Beach Please!
FEBRUARY 3, 2022
info@strategictransalliance.org
mariah4change@gmail.com
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Black, TGNC advocates file lawsuit against State officials, charging erasure of Black, TGNC history and historical sites
ALBANY, NEW YORK - The Strategic Trans Alliance for Radical Reform (f.k.a Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), the New York based non profit organization which focuses on high impact litigation and advocacy designed to defend and protect the rights of TGNC individuals, has filed a lawsuit against NYS Governor Hochul and a list of state agencies, challenging the state’s refusal to follow its own rules–as well as state and federal law– failing to declaring certain sites, areas and districts within it’s control as “historic”.
The lawsuit, filed on the third day of Black History Month (as an Article 78 Proceeding, a type of lawsuit which asks judge to review decisions of government officials), cites the clear language of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as well as the New York State Historic Preservation Act of 1980, and argues that state officials are ignoring their duties to list and protect all sites, areas and districts with historical significance, on the state registry of historic places: state officials are intentionally omitting crucial Black, and TGNC history, including the area of Hudson River Park, or the “Piers” (45 and 46 respeively), the Ballroom scene, as well as the site of the drawing of Marsha P. Johnson, and, the site where her body was pulled from the Hudson River in 1992. In 2002 upon her death, Sylvia Rivera’s ashes were scattered at the location where Marsha P Johnson’s body exited the water in a massive public memorial. The area described in the filing, is arguably one of the most important pieces of real estate in America, with regards to its historic and cultural significance to Black TLGBQ+ communities and their eventual impact on the city, state, nation and eventually, the world.
Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are two internationally known pioneers in the struggle for TLGBQ+ equality. Both had lifelong links to the sites, areas and districts which are the subject of the lawsuit.
The suit, which was filed by STARR E.D. Mariah Lopez in Supreme Court, Albany NY, is asking a court to set aside the state’s refusal to view this Black, TLGBQ+ history as “important”, and, seeks an order halting construction of a beach and other amenities planned for Gansevoort Peninsula, just west of NYC’s trendy Meatpacking District.
The suit does not seek monetary damages.
January 2021 S.T.A.R. and FIERCE NYC sent a letter to state officials warning that it couldn’t proceed with construction of the beach, and, that the state could not continue to ignore the Black, TLGBQ+ history and culture, linked to and associated with, certain areas of state parkland.
In March 2021, Ms Lopez was instrumental in pressuring state officials to halt construction at Marsha P Johnson State Park in Brooklyn. Ms Lopez, along with the family of Marsha P Johnson, joined Wliiamsburg residents and the group Stop The Plastic Park, and helped force officials back to the drawing board, arguing the proposed plans did not honor Marsha P. Johnson.
Ms Lopez is also the adopted daughter of Sylvia Rivera, and has been successful in bringing other pieces of progressive litigation on behalf of TLGBQ+ individuals and communities (including a case, Lopez v Mattingly, which would eventually lead the state’s Medicaid program, to cover all gender affirming care).
The suit filed today, February 3rd 2022, also alleges retaliation and abuse of power by officials.
Instead of the beach, the suit asks the court to force officials to bring in experts who study African American and Queer history to substantiate the areas historical sigificance.
S.T.A.R.R. and FIERCE NYC are demanding that state officials reduce the project's sizable price tag of 78 million dollars–designating the area an historic district and–seek community input and/or establish a community green space as part of any development or construction to memorialize Ballroom Scene, Marsha P. Johnson, and Sylvia Rivera.
In November Ms Lopez, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights and Harvard Law School’s LGBT Legal Clinic, secured a landmark victory in federal court in New York on behalf of individuals experiencing homelessness, settling a lawsuit filed by Ms Lopez in 2017 charging that the City of NY failed to properly serve and investigate complaints submitted from or on behalf of TGNC individuals in the homeless shelter system. The settlement made public last Fall requires the City to open new facilities for unhoused TGNC in every borough by the end of 2022, as well as overhaul it’s complaint and training policies, and implement other changes relating to how the city manages the Department of Homeless Services
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