Courtesy the LHA
A Park Slope house could be the first LGBT site in Brooklyn to earn landmark status
Lesbian Herstory Archives, headquartered in a 114-year-old home, made its case to the LPC at a public hearing hearing this week
Courtesy the LHA
An otherwise unassuming home in Park Slope should be deemed a landmark because of what is housed inside, activists say. And this week it moved a little closer in that direction.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to calendar a proposal giving the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA) landmark status, which is in effect the first step in the preservation process, followed by a public hearing and a public landmark designation vote.
The Lesbian Herstory Archives had told the commission that its headquarters, located at 484 14th Street, should be landmarked for its history of a “mostly unseen community of women who contributed to America’s cultural, political and social history,” according to Brownstoner.
The LHA is devoted to “gather and preserve records of lesbian lives and activities so that future generations will have ready access to materials relevant to their lives,” its website says. The organization moved from the Upper West Side and purchased the 114-year-old house Park Slope in 1993.
Margaret Herman, the landmarks commission deputy director of research, agreed that the house is a site “that can serve as a direct response to the pervasive homophobia, sexism and lack of lesbian space that community had experienced throughout history.”
The Park Slope Historic District has already granted the building itself landmark status several decades ago before the LHA moved in, but as such it has no mention of the house’s LGBTQ significance in the city’s records. If approved as a landmark by the landmarks commission, it would be the first LGBT site to earn that recognition in Brooklyn.
Neighbors and residents are rallying for the landmark status. Amanda Davis, project manager of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, said at the meeting that Park Slope was a popular place for lesbians to live in the 1990s, thanks in part because of the archive.
“As a result, the designation of the Lesbian Herstory Archives building as a New York City landmark would also highlight and celebrate Park Slope’s historic significance to the lesbian community,” Davis said.
The LPC will hold a vote for the landmark status in the near future.
