Jason McLeod
Prof. Geisking
4/3/17
Literature Review and edited site proposal
The research for this project thus far has been very slow going. The center has a lot of information on site to look at but online resources are tough to come by. I’ve been able to find the most effective source material on Jstor. I have found event posters, news clippings, historical data, and information about the groups that met at the center. There were a lot of connections between each source that I think will serve my paper very well. Not all of my resources are directly connected to the center but they help me to lay the groundwork for the community and setting that surrounds the center and each of these sources has a hand in creating that.
For example, the Lipstick or timberlands paper by Mignon Moore does not directly relate to the center but it shows a part of the New York LGBT community that it services. Because the center services such a large population it’s important to understand who frequents the center, who works at the center and what people do outside of the center. I think it is really important to my paper to understand this because it shows the centers purpose. It will place the center in relevancy. It will show the center as a living-breathing thing. It will make people see the center in relation to the community rather than just a building. This is not the only reading that can lay out the topography of the land that the center rests on. For example, broken windows at blue’s by Christina Hanhardt, privacy can only be had in public by George Chauncey, there goes the gayborhood by Amin Ghaziani and Capitalism and gay identity John D’Emilio all give a window into the setting of New York and the need that the center fills. I feel that this is very important to consider especially when considering this as a historical site. Some of these resources also point out some of the hardships that come with being gay, historically, in New York City. While I don’t think this is as important to my paper as everything else I do think that it should be put in to show some of the problems that the community center alleviated or at least helped to control.
My Jstor resources largely relate to events and groups that met at the community center. Each one shows that the center was a bustling vibrant place where a lot of people from all walks of life met and still meet. Although it isn’t a Jstor source the calendar of events gets this point across very well. On the calendar there are meeting times for Trans Partners, HIV+ and HIV- affected gay men and even groups like Under earners anonymous and Marijuana anonymous. I think these sources do a great job of showing how involved in the community as a whole the community center is; they are not just interested in the LGBT community but they also welcome any number of groups from the New York metropolitan area. I say metropolitan area but the community center actually services a lot of New York. One of my Jstor sources, for example, is an article about an event that was put on by the center that took place in Ulster County that, for reference, is about and hour and 47 minutes from the community center itself. While the calendar on the website is current a lot of the Jstor events took place in the 90’s but they still show the reach and scope of the community center.
The bulk of the resources that I cited in my annotated bibliography aren’t related directly to the center but one source that doesn’t seem related but is is the paper about ACT-UP’s boycott of Philip Morris products. This highlighted the effectiveness of their boycott and how it actually led to Philip Morris contributing a large amount of money to the suffering AIDS coalition. The connection is that ACT-UP was housed in the community center.
I think that the most important trend to highlight from my research is definitely the sense of community and support shown in all of the events put on by the community center and groups affiliated with them. From my research I found a lot of events showing support for all parts of the LGBTQ community. This really paints the community center in a positive light, as one type of person does not get to call it home. With hundreds of groups meeting at the center today there is no shortage of representation in the community center. The community center is home to support groups as well as groups for those who support their loved ones and groups that aren’t necessarily affiliated with the LGBTQ community.
Another trend throughout these readings is the struggle for equality. In almost every reading there is a sense of conflict whether it is spoken or not. The conflict is either the fight for marriage equality under Obama or ending discrimination in housing under Obama or the state of cruising in the earlier 20th century and how police would patrol cruising grounds in order to find and arrest gay men. There is a feeling of vulnerability as if the community as a whole was left out in the open and the powers that be could erase everything they had built for themselves in no time at all. That is why all of these reading draw a particular feeling from the reader it isn’t sadness but it is a sort of empty feeling as the reader realizes that there is so much hate behind the opposition’s motives and ideals. But as the reader you also feel overjoyed when you realize that the LGBT community is extremely resilient. Each reading points out a problem and highlights a generation that will or did solve the problem. I feel that this is definitely something I want to include in my paper because the Community center seems to foster those resilient people who, in turn, change the world.
