Updated Forecast: In Excess of 8" of Snow, Plus Wind
And Now, 10-20 Inches
Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
Snowmaggedon 1.0 in Time Lapse
House of Dr. Frank Kameny, 5020 Cathedral Avenue NW. (Photo from D.C. Historic Landmark application.)
The house, located at 5020 Cathedral Avenue NW, is the first LGBT historic landmark in the city. There are only a few others in the country that became historic landmarks for their significance to the LGBT movement, among them the Stonewall Inn in New York City and Harvey Milk's camera shop in San Francisco. The application for historic landmark status indicates that the house's significance spans the years 1962 to 1975, and lists a few events to support that. These include meetings to plan conferences; picket lines at various government offices; and the creation of the slogan "Gay is Good," inspired by Stokely Carmichael's phrase, "Black is Beautiful." As the Washington Post put it, the house "was the epicenter of the gay rights movement in the nation's capital."
Kameny came to the District to work for the Army Map Service in the late 1950s, and was fired for being gay, sparking his career as an activist. He, along with Jack Nichols, founded the Mattachine Society of Washington in 1961 and worked to overturn sodomy laws. In 1971, he became the first openly gay man to run for Congress, and later founded the Gay Activist Alliance of Washington, now known as the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance. Kameny is also credited with helping to eliminate homosexuality as a mental illness from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in the 1970s. The Library of Congress archived some of Kameny's papers in late 2006, and the Smithsonian put some of his picket signs and buttons on display in 2007.
According to the DC Center's blog, the house will be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for listing this year. If selected, the Kameny house would be only the second LGBT landmark included, the first being the Stonewall Inn.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Are you sure that's the right house? That's the straightest suburban-y door and garage I've seen in some time.
You know, many suburban homes have a 'suburban-y' appearence. This one is no exception.
I've never heard of a 'straight'-looking house before. If you are LGBT does it mean that you're supposed to have a crazy pink door or something?
Yes. A pink door would be helpful. Sortof like code, but really obvious.
By all accounts Kameny is a pretty extraordinary guy so I'll cut him some slack on the house photo. Even the yard.
While I'm thrilled at the fact of DC finally having an LGBT landmark (despite the fact that an entire area of this city could be considered such, and Lambda Rising was in Enemy of the State), having it be a private residence could be difficult, especially if hate groups want cause trouble.
So does this designation mean that this house can never be torn down or altered? Wouldn't a historical marker out front do the same thing?
Looks like some three-digit license plate douche lives there, too. Or maybe they're just visiting.
Kameny still lives in the house, so I guess he's the three-digit douche. Which sounds like it should be a euphemism for something really filthy.
Anyway, congratulations to Dr. Kameny! It's a shame his house is on the low end of the gravitas-o-meter, though. It just seems like historic landmark ought to be, you know, a landmark of some sort. But I suppose someone could argue that Kameny's career was about mainstreaming gays and lesbians, and you don't get much more mainstream than that house.
The article says 5020 Cathedral Avenue NW. The photo caption says 5250 Cathedral Avenue NW. DC government's Master Address Repository does not list a 5250 but it does have 5020. Click on the DC government photo in the following search to see the same house and the same car but more foliage in 2004.
Search for "5020 Cathedral Avenue NW" at:
http://dcatlas.dcgis.dc.gov/mar/
I'm a mo and I definitley think historic preservation/designation has totally gone amuck. I don't care who lives in it or what was done in it, and average suburban home is not that significant. Even the former homes of presidents are not that worthy of designation. Mr. Kamenys work is what matters, and that is a worthwhile legacy that exists in print and in archives. Thats the historic part. The house means nothing.
And I hate to "go there", and I don't mean any disrepect to Mr. K personally, but at the very least, a requirement of historic designation should be that the famous historical occupant should at least be dead first.
Spookiness...I am straight, but the point of the designation is not the structure itself, but rather the events that took place inside. The home was used as an office and meeting place for Mr. K and his advocates. Would you think any differently of Susan B. Anthony or Martin Luther King's house if it were the central place of advocacy?
Yes, the house is non-descript from an architectural standpoint, but that simply is not the point of the landmark. I suppose Abraham Lincoln's log cabin is non-descript as well, but important events happened there which are now being memorialized.
I'm with spooky mo. Did anything historic happen here? (insert joke here)
of course historic things happened there—didn't you read the article or anything that fredo linked to?
5020 is the correct address. I fixed the caption to reflect that.