MAPPED: Fashion, Drag, Nightlife

NEWLY MAPPED SITES:
Following extensive research by the project team, the NYC LGBTQ Historic Sites Project announces the latest additions to its digital heritage map.

Adolfo Sardiña & Edward C. Perry Residence
828 Fifth Avenue
Manhattan

A fashion designer best known for his dresses for First Lady Nancy Reagan in the 1980s, the Cuban-born Adolfo Sardiña, known professionally as Adolfo, and his partner, financial adviser Edward C. Perry, lived in a duplex apartment in this Upper East Side building from the early 1980s until Perry’s death in 1994, with Adolfo continuing to live here until 2016. READ MORE

Police Raids on Costume Balls at Manhattan Center
311 West 34th Street
Manhattan

As part of the 20th century legal enforcement of gender conformity in how one dressed in public, police raided costume balls at the same venue, Manhattan Center, in 1939 and 1962. Men attending dressed in drag were arrested under the infamous Section 887 of New York State’s Penal Code, a vagrancy statute that dated back to 1845. READ MORE

Flamingo and the Gallery
599 Broadway and 172 Mercer Street
Manhattan

In 1974, Flamingo and the Gallery – two unrelated private clubs influential in the post-Stonewall era – opened in the same 12-story building. Flamingo paved the way for venues that linked music and the eroticization of the white gay male body, while the Gallery established a model for DJ-led, queer-centric venues, focusing on the connection between music and dance. READ MORE HERE AND HERE

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
Explore the LGBTQ history of a site we’ve previously mapped.

The Warehouse
141 East 140th Street
Bronx

Influential club promoters Mike Stone and Charles Jackson ran popular Friday and Saturday night parties at the Warehouse from 1997 to 2006. The club’s house music, hip-hop, R&B, and ball culture had nationwide appeal, bringing together generations of primarily Black gay men at a time when New York City was in need of large dance spaces for LGBT people of color. READ MORE