President Joe Biden is attending a ribbon-cutting in Manhattan for the new Stonewall National Monument 's visitor center Friday, marking the anniversary of the 1969 rebellion that helped reshape LGBTQ+ life in the U.S.
It comes less than 24 hours after a presidential debate performance that, by most accounts, was devastating.
The ribbon-cutting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., though the event starts earlier. Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democratic leaders are also expected to be in attendance for the celebration.
The visitor center aims to tell the Stonewall story in more depth than the monument itself, which centers on a tiny park that features historical photographs but limited interpretive information. Overseen by the National Park Service and the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Pride Live, the $3.2 million visitor center was financed chiefly with private donations, except for $450,000 from the park service’s charitable arm, which gets private and federal money.
“When people think of the National Park Service, they don’t usually think ‘queer and urban,’” said visitor center co-founder Diana Rodriguez. “So we’re a very different type of visitor center.”
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Where other such facilities might have plaques about wildlife and geology, this one has photographs of protests and a line on the floor marking where the timeworn bar once stood. A 1967 jukebox, the same model that was playing on the night of the Stonewall Rebellion, is loaded with songs from the era and beyond.
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Spanning two former horse stables at 51 and 53 Christopher St., the Stonewall Inn was a speakeasy-like establishment with blacked-out windows, steel doors, a doorman who screened patrons, no liquor license and notoriously overpriced drinks.
The current Stonewall Inn has served as something of an unofficial welcome and education site for the monument.
“I'm here for the history,” co-owner Kurt Kelly explained in a recent interview in the still-denlike bar, bedecked with photos and documents. The original Stonewall Inn closed soon after the uprising, but the 53 Christopher St. portion reopened as a gay bar in the 1990s. Kelly and co-owner Stacy Lentz acquired it in 2006.
They see the visitor center as a fitting neighbor and hope it will draw more people to the site and the bar. Recent years have been rough, they said, because of pandemic shutdowns, inflation, rising insurance costs and other challenges.
“It's really hard to keep this place open,” said Lentz, but she feels a responsibility that goes beyond the bar business. She also works as CEO of the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, a charity that she and Kelly launched in 2017.
