This building at 80 Fifth Avenue and 14th Street once hosted the organization that is now known as the
National LGBTQ Task Force.
➤ CIVIL RIGHTS LANDMARKS, from p.18
hub nearby on 14th Street as a key
factor in accelerating the fears of
demolition and redevelopment.
“We’re seeing the rapid destruction
of a lot of those buildings,”
Berman said. “We’re probably only
going to see more of that unless
this landmarking effort is successful.”
Leaders at many of the organizations
that were previously located
in these buildings sent letters
to Mayor Bill de Blasio, members
of the New York City Council, and
Landmarks Preservation Commission
(LPC) Chair Sarah Carroll
earlier this year asking them to
preserve the spaces. Out gay City
Council Speaker Corey Johnson
also wrote a letter in support of
preservation and underscored that
the area’s “connection to African
American and LGBTQ civil rights,
particularly to the oldest national
organizations dedicated to both
causes, is especially important.”
Among others who wrote letters
included Geoffrey E. Eaton, who
serves as president of the NAACP’s
Mid-Manhattan branch; National
LGBTQ Task Force executive director
Rea Carey; Seri Worden, the
senior fi eld director of preservation
services and outreach at the
National Trust for Historic Preservation’s
New York City fi eld offi ce;
and the ACLU’s deputy executive
director, Dorothy Ehrlich.
VILLAGE PRESERVATION
“As the fi rst national LGBTQ
rights organization in the United
States, the Task Force accomplished
a number of groundbreaking
changes in the dozen or so
years it was located here, initiating
battles for civil rights that are still
being fought today,” Carey wrote in
a February letter. “Without a doubt,
the history of the organization is
inextricably linked to this area,
which throughout the mid-to-late
20th century fostered the growth
of many civil rights and social justice
organizations, notable among
them the NAACP and the New York
Woman’s Suffrage League. I therefore
strongly urge you to move
ahead with the proposed historic
district including 80 Fifth Avenue
and its surroundings.”
The LPC, which oversees the
designation of historic sites in the
city, landmarked six LGBTQ historical
sites during WorldPride last
year in the fi rst LGBTQ-related
landmark designations since the
Stonewall Inn was protected in
2015. Those locations were Caffe
Cino at 31 Cornelia Street, the Gay
Activists Alliance Firehouse at 99
Wooster Street, the LGBT Community
Center at 208 West 13th
Street, James Baldwin’s residence
at 137 West 71st Street, the Women’s
Liberation Center at 243 West
20th Street, and Audre Lorde’s residence
at 207 St. Paul’s Avenue on
Staten Island.
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