overview

This collection of sites in the Bronx highlights the borough’s diverse LGBT history through residences, public spaces, and cultural institutions associated with people of color, the childhood residence of a pioneering individual in transgender history, and the final resting place of many notable LGBT New Yorkers.

While much of New York City’s known LGBT history and life centers on Manhattan, we are currently working on adding more Bronx sites to our website. If you have a suggestion, please fill out our online form.

This theme was made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, and a grant from Con Edison.

Header Photo
Arthur Avilés (center left) and performers of the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), outside 841 Barretto Street, part of the (former) American Bank Note Company Printing Plant complex, c. 2000. Courtesy of the BAAD! Archive.

Featured Historic Sites ( 7 )

A
841 Barretto Street

The award-winning Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) was founded by dancer/choreographer Arthur Avilés and writer/activist Charles Rice-González, Bronx residents of Puerto Rican descent. Home to the Arthur Avilés... Learn More

B
Pelham Bay Park

Orchard Beach, sometimes referred to as “the Bronx Riviera,” has long been a meeting and cruising location for LGBT people of color, in particular. Learn More

C
2847 Dudley Avenue

Trans woman and Bronx native Christine Jorgensen lived in this house with her family from her birth in 1926 until the early 1950s. After her overseas gender reassignment surgery made... Learn More

D
851 Prospect Avenue

The Prospect Theater is significant in the LGBT history of the Bronx as the venue for the Yiddish play The God of Vengeance, which played here immediately after the Broadway cast... Learn More

E
639 East 169th Street

Mabel Hampton was an African-American performer during the Harlem Renaissance and, in the 1970s and 1980s, a key member of the Lesbian Herstory Archives. An icon of the New York... Learn More

F
517 East 233rd Street

Woodlawn Cemetery in the northern Bronx is not only a magnificent park-like landscape, but is the final resting place of many notable figures in the history of the United States.... Learn More

G
3202 Kossuth Avenue

Gay rights activist Ronald I. Jacobowitz, who lived in this apartment building from 1986 to 1994, co-founded Gay Men of the Bronx as well as Bronx Lesbian and Gay Men... Learn More

Other Curated Themes

14 Sites

Transgender History

26 Sites

Gay-Owned Businesses

17 Sites

Communities of Color

24 Sites

Activism Outside Manhattan

20 Sites

Literary New York

13 Sites

Downtown Arts Scene

21 Sites

City of Immigrants

18 Sites

1970s Lesbian Activism & Community

11 Sites

Brooklyn Heights

8 Sites

Jackson Heights

12 Sites

Staten Island

12 Sites

Why We March

15 Sites

Village Pride Tour

20 Sites

Gay Activists Alliance

13 Sites

The Harlem Renaissance

14 Sites

Jewish New York

20 Sites

Pre-20th Century History

25 Sites

Bars & Nightlife

13 Sites

Activism Before Stonewall

20 Sites

Homophobia & Transphobia

44 Sites

Broadway Theater District

11 Sites

Influential Black New Yorkers

12 Sites

Early Community Centers

13 Sites

Lesbian Life Before Stonewall

11 Sites

The AIDS Crisis

29 Sites

LGBT-Named Public Schools

15 Sites

Art & Architecture

11 Sites

National Register Listings

21 Sites

Spotlight on the Theater