Mon, February 18 2008

David Henderson, Director of Communications
(212) 620-7310 X227
(917) 488-9086 cell

February 18, 2008

CONTACT:
Cathy Renna, Renna Communications,
David Henderson, Center Director of Communications, 212.620.7310 X227

LGBT: NYC Center Celebrates 25 Years of
Innovation, Culture, and Advocacy

Center Space First Building Owned by LGBT Community in New York, Now Over 6,000 People Per Week Pass through Its Doors

NEW YORK - The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center - the nation's leading and most comprehensive LGBT community center - will commemorate its 25th Anniversary throughout 2008 with scores of celebratory events, including a community festival, a rare, extensive exhibition by the Center's National Archive of LGBT History, and the largest ever Garden Party, which is New York City's annual pride week kick-off event.

The ceremonial start to the 25th Anniversary will be the Center's annual gala, Center Dinner, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4, at Capitale New York, 130 Bowery. The official birthday of the Center, the second largest LGBT community center in the world, is July 6, 1983.

"From the Bronx to Staten Island and everywhere in between, we want the LGBT community, our straight allies, and all of New York City, to join us in celebrating the Center's 25th Anniversary," said Center Board Member Tom Kirdahy, who chairs the Center's 25th Anniversary committee. "We want people from all walks of life take part in our year long celebration as we honor the past and prepare for our future."

More than 6,000 lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender persons from the tri-state area pass through the Center's doors each week (14 hours a day, seven days a week year-round) to visit the library, attend a concert or lecture, learn about the latest advocacy issues, seek counseling, or simply check their email at the David Bohnett Cyber Center. More than 300,000 cross the Center threshold each year.

"We're about building community. We're about saving lives and celebrating our culture. LGBT people will always need a safe place to call home," said Executive Director Richard Burns, who joined the organization in 1986.

A beacon of diversity and promise for 25 years, The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center builds and supports community through health, arts and culture, and advocacy programs as well as meeting and conference services and provides a safe and welcoming environment.

Over the years the Center has developed a nationally-recognized roster of innovative programs, including:

o YES (Youth Enrichment Services) for teenagers and young adults, includes Youth Pride Chorus; o Nonpartisan advocacy and coalition building programs; o Center Kids for LGBT families; o The Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library; o The National Archive of LGBT History; o Second Tuesdays, guest speakers from the fields of arts, politics, and literature; o Promote the Vote, voter mobilization project (90,000 voters registered so far); o Mental health services to combat the abuse of HIV/AIDS and alcohol, smoking, and crystal meth abuse; o Gender Identity Project, one of the first health projects for transgender persons; o Center CARE Recovery, the first licensed, outpatient LGBT-specific substance abuse recovery center in NY State, which opened last September; o And our coalition-building efforts, such as Causes in Common, our association of LGBT and reproductive rights groups, and our services for LGBT immigrants.

Three hundred organizations - from social groups to political clubs to twelve-step programs - make the Center their home. The support and encouragement of the Center has also led to the long term incubation of many other organizations, including Immigration Equality, ACT UP, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Gay Men of African Descent, Immigration Equality, Queers for Economic Justice and Marriage Equality.

"Our most important goal as we look to the future is to allow the changing needs of the community to shape the growth of the Center. This strategy has kept the Center vital and relevant for 25 years," Burns said. For example, when the crystal meth epidemic struck the gay community, the Center was quick to respond with counseling and prevention services that accommodate hundreds today. Eleven years ago, Center advocacy staffers conducted a workshop on marriage rights, and members of the audience began a conversation that eventually led to the formation of Marriage Equality, an organization still going strong today. And as more of us became parents and LGBT youth started to come out earlier, the Center responded to these community changes with the formation of the Center Kids and YES programs.
As the community has become more and more family-oriented, these programs have grown substantially, and now they serve thousands of parents, children, and teenagers annually.

Burns said, "Now our families are growing. We are seeking recognition and respect for our families. We're reinventing the concept of family. Family isn't just a nuclear heterosexual family. It can be a queer couple with kids, or a close-knit group of friends who take care of one another. We have our family of origin, and then we have our family of choice. The Center is both a home and hearth for all of our families."

A Brief History
Robert Woodworth, Director of Meetings and Conference Services and Capital Projects, (and one of only two employees who have been with the Center since day one), said, "Before the Center was established, we were perceived to be needy cases, and we had to rely on the generosity of a small number of churches or other spaces where we were welcome. The Center was the first place we owned and made our own in New York. The creation of the Center was truly a watershed moment in history for the LGBT community in Greenwich Village, in New York city and across the country."

In the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots, it became clear our community needed a center. Very few lesbian and gay groups had permanent addresses.
By the early 1980s Metropolitan Community Church, Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), and several other organizations were renting space in the former Food and Maritime Trades High School on West 13th Street. The City had ceased using the building as a school in the 1970s and was renting out old classrooms to non-profit groups. The oldest parts of the building dated back to the 1840s, and few improvements had been made to the property since a WPA project in the 1930s. "No air-conditioning. No hot water. No lights in some rooms. Abandoned commercial stoves, ventilation hoods, and sinks everywhere. Hardscrabble quarters, but the tenants were happy to have them," said Woodworth.

