Six LGBT historic sites have received official designation as local landmarks from the New York City Landmarks Commission, The Villager reports. 

The sites represent an ongoing effort to expand historic preservationprotections to sites that are significant to the civil rights struggles of the LGBT community. 

The sites include: 

• The Caffe Cino, 31 Cornelia St., a local playhouse where gay men met to share their work free from persecution at a time when depicting homosexuality in theatrical productions was outlawed. The space played a role in developing "Off-Off-Broadway" experimental, and gay theater movements, according to the site's landmark description.
• The Gay Activists Alliance Firehouse, 99 Wooster St., a space considered to be New York City’s “first gay community center.” The space was used by a variety of activist groups, including: the Lesbian Feminist Liberation, Gay Youth, the Gay Men’s Health Project, and the Catholic group Dignity.
• The Women’s Liberation Center, 243 W. 20th St., a space used both by women who organized advocacy efforts in the LGBT movement and by lesbians who contributed to the feminist movement. The building was home to the "Lesbian Switchboard," a volunteer telephone service that provided peer counseling, referrals, and information to NYC's lesbian community.
• The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center, 208 W. 13th St., a building used by a variety of LGBT organizations over the last 35 years, including, in the 1980s, when The Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Rights used the building as a home base while organizing a successful effort to pass a 1986 New York City law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. 
• The James Baldwin Residence, 137 W. 71st St, an apartment building on the Upper West Side where groundbreaking playwright and activist Baldwin lived and wrote plays, screenplays, and novels.
• The Audre Lorde Residence, 207 St. Paul’s Ave., a 1898 Neo-Colonial home on Staten Island that was the primary residence of renowned African-American and lesbian writer Audre Lorde.

Regarding the selection of these specific sites, Kate Lemos McHale, Landmarks Preservation Commission director of research told The Villager, “We wanted to recognize sites that were building off of that recognition of the Stonewall Inn, that really were places of activism, of community support, that were involved with moving forward the civil-rights movement for L.G.B.T. people.”