NYC QUEER HISTORY WALKING TOURS

Join us as we spend the 2026 season remixing our walking tours of the Lower East Side and the East Village! On our first tour offering this season, we will look at many influential queer artist/activists of the late 20th century on the Lower East Side — including Martin Wong, Miguel Piñero, Jack Smith, Mario Montez, Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson, and the Gran Fury collective.

These artist/activists were deeply connected to the Lower East Side, and their work stands on the sometimes uneasy, sometimes joyful intersection of artistic creativity and political action. On our tour, we'll discuss questions that these luminaries' lives and works provoke: Is art made by queer artists always political? Would we even want it to be? Who is the audience for queer art?

The tour will begin at Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, a community arts space with a 110-year history of art and activism.

Explore the long and rich history of queer communities in Manhattan's East Village, from the turn of the century to the turn of the millennium. Subjects include bathhouses of the 1910s, homophile activists of the 1960s and drag kings of the 1990s. The tour begins at the Public Theater and ends at Village Works bookstore on Saint Marks Place.

We revisit the final moments, obituaries, and gravesites of LGBTQ+ permanent residents of Green-Wood and consider how their stories have been told in both life and death. Are we, as queer historians, haunted by the gay past? Stay tuned for 2026 tour dates!