Remsen, N.Y.
Baron Von Steuben Memorial Park
Starr Hill Road at Steuben Memorial Drive
I recently received an email from Lyle in L.A., informing me about a site I hadn’t heard of – the Baron Von Steuben Memorial Park in Remsen, N.Y., Oneida County. Here’s what Lyle has to say about the site:
…there is a monument, a log [...]
Archive for July, 2009
“Drillmaster of the American Revolution”
Posted in New York, military on July 29, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Langston Hughes’ Home Foreclosed On
Posted in Ohio, poets on July 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Cleveland, Ohio
2266 East 86th Street
The home where queer poet Langston Hughes lived while he was in high school – and began developing his voice as a poet – has fallen victim to the recent wave of foreclosures. The East 86th Street house was sold at a sheriff’s auction earlier this year for under $17,000. Read [...]
LGBT Community Centers, part 1
Posted in California, community centers on July 26, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Los Angeles, Calif.
Gay Community Services Center
1614 Wilshire Boulevard
With news that the Billy DeFrank LGBT Community Center in San Jose, Calif., which was founded in 1981, may be forced to close its doors unless it can raise $50,000 by September, I decided this was an apt time to start a series of [...]
The Real Barbary Lane
Posted in California, writers on July 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
San Francisco, Calif.
Macondray Lane
Macondray Lane is best known as the inspiration for Barbary Lane, the fictional Russian Hill street of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City series. In 1976, Maupin’s story began as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle, relating the adventures of an eclectic group of residents at 28 Barbary Lane. When [...]
A Queer Connection
Posted in West Virginia, poets on July 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Harpers Ferry, W.V.
John Brown’s Fort
Shenandoah and Potomac Streets
On a recent trip to the Harpers Ferry area, I didn’t expect to find any “queer places.” But sure enough, there was a tangential one.
Among the men who joined abolitionist John Brown in his famous raid on Harpers Ferry on Oct. 16, 1859, was Lewis S. Leary, an [...]
A “respectable” event
Posted in California, activists, clergy, police on July 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
San Francisco, Calif.
California Hall
625 Polk Street
You’ve probably been reading about the police raid on a gay bar in Fort Worth, Texas, just last month – an unusual and shocking event these dayss. In the 1960s, however, police harassment of gay people was de rigueur. Take the New Year’s Ball of 1965, held at this San [...]
“I considered her a treasure”
Posted in South Dakota, military, transgender on July 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Fort Meade, S.D.
Fort Meade
Highway 34/79
When the Seventh Cavalry under General George Armstrong Custer was stationed here in what was then “the Dakota Territory” in the 1870s, the company laundress, “Mrs. Corporal Noonan,” was a popular midwife, seamstress, cook, and nurse. She had three soldier husbands between the years 1868 and 1878, the last of whom [...]
Another 40th Anniversary
Posted in Pennsylvania, activists on July 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Philadelphia, Pa.
Annual Reminder marker
6th and Chestnut Streets
This state historical marker, erected in 2005 by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, was the first in the country to recognize and celebrate LGBT history. It commemorates the “Annual Reminder,” the first public demonstration for LGBT rights, which began on July 4, 1965 – four years before the [...]
“America the Beautiful”
Posted in Colorado, Massachusetts, academics/professors, poets on July 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Colorado Springs, Colo.
“America, the Beautiful” plaque
Pikes Peak
With a height of 14,110 feet, Pikes Peak is a formidable challenge for any climber, but in 1893, a young Wellesley College English professor named Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) made it to the top. That summer, Bates had taken a teaching position at Colorado College to supplement her income, [...]
