Before Stonewall: A Queer Literary Walking Tour of Greenwich Village

Current Dates: The tour is currently invite-only.

Join me as we visit the homes and haunts of LGBTQ+ people who lived, worked or were incarcerated in Greenwich Village in the decades before the Stonewall Riots. This tour has a particular focus on the literary works of those individuals, and we'll read excerpts from Audre Lorde, Lorraine Hansberry, Angela Davis, Patricia Highsmith, Edna St. Vincent Millay and others. We'll also consider the stories of people who were not famous, and read the accounts of working-class New Yorkers who stood up for who they were — even when who they were was a crime.

The tour lasts 2.5 hours and we will walk approximately 1.5 miles. There will be a restroom and refreshment break at the middle and end of the tour.  The tour is currently donation-based only and proceeds benefit The Center.

"When we refract all of queer American history through a single bar, which mostly catered to white cis men, it’s not surprising that the stories of queer women, trans men, and people of color get lost, glossed over, and ignored." -- Hugh Ryan, The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison (read my interview with Hugh Ryan here)

This tour is generously supported via a research grant from The New School.