The last trend in the reading that I noticed was the ingenuity that was exhibited by the LGBT population. If the were discriminated against and banned from a certain place they would create their own spaces or occupy another place like a park or certain part of the beach. I believe that this is another thing that I need to include in my paper. The gay population in the 80’s was finding it difficult to find people willing to help them fight and they needed to set up a place to organize and help the younger generations of LGBT youth find out more about themselves and grow a community so they built the LGBT Community center. I think the ingenuity of the community speaks volumes to the importance of the community center.
For my site I chose the Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Community center at 208 west 13th street in New York City. I chose this site for it’s important role in the community surrounding it and the great metropolitan area both in the past and the present. The LGBT community center was opened in 1983 in the old maritime trade school building. The goal of the LGBT community center is to create a tight knit community for LGBT people of all ages. They house many LGBT organizations including social activism groups, rights groups and community groups. They pride themselves on the fact that they service and protect youths of all races and religions and even older groups of people.
Through my research I have found out that the community center has it’s own publication called The Center Voice or Center Happenings that, among other things, gives a run down of all of the events happening at the community center. The amazing thing about this is that the range of events is so diverse. There is a group that everyone would fit into. Also, the articles that I found helped to show that the reach of the center went well passed New York City. The center has been having events in Westchester county and Ulster county since at least 1996.
The LGBT community center is home to over four-hundred community groups including groups like ACT-UP. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power or ACT-UP is a, now international, group founded in 1987 that works to directly impact and change the lives of people with AIDS for the better, works to strengthen the fight against AIDS through medical research and support and they work to quash the stigma that is often associated with AIDS. This group was not only founded in the LGBT community center but it also continues to have its general meeting in the community center to this day. Another group called Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation or GLAAD was also founded in the community center in 1985. GLAAD works to promote equality, welfare and representation of LGBT people in the media. These entities all had their inseption in the LGBT community center. In fact, there are many more legendary LGBT rights groups that have come out of the community center.
The center was founded 2 years after the aids epidemic was reported. The community center answered a call and filled a void that was in dire need of being filled. They provided a place for groups of people protesting the way the government at that time handled the AIDS epidemic and groups of people who were HIV positive to meet and coordinate their efforts. The LGBT community center had a big part in the eventual success of the AIDS movement.
Earlier I mentioned the vulnerability factor of the LGBT community. The community center did a lot in New York City to solve that problem. For example, the center provided a place for people to meet other in organization meetings. This gave people the option of steering clear of other cruising grounds to avoid being hurt or discriminated against. Even today people use the community center as not just a place to organize but also as a place to meet people and hang out with friends and significant others.
I found this site interesting because of its history in the LGBT community as a community meeting place. Since 1983, many groups have called the community center home and the community center has been involved in someway in many of the social justice campaigns for LGBT people in New York. The community center has become a strong and important part of New York LGBT life. I found the fact that many LGBT youth in New York City sited the community center as a safe space for them to find out more regarding their sexuality and meet people who they could identify with unlike their schools where they might have been bullied and isolated because of their sexual preferences. I found that to be the most important work by the community center, helping people find themselves and helping people find happiness.
When faced with the question of “what about this site speaks to a core component of LGBTQ history?” I couldn’t help but think, “what doesn’t?” As the hub of LGBTQ life and activism in New York City it practically is a core component in and of itself. I felt that the idea of a common space for youth and even adults who need help figuring out who they are is so important to LGBTQ history and life. Also, the community center and it’s people has been involved in all of the LGBTQ historical events since 1983 directly or indirectly. Many famous LGBT people have frequented the center including Keith Haring who painted a mural in the bathroom of the community center. This mural was the last major mural that Keith Haring made in 1989 before he died of AIDS in early 1990. The mural was created for an event called The Center Show that was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. Keith Haring was only one of many LGBT artists who created works for this occasion. It has been a place where many historical LGBT activist groups and has been connecting people with each other for a long time. Also the community center is home to the last LGBT bookstore in New York City. This is extremely historically significant because it is the only brick and mortar place where people can go to get specifically LGBT magazines, history books and novels. It gives LGBT people a place to see people like them in books and media.
I firmly believe that the LGBT community center has more than earned its place among the U.S. national register of historic sites and it will only continue to prove its value in the years to come.