-
Queens Lesbian & Gay Pride Committee Co-Chairs Maritza Martinez, Daniel Dromm, (third and fourth from left) lead the First Annual Queens Pride Parade, 1993. Courtesy Daniel Dromm Photograph Collection, LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, LAGCC, CUNY
Exhibition
The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens
10 Jun 2017 – 30 Jul 2017
Regular hours
- Saturday
- 11:00 – 17:00
- Sunday
- 11:00 – 17:00
- Wednesday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Thursday
- 12:00 – 17:00
- Friday
- 12:00 – 17:00
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- New York City Building
- Flushing Meadows Corona Park
- New York
New York - 11368
- United States
The Lavender Line: Coming out in Queens celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Queens Pride Parade, illuminating the grassroots activism and ethnic diversity that characterized—and is still embodied by—the Queens LGBTQ movement.
About
With both historical and contemporary work, The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens expands the focus of LGBTQ history beyond Manhattan to Queens. Composed of photographs, flyers, video footage, and audio recollections, the pride and protests of a community unknown to most New Yorkers are illuminated. The title celebrates lavender not only as a symbol of the original gay liberation movement but also as the color of the line painted on the Queens Pride Parade route along 37th Avenue, from 89th Street to 75th Street.
Drawn largely from the personal collection of then-founder and now-Queens City Council Member Daniel Dromm, recently accessioned at the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, and from the personal archives of producer-director Richard Shpuntoff and Queens Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, the exhibition sheds lights on a social justice movement that has not only transformed Queens but also changed American politics and culture in recent decades.
The contemporary photographs in the exhibition by LaGuardia’s Gardiner-Shenker Student Scholars, chronicle a range of Queens LGBTQ social organizations and cultural institutions. These include centers that offer social and counseling services as well as bars that function as leisure and entertainment spaces. What results is a representation of struggle and pride that continues today.
The Lavender Line: Coming Out in Queens is organized by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY and the Queens Museum. The exhibition is curated by LaGuardia Community College/CUNY faculty Thierry Gourjon and Javier Larenas and LaGuardia’s Gardiner-Shenker Student Scholars, with the Queens Museum’s Assistant Curator Lindsey Berfond.
