WEST VILLAGE — President Barak Obama designated the Stonewall Inn and the area around it a national monument on Friday.
The monument includes the park in front of Stonewall Inn and the surrounding streets where a historic retaliation against a police raid took place in 1969. The uprising is considered to be one of the most important flashpoints in the struggle for LGBT civil rights in the U.S.
People continue to flock to the bar at important moments, from the passage of marriage equality in New York State in 2011 to the point-blank murder of a gay man on Eighth Street in 2013 to the Supreme Court upholding the right of gay Americans to marry nationwide last year to the mass shooting at a gay club in Orlando two weeks ago.
It is the nation's first monument recognizing the history of gay Americans.
“There is no better time to acknowledge Stonewall as a national monument – a place that is central to our history and our values, not only as a city but as a nation,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “Today, the designation of Stonewall Inn serves as both recognition of the bravery of the activists who fought for their right to love, but also as a national embrace of the LGBTQ community after the devastating attack in Orlando."
