Earlier this year, President Barack Obama named New York’s most famous gay bar a National Historic Monument. Greenwich Village’s Stonewall Inn was the birthplace of the gay rights movement, when a riot broke out in June 1969 during a police raid, launching a national movement. But, as a new exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York proves, the Big Apple had long been a hub of gay culture, a place where LGBTQ individuals flocked to find community and acceptance.
“Gay Gotham: Art and Underground Culture in New York,” which opens Friday and runs through Feb. 26, 2017, examines the way in which these queer communities inspired and nurtured some of the greatest artists of the 20th century whose radical work still reverberates today.