Allen Ginsberg lived here from 1952 to 1953 after his institutionalization at Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Institute.

The photo above was taken of Ginsberg from the roof of 206 East 7th Street in the fall of 1953. . This image was gifted to the National Art Gallery by Gary S. David.

Founded by artists and partners Alan Barrows and Dean Savard in 1982, Civilian Warfare is one of the most under-interpreted yet incredibly influential galleries in the East Village’s art scene. Barrows and Savard started the gallery during the height of the Regan Era and the HIV/AIDS Crisis when the East Village was plagued by rampant substance abuse, cycles of poverty, mountains of garbage, and burned-out cars. In Barrow’s eyes, it resembled a war zone.

Barrows and Savard created the Civilian Warfare Gallery as a live/work studio, supporting individual artists and combating cultural stigmas against LGBTQIA+ individuals, the impoverished, and those affected by substance abuse. The couple helped to launch the careers of now well-known artists like David Wojnarowicz, Richard Hambleton (creator of “Shadowman), Luis Frangella, the Grey Organisation/Toby Mott, and Jane Bauman, among many others. To read more about the Civilian Warfare Gallery Click Here The image above is part of Robert Fisch's collection on Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, to explore more images like this click here.

Since opening in 1979, the Pyramid Club was credited with defining the East Village drag and gay scenes of the 1980s, and was known for its politically conscious drag performance art and as a hangout for the counterculture of the neighborhood. The club was established by Bobby Bradley, Alan Mace, and Victor Sapienza. The Pyramid Club hosted drag performers such as Lypsinka, Lady Bunny, and RuPaul. It was here that the annual Wigstock festival began in 1984 when a group of the club's drag queens performed a spontaneous drag show at Tompkins Square Park.

The image above is of Flotilla Debarge performing at the Pyramid Clun in 1994. This image is part of Jillian Jonas’ collection from our Historic Image Archive showcasing performances from the Pyramid Club and Boy Bar during the 1990s.

In the fall of 1980, this former Yiddish Vaudeville theater and home of the legendary Fillmore East was converted into what was to become the city’s largest and most celebrated gay disco, The Saint, established by Bruce Mailman. With a planetarium dome and impressive lighting effects, the Saint quickly became famous worldwide, and has been called “the most spectacular dance club New York had ever seen and the most expensive gay business venture ever attempted.”

Its doors were officially closed on May 2, 1988, following a non-stop 48-hour party. The building was used periodically for a couple of years for various live events and then stood empty until the auditorium was demolished in 1995. Today, the lobby was remodeled as a bank, and apartments called Hudson East occupy the space that used to be the auditorium. But the narrow and highly decorative Adamesque facade remains as a reminder of this cornerstone of gay nightlife in New York in the 1980s. The image above is from Village Preservation's East Village Building Blocks where you can learn more about buildings in the East Village.

In 1969, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, a boutique and theater started by Ellen Stewart (1919-2011), who came to New York in 1950, moved into this building, where it remains today. The theater, which has a long history of featuring and supporting LGBTQ artists, was founded in 1961 under the name Café La MaMa. The space was renovated to create ninety-nine-seat theaters on the first and second floors, rehearsal space on the third floor, and Ellen Stewart’s apartment on the fourth floor. The image above is from Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

In 1974, the company received a National Endowment for the Arts grant, which allowed it to build a 295-seat theater in the former Turn Hall (Nos. 66-68). It has put on over three thousand shows and won over sixty Obie Awards. Ellen Stewart received a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 1985. Playwrights Sam Shepard, Lanford Wilson, Harvey Fierstein, and Terrence McNally; directors Tom O’Horgan, Joseph Chaikin, Robert Wilson, and Richard Foreman; and actors Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Richard Dreyfuss, Bill Irwin, and Danny DeVito have all worked with La MaMa. Stewart and La Mama are considered to have an extraordinarily deep and lasting impact upon American theater, especially experimental and Off-Broadway theater. The image above is from Village Preservation's East Village Building Blocks where you can learn more about buildings in the East Village.

Playwright, screenwriter, author, and librettist Terrence McNally (Nov. 3, 1938 – March 24, 2020) lived at 41-43 University Place (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.

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

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

Murray H. Hall (c. 1840-1901) was a Tammany politico who lived at 457 Sixth Avenue. Hall’s gender was never questioned when he moved to New York and began an employment agency chiefly representing domestic help. Hall became a Tammany figure, playing “poker and pool with city and state officials and political leaders and was often able to secure appointments for friends.”

When he died, the New York Times reported that Hall’s “true sex” was discovered by doctors and reported that “he” was “a woman” — a transgender man. This shocking revelation attracted worldwide attention. Hall’s secret had never been publicly revealed before his death. The image above is from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map.

Five hundred feet from the Stonewall Inn stood the only art deco prison in the world, designed to hold the “wrong kind of women.” These women and transmasculine people were imprisoned for wearing pants, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or behaving in a way police or judges deemed unsavory.

The inmates, who were forced into the public eye, began to shout about their intimacies. When the Stonewall Riots happened, the inmates could see the disturbances from their windows, and began chanting “Gay rights! Gay rights! Gay rights!” Pictured above: looking north up Greenwich Ave. from Christopher St., c. 1970, women protestors are shown struggling with police outside of Women’s Detention Center. The image above is from Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, explore more images like this here.

Located just a block away from the landmarked Stonewall Inn, Julius' is often called the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New York City. It was originally established in 1867 and by the 1950s was attracting gay patrons. A “Sip In” held there in 1966 protested discriminatory policies against LGBTQ+ bars and patrons and led to changes in the treatment of LGBTQ+ people and establishments.

Did you know in April Village Preservation placed a plaque there commemorating Julius’ history? Click here to learn more.

The LGBT Community Center has been a home and resource hub for the LGBT community in New York City since its founding in 1983. The Center celebrates diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity. The building that houses the community center is a beautiful brick Italianate structure that was originally built in the third quarter of the 19th century as Public School 16.

It served as various schools for over a century and was sold to the Lesbian & Gay Services Center, Inc. in 1983. Today, it has grown to become the largest LGBT multi-service organization on the East Coast and the second largest in the world. Other organizations that have been located here (or got their starts here) include SAGE (Senior Action in a Gay Environment), the Metropolitan Community Church (an LGBT congregation), the AIDS activist group ACT UP, and GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The image above is from the 1969 Designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District on Village Preservation's GVHD50 Then and Now map.

In the 1970s and 1980s, LGBTQ culture was much less mainstream than it is today, and young men and women relied on the kinship and mutual aid of their community for support. The image above is part of Robert Fisch's collection on Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, to explore more images like this click here.

The image above is of Varla Jean Merman performing at Wigstock. This image is part of Jillian Jonas’ collection from our Historic Image Archive, which includes performances from Wigstock in 1994, which was held at and along the pier that year. Click here to see more images from this collection in our Historic Image archive.