When word came that the city wanted to sell the building to a non-profit, the tenants and their allies from other organizations began to strategize about how to convince the city to make the building a lesbian and gay community center. They immediately invited lesbian and gay groups to use the building for meetings, and they incorporated the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center, Inc., on July 6, 1983. Community members in politics used their influence to convince city officials to consider selling the building to the new center. On December 30, 1983, the Board of Estimate voted unanimously to approve a contract of sale for $1.5 million, and the Center closed on the property on December 28, 1984. The gay and lesbian community owned a piece of NYC real estate for the first time.

Woodworth said, "The Center is a classic tale of seizing opportunity out of difficult circumstances. Two crises - the AIDS epidemic and the threat that skyrocketing rents would bankrupt fledgling gay organizations - rallied gay and lesbian people to an unprecedented degree of community organizing and philanthropy."

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25th Anniversary Events

Outing Madison Avenue Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Center Dinner Tuesday, March 4, 2008
25th Anniversary Gala

Broadway at the Center Presents Tuesday, March 4, 2008
The Beebo Brinker Chronicles
with Author Ann Bannon

Center Voices Presents Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Mara Keisling, Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality

The Giard Foundation Exhibition Monday, March 10, 2008 and Lecture Series

Center Voices Presents Monday, March 10, 2008
Kabbalah, What's it All About?

Off Center Presents Tuesday, March 11, 2008
"The Queer Muse:
Performing Artists Discuss Being Queer
and Its Impact on Their Art"

Cocktails with Content Presents Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Kate Clinton and Andrea Meyerson
Launch Party - The 25th Annniversary Tour

A Celebration: Dr. Barbara Warren Thursday, April 3, 2008 and 20 Years of Healthcare at the Center

Broadway at the Center Presents Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Edward Albee

Center Voices Presents Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Safe Space: Celebrating Latino/a
Artists and Authors

Center Voices Presents Thursday, April 17, 2008
Author Scott Heim (Mysterious Skin)

Nicholas Leichter Dance Company Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Center Classics Presents Thursday, May 15, 2008
Chiaroscuro: Opera, the Italian Masters

Center Voices Sunday, June 8, 2008
and the New York Historical Society
Celebrate The Center:
"The Next Genderation"

Garden Party 25 Monday, June 23, 2008

Dancing on the Bay, Fire Island Saturday, July 5, 2008

Dancing on the Beach, The Hamptons Saturday, July 26, 2008

Braking the Cycle
HIV/AIDS Bike-a-thon Friday-Sunday, September 26-28, 2008
Homecoming Street Fair Sunday, September 28, 2008

Women's Event 11 Saturday, November 1, 2008

For updates of the list of 25th Anniversary events, visit www.gaycenter.org or call 212.620.7310.

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Milestones / The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center

1983 Birth of the Center
1984 Center Dance Committee, our first volunteer group, begins
1985 GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) forms
1985 Catholic Church expels Dignity, a group for gay and lesbian Catholics, so the Center provides the group with a home
1986 Executive Director Richard Burns hired
1986 Gay Men of African Descent forms
1987 Larry Kramer speaks in our "Second Tuesdays" series, spurring the creation of ACT UP
1988 Dr. Barbara Warren opens Project Connect, the first of our mental health groups and the first alcohol and substance abuse prevention program for lesbians and gay men in New York.
1989 Center Kids, our program for kids and families, starts 1990 YES (Youth Enrichment Services) for LGBT teenagers debuts 1990 Center's National Archive of LGBT History opens
1991 Center's Gender Identity Project begins
1991 Center Bridge begins bereavement counseling in response to the AIDS crises
1991 Pat Parker/Vito Russo Library opens
1991 Center's first Lesbian Health Fair debuts
1991 Center's first Lesbian Movie Series begins
1992 Center creates Promote the Vote, our voter registration project
1992 Lesbian Avengers form at the Center
1993 Immigration Equality forms at the Center
1994 Center serves as NY welcome center for Stonewall 25
1995 Center kicks-off a $13 million capital campaign for building renovations
1998 Center staff helps to organize Marriage Equality
1998 Center moves to Little West 12th Street during renovations
2001 Center returns home to West 13th Street
2002 Center CARE, successor to Project Connect, forms to offer an even wider array of adult mental health services
2002 Causes in Common, our coalition of LGBT and reproductive rights organizations, begins
2003 Queers for Economic Justice forms
2004 Center's Lesbian Cancer Initiative forms
2007 Center CARE Recovery, NY State's first LGBT-specific alcohol and substance abuse recovery program, debuts

About the Center

A beacon of hope for 29 years, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center builds and supports our community through arts and culture, wellness and recovery, family services and life-saving youth programs designed to foster healthy development in a safe, affirming environment. The Center envisions a world where LGBT people will no longer face discrimination or isolation because of who we are or who we love. We offer a welcoming home to 300,000 visitors each year and we are committed to serving all LGBT people through a variety of programs, services and activities that are designed to meet existing and emerging needs.The Center is many things to many people. We invite you to experience our home at 208 West 13th Street in person and online at gaycenter.org