The National Park Service is seeking nominations of historical LGBT
sites and landmarks to be added to the National Register of Historic
Places and for consideration to be designated as a National Historic
Landmarks.
To date ONLY THREE sites, all on the East Coast, which includes the
Stonewall Inn, the Washington, D.C. home of the late gay rights activist
Frank Kameny and the Cherry Grove Community House and Theater on Fire
Island. In have received federal recognition specifically due to their
ties to LGBT history.
One minor problem concerning LGBT historic sites is the fact that
many were situated in neighborhoods that have since been gentrified. For
federal landmark purposes or listing on the register, a structure must
still exist and many have been torn down or altered in such a way that
their historical integrity no longer is intact.
The next LGBT historic site designation very likely will be the Henry
Gerber House in Chicago. Given city landmark status in 2001, the
residence is where Gerber lived in the early 1920s when he formed the
Society for Human Rights, the first American gay civil rights
organization, according to its listing on the Chicago Landmarks website.
The late great LGBTactivist Supervisor Harvey Milk’s old camera shop
and campaign headquarters at 575 Castro Street, in San Francisco is also
a property that could receive federal recognition. Currently the Human
Rights Campaign owns the property.
For information about the California State Historic Preservation
Office, which the park service has asked to assist with identifying LGBT
sites to nominate, visit http://ohp.parks.ca.gov/
NOTE: The National Park Service is planning to hold a LGBT-focused webinar later this month. For more information, visit http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/
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