On Thursday, April 22, 2009, at the invitation of its Board of Directors, I attended the Donors' Reception celebrating the grand reopening of the Stonewall Library and Archives in their beautifully renovated digs at 1300 East Sunrise Blvd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Can there be any room for yet another jewel in the crown of convenience that is Sunrise Blvd? I truly never leave it when I'm down here. It contains my condo, my beach, my 200 acre park in which I skate, my Starbucks, my Publix supermarket, my gym and even my private "club". And now this. Forty-two hundred square feet of well organized and preserved gay ephemera from the last several decades. Gay t shirts, gay demonstration and event pins and posters, boxes of original gay art donated by collectors and by the estates of those artists, a gallery of contemporary gay artwork, movies, books, tapes and much more. (Actually, the library has been in existence for 34 years. Its space is newly expanded and renovated.)
Did you think that the Stonewall Library and Archives might be like the smoking room of nineteenth century gentlemen swapping dirty Parisian postcards printed with the Baron Von Gloeden photos of Sicilian boys? It is the exact opposite. This is a brightly lit, state-of-the-art research facility staffed by expert archivists (one of whom had a career at the New York Public Library).
Pics, video and more after the jump.
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