New York City’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center empowers people to lead healthy, successful lives. The Center celebrates our diversity and advocates for justice and opportunity.
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population of New York City and nearby communities. The center is located in the West Village at 208 West 13th Street, an historic building which formerly housed the High School for Food Trades.
In December 1983, the New York City Board of Estimates approved the sale of the former Food and Maritime Trades High School, located at 208 West 13th Street, to the Lesbian & Gay Community Services Center, Inc., for $1.5 million. In its first year, 60 groups met regularly at the center. Today more than 300 groups call the center home.
Programs produced by the center include Center Wellness, an Adult Services Department working with people with AIDS, struggling with substance abuse issues, mental health challenges and much more; Youth Services, an activities-based program for LGBT youth; Center Cultural Programs, presenting established and emerging artists, writers, and activitist to the community; Center Families, the Center's family project; and the Pat Parker/Vito Russo Center Library, New York City's largest LGBT lending library.
In 1985, the center became temporary home to the Harvey Milk High School, a program of the Hetrick-Martin Institute. The Lesbian Switchboard became a permanent tenant after it was evicted from its former home, and Dignity, a Catholic gay and lesbian religious organization, sought refuge when it was expelled from Catholic churches.
The availability of meeting space was a major organizing tool for the LGBT movement in the 1980s and early 1990s. Groups that have expanded throughout the nation, such as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), Queer Nation, Lesbian Avengers, and Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), had their inception at the center.[citation needed] At one point in the early 1990s the Center was hosting regular meetings for more than three hundred groups.
Every week, 6,000 people visit the center, and more than 300 groups meet in the building.[citation needed] These groups range from political activist organizations to social clubs. The center also frequently hosts speeches, performances, workshops, and commercially sponsored information sessions.
Numerous Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and other twelve-step recovery groups meet at the center. The center's Mental Health and Social Services division also sponsors support groups focused on coming out, transgender issues, bereavement, and other topics of concern to the LGBT community.
The center also houses Y.E.S., the Youth Enrichment Services. This organization provides services and support for queer and questioning youth. Programs such as both a young men's and a young women's discussion group, a gender exploration group, a safe schools network, and a variety of support groups are available to youth free of charge.
The center also hosts and documents the artistic and historic contributions of members of the LGBT Community in its archives, and its lending library has the largest selection of LBGT materials in New York. The center's cultural program includes the Campbell Soady Gallery, named in honor of major donors William Campbell and William Soady. The Gallery exhibitis artwork that celebrates the diversity of LGBT life and supports the work of emerging queerartists. The center is also home to a repository of manuscripts, personal papers, organizational files and records of the center itself. Archivist Rich Wandel oversees this all-volunteer project.
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