prior to the event, banners advertising the march lined 7th Avenue, then the neighborhood’s main corridor. To ensure visibility, the route was designed to run along busy streets, which included walking north on 7th Avenue, east on Union Street, and south on Prospect Park West. Marchers then entered Prospect Park at 15th Street, where a stage for the festival was placed at the end of the roadway in the park. NOTE: The anchor site, Third Street Station, reflects an approximation of the intersection of 5th Avenue and 3rd Street.

In 1993, the inaugural Queens Pride Parade and Multicultural Festival took place in the historically gay neighborhood of Jackson Heights and was the first such event to be organized in a borough outside the more gay-tolerant Manhattan. Co-organized by Daniel Dromm and Maritza Martinez, the parade brought together a diverse group of LGBT people and allies from Queens and around the city, and sought to promote pride, visibility, and acceptance following years of homophobic hate crimes and discrimination. As is the case today, the parade route ran from 89th to 75th Streets along 37th Avenue, which was painted with a lavender line. NOTE: The anchor site, 88-31 37th Avenue, reflects an approximation of the intersection of 89th Street and 37th Avenue.

For several years in the 1990s, the South Asian Lesbian and Gay Association (SALGA) led “Desi Dhamaka” protests in Madison Square Park in response to being banned from participating in the annual India Day Parade. SALGA and its allies also handed out flyers and provided information sessions for the Desi LGBT community in the park. Through lobbying, SALGA was finally able to march in 2000. With the exception of 2009, when the group was again denied entry, it has participated in the India Day Parade every year since 2000, though some LGBT South Asians conceal their faces with masks out of concern for their safety.

On March 13, 1993, the March for Truth was organized by the Anti-Violence Project and Queens Gays and Lesbians United, along Myrtle Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens (District 24), to counter the homophobic response to the “Children of the Rainbow” curriculum. Introduced in 1991 as a guide for first-grade classrooms to promote acceptance of all of the city’s racially diverse communities and family structures, the 443-page curriculum’s three pages of LGBT-related content set off a city-wide controversy that began in District 24. NOTE: The anchor site, Manufacturers Trust Company, reflects an approximation of the intersection of Myrtle Avenue and Cornelia Street.

The first German-American Steuben Parade, celebrating German-American heritage, was held in 1958. Named for the hero of the American Revolution, Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben, it inadvertently honors a gay man of the 18th century. Starting at East 61st Street, the parade marched up Fifth Avenue and turned onto East 86th Street into Yorkville. In 1777, as a brigade major in the Prussian military, von Steuben was threatened with prosecution for his homosexual “familiarities” with young men. In Paris, he met Benjamin Franklin, who, though aware of these charges, contacted George Washington, who was desperate for an officer to assist in instilling discipline and training in the rag-tag Continental Army. Von Steuben served crucial roles in the war as inspector general, major general, and Washington’s chief of staff. After the war, von Steuben became an American citizen and first moved to Manhattan, and was later awarded a pension and properties in New York State and New Jersey. NOTE: The anchor site, The Pierre, reflects an approximation of the starting point of East 61st Street and Fifth Avenue.