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The Stonewall Inn and surrounding landmarks are instantly recognizable, even if a Greenwich Village passerby isn't walking past intentionally.
The sheer number of rainbow flags surrounding the park, the nearby subway station, the bar, and the neighborhood are a colorful indicator of how crucial Stonewall is to the LGBTQ community and its history.
Fifty years after the Stonewall uprising that launched the LGBTQ civil rights movement into the national spotlight, Christopher Street has a different atmosphere. LGBTQ people and their families and allies are celebrated openly in Greenwich Village, with corporations and companies sponsoring rainbow banners and advertisements (to varying degrees of controversy).
This is what it's like to visit Stonewall and its monument, 50 years after the New York City Police Department began a raid on a gay club that changed the course of LGBTQ history in the US up through today.
Across the street from the iconic bar, the thin strip that is Christopher Park serves as the family-accessible Stonewall National Monument.
The Stonewall Inn is nestled comfortably between an unmarked, privately owned building and a space for lease on Christopher Street. Across the narrow one-way road, the bar is complemented by a public space that's open to all ages – Christopher Park.
In 1999, thirty years after the Stonewall riots, Christopher Park and the surrounding streets were placed on the New York State Register of Historic Places. The block itself became the first national monument dedicated to LGBTQ history in 2016 when President Barack Obama dedicated the Stonewall National Monument.
At the center of Christopher Park is a large rainbow flag with symbols of peace superimposed over its colorful bands.
Christopher Park contains several monuments to aspects of New York City history, but the rainbow flags that...