New York City-based artist Gwen Shockey has set out to preserve the memory of lesbian bars through her Addresses Project (2016-present). By conducting interviews and sifting through a slew of newspaper clippings, blogs, Facebook event listings, police records, tax information, and business bureau records, she has pinpointed nearly 100 lesbian bars and parties that have existed from 1900 to the present day throughout the city’s five boroughs.
The multidisciplinary project involves a number of constantly updating parts in order to paint multifaceted portraits of these bygone sites — including an interactive map featuring pictures of the each of the bars’ abandoned storefronts, an archive of oral history interviews, and a new portraiture series by the photographer Riya Lerner — which is now on virtual display via The Center.