The Gowanus Canal is a 1.8-mile-long (2.9 km) canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the westernmost portion of Long Island. Once a vital cargo transportation hub, the canal has seen decreasing use since the mid-20th century, parallel with the decline of domestic waterborne shipping. It continues to be used for occasional movement of goods and daily navigation of small boats, tugs and barges.
Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she was a consultant in attaining specific goals of social justice. She held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force. She is the author of Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming of Gay and Lesbian Liberation (1995) and Irresistible Revolution: Confronting Race, Class and the Assumptions of LGBT Politics (2012).
Ben Jeffrey Peter Summerskill is chair of The Silver Line and director of the Criminal Justice Alliance, a consortium of 135 charities working across the GB criminal justice pathway. He was the chief executive of the UK-based lesbian, gay and bisexual equality organisation Stonewall, the largest gay equality body in Europe, from 2003 to 2014. He has a twin sister, Clare, who is a performer. He has also worked as a businessman and journalist. Summerskill is an occasional contributor to The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Times, Time Out and other publications. In 2015 he won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British LGBT Awards In 2017, he was appointed by the UK government to the Council (Board) of ACAS, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service. He was first appointed a trustee of the Silver Line in 2017.
Gowanus is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, within the area once known as South Brooklyn. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community District 6. Gowanus is bounded by Wyckoff Street on the north, Fourth Avenue on the east, the Gowanus Expressway to the south, and Bond Street to the west.
Stonewall Democrats, also known in some states as LGBT Democrats, is a caucus within the Democratic Party that advocates for issues that are relevant to LGBT Americans. The caucus primarily operates through individual chapters or political clubs supporting LGBT rights and affiliated with the Democratic Party.
The Utah Pride Center (UPC) is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization in Salt Lake City. It provides services, events and activities to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Utah. The center manages annual and ongoing projects including the Utah Pride Festival.
Brenda Howard was an American bisexual rights activist and sex-positive feminist. The Brenda Howard Memorial Award is named for her.
Heritage of Pride (HOP), doing business as NYC Pride, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that plans and produces the official New York City LGBTQIA+ Pride Week events each June. HOP began working on the events in 1984, taking on the work previously done by the Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee organizers of the first NYC Pride March in 1970. HOP also took over responsibility for the operations of NYC's Pride festival and Pride Rally. It was that first march which brought national attention to 1969's Stonewall Riots. The late sixties saw numerous protests and riots across the United States on many social injustices and from general political unrest including the war in Vietnam.
The Smith–Ninth Streets station is a local station on the IND Culver Line of the New York City Subway. It is located over the Gowanus Canal near the intersection of Smith and Ninth Streets in Gowanus, Brooklyn, and is served by the F and G trains at all times. The station is 87.5 feet (26.7 m) above ground level, making it the highest rapid transit station in the world.
Andrew Scott Dolkart is a professor of Historic Preservation at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and the former Director of the school's Historic Preservation Program. Professor Dolkart is an authority on the preservation of historically significant architecture and an expert in the architecture and development of New York City. He was described as someone who is "without peer among New York's architectural researchers" by architectural critic Francis Morrone and he has written extensively on this topic. Before joining the faculty at Columbia he held a position at the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission and worked as a consultant. Dolkart holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University (1973) and a Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation from Columbia University (1977); he is a popular lecturer and walking tour guide.
Village Preservation is a non-profit organization which advocates for the preservation of architecture and culture in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, New York. Since it began in 1980, it has engaged in efforts to attain landmark status for a variety of sites like the Stonewall Inn and Webster Hall. The organization and its Executive Director, Andrew Berman, have been described as influential in New York real estate, while some of its activities to prevent development and to support restrictive zoning have attracted criticism.
The Gowanus Memorial Artyard was a nonprofit, artist-organized group that put together massive outdoor and indoor art exhibitions in Gowanus, Brooklyn, New York City in the early 1980s. Founded by artists and curators Michael Keene, Frank Shifreen, and George Moore, the shows featured monumental sculpture parks next to the Gowanus Canal. The two major shows attracted thousands of visitors during their brief runs in 1981 and 1982. The participants artists such as Carl Andre, Andy Warhol-sponsored Keith Haring, Christo, Linda and Terry Jamison, Vito Acconci, Nancy Holt, John Fekner, the controversial Chris Burden, sculptor Jim Nickel, and Fred Wilson.
The ISSUE Project Room is a music venue in Brooklyn, New York, founded in 2003 by Suzanne Fiol. Located in 110 Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn, the venue supports a wide variety of contemporary performance, specializing in presenting experimental and avant-garde music. ISSUE Project Room is an art and performance center, presenting projects by more than 200 emerging and established artists each year.
The National LGBTQ Task Force is an American social justice advocacy non-profit organizing the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Also known as The Task Force, the organization supports action and activism on behalf of LGBTQ people and advances a progressive vision of liberation. Leadership includes immediate peasy executive director Rea Carey and executive director Kierra Johnson, who took there position in 2021 to become the for Black woman to head the organization Kierra Johnson.
Utah Stonewall Democrats is a Salt Lake City-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) political group affiliated with the Utah Democratic Party. The word "Stonewall" in the group's name refers to the Stonewall riots of 1969, a pivotal event in the history of protecting equal rights for LGBT people.
The Red Hook Grain Terminal is an abandoned grain elevator in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City, adjacent to the mouth of the Gowanus Canal. It is 12 stories tall, 70 feet (21 m) wide, and 429 feet (131 m) long, containing fifty-four 120-foot-tall (37 m) cement silos. As the neighborhood's tallest structure, it is highly visible from the elevated Gowanus Expressway and New York City Subway's IND Culver Line viaducts over the Gowanus Canal.
The Gowanus Canal Conservancy is a nonprofit conservancy founded in 2009 that serves as a community-based environmental steward of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York City. Partnering with the EPA, the city Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP), groups like Riverkeeper and universities as diverse as Brooklyn Law School, SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse, and Rutgers, it seeks to improve the canal's water quality while promoting local green spaces and building habitats for the fauna that live in or near the waterway.
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats is a British lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual minorities equality group of the Liberal Democrats political party. The organisation is one of several Specified Associated Organisations, giving it special status within the party, and has been referred to as one of the "most important" of such groups. The group campaigns both within the party and UK-wide on LGBT+ issues, as well as mentoring and providing advice to the party's candidates.
The Brooklyn–Queens Connector, abbreviated the BQX, is a proposed streetcar line in New York City. It is planned to operate on a north–south corridor along the East River between the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn.
The Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company building, commonly known as the Batcave or Gowanus Batcave, is a former transit power station at 153 Second Street in Gowanus, Brooklyn, New York City by the Gowanus Canal. It was built between 1901 and 1904, while the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company was expanding its rapid transit and streetcar service. It stopped operating in 1972 and sat abandoned for more than two decades, becoming home to a community of squatters in the early 2000s. The owners, who were planning to redevelop the site, building condominiums called "Gowanus Village", had the squatters removed and increased security in 2006. The Gowanus Village plans did not materialize and after a short time it became a popular space for graffiti and underground events.
