Educator Tools

Since 2019, the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project has worked in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education (DOE) to teach LGBTQ place-based history to high school students. Schoolteachers can access our content online without scheduling a visit. You can use them on your own, with students, or to assign asynchronistic field trips.

By registering below, schoolteachers will gain access to educational video segments that explore New York City’s rich LGBTQ past as well as instructional PDFs that outline the content for students.

THEMATIC VIDEOS provide an overview of sites connected to a theme (about 10 minutes in length):

Stonewall & Greenwich Village LGBTQ History: Students will explore the Stonewall Inn, site of the 1969 uprising, and a selection of other historic sites in the surrounding area
LGBTQ Discrimination & Activism History: Students will explore a selection of historic sites where LGBTQ New Yorkers have faced discrimination and where they have fought back through activism and protest
Black LGBTQ History & Culture: Students will explore a selection of historic sites where the Black LGBTQ community has made an impact on New York City and American culture
Transgender & Gender Variant History: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in New York City associated with transgender and gender variant people dating back to the 19th century
LGBTQ History in Queens: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in Queens associated with prominent LGBTQ people, gathering spaces, and places of activism
LGBTQ History in the Bronx: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in the Bronx connected to prominent LGBTQ people and community gathering spaces
LGBTQ History in Brooklyn: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in Brooklyn connected to significant LGBTQ people, community gathering spaces, and places of activism
LGBTQ History on Staten Island: Students will explore a selection of historic sites on Staten Island where prominent LGBTQ people have lived and where the queer community has gathered
Harlem Renaissance: Students will explore a selection of historic sites connected to Black LGBTQ people who made key contributions to the Harlem Renaissance, one of the 20th century’s most significant cultural movements
1970s Lesbian Activism & Community: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in New York City where lesbian activism took place and where lesbian community was shaped during the women’s liberation and gay liberation movements of the 1970s
Theater: Students will explore a selection of historic sites connected to the LGBTQ community’s contributions to live theater, from the world-renowned Broadway stage to intimate performance spaces around New York City
The AIDS Crisis: Students will explore a selection of historic sites in New York City associated with the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, from LGBTQ community gathering spaces to residences and places of activism
Pre-20th Century History: Students will explore a selection of historic sites associated with the often-unknown history of LGBTQ New Yorkers before the turn of the 20th century

QUEERING NEW YORK is a video series that tells stories about a specific person, event, or group (about 6-8 minutes in length):

Bayard Rustin Educational Complex: Students will learn about civil rights leader Bayard Rustin, an openly gay Black man who served as lead organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and for whom a Chelsea public school was named in 1988
Desi Dhamaka Protests: Students will learn about 1990s protests led by SALGA, a queer Desi group banned from marching in the annual India Day Parade in Manhattan
Eve’s Hangout: Students will learn about Eve Adams, a Polish-Jewish lesbian émigré who ran a popular tearoom in 1920s Greenwich Village before being deported
Keith Haring Studio: Students will learn about openly gay artist Keith Haring, who worked in a Greenwich Village studio from 1985 until his death from AIDS in 1990
Langston Hughes Residence: Students will learn about prominent poet and writer Langston Hughes, largely believed to have been gay and who lived in Harlem from 1947 to 1967
Pauli Murray Residence: Students will learn about Black civil rights attorney and author Pauli Murray, who was gender variant and lived in Brooklyn, from 1947 to 1960
Queens Pride Parade: Students will learn about the 1993 formation of the Queens Pride Parade in Jackson Heights, the second oldest LGBTQ pride march in New York City
Richmond Barthé & “Green Pastures: The Walls of Jericho”: Students will learn about renowned gay Black sculptor Richmond Barthé and his largest work, installed at Kingsborough Houses in Brooklyn in 1941
Riis Park Beach: Students will learn about the historically gay section of Riis Park Beach in the Rockaways, which has drawn a diverse LGBTQ crowd since at least the 1940s
The Triangle Fire: Students will learn about the Triangle Fire of 1911 at a Greenwich Village shirtwaist factory and lesbians who pushed for significant labor reform following this tragic event
James Baldwin Residence: Students will learn about author and civil rights activist James Baldwin, who spoke about LGBTQ issues and owned an Upper West Side rowhouse from 1965 to 1987
Manford Family Residence: Students will learn about the 1973 founding of PFLAG, the nation’s first support group for families of LGBTQ youth, by Queens residents Jeanne and Jules Manford
Transy House: Students will learn about a Brooklyn rowhouse that was owned and run by trans people for trans people from 1995 to 2008 and was the last residence of pioneering activist Sylvia Rivera
Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop: Students will learn about pre- and post-Stonewall gay rights activist Craig Rodwell and the 1967 founding of his pioneering LGBTQ bookstore in Greenwich Village
Alice Austen & Gertrude Tate Residence: Students will learn about pioneering 19th century female photographer Alice Austen and her life partner, schoolteacher Gertrude Tate, who lived together on Staten Island
Lorraine Hansberry Residence: Students will learn about Lorraine Hansberry, playwright of A Raisin in the Sun, who privately explored her lesbian identity while living in Greenwich Village from 1953 to 1960
Christine Jorgensen Childhood Residence: Students will learn about Christine Jorgensen, the world’s first famous transgender person, who lived in her family’s house in the Bronx from her birth in 1926 until the early 1950s
Gilbert Baker’s “Raise the Rainbow” Workshop: Students will learn about artist and LGBTQ rights activist Gilbert Baker, who, from 1993 to 1994, set up a workshop in Chelsea to sew a mile-long Rainbow Flag in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising

Once we have approved your registration, you will be able to download and share this content with your students. Registering helps us and the DOE gauge how many teachers are interested in this subject matter and how it will be used. For questions, please email us at [email protected].

These educational tools have been made possible with funding from the New York City Council and facilitated through the NYC Department of Education.