By the time the Google camera car drove by again in September 2013, all that was left of the structure was a pile of burnt lumber. The sturdy Gothic Revival can be seen, much of its Pepto Bismo color still on gleaming display, in Google Street View captures from September 2007, June 2009, and June 2011. One is the house at 2846 17th Street in Detroit, address of the Pink Palace, where writer and activist Brian McNaught held the first meetings of the Catholic group Dignity/Detroit in 1974. Too many of Detroit’s notable queer sites have already been lost. The collective project of commemoration is also viewed in terms of historic preservation, which ideally measures the need to save historic sites by more than their real estate value. Some business boosters tend to tie commemoration to economic revitalization, which too often equates to gentrification and displacement. The application fee runs $250, with the marker itself ranging in cost from $1,900 for a small wall-mounted plaque to $3,900 for a stand-alone marker with different text on each side. Michigan Historical Markers are expensive to have placed, however. At least not yet.ĭave Wait, who heads up the annual Motor City Pride celebration, has been interested in securing a Michigan Historical Marker for some local LGBTQ site for several years and hopes to move forward with a proposal soon. Their gay history, however, is not part of the recognition. These areas are remembered for their architectural gems or because auto barons lived there. The Indian Village and Boston-Edison neighborhoods are both on the register as well. The Palmer Park Apartment Building Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1983. That same year, the National Park Service launched its LGBTQ Heritage Initiative, inviting suggestions for historically significant queer places that deserve to be recognized. The famed Stonewall Inn, site of the 1969 uprising that helped spark a new wave of mass activism known as Gay Liberation, became one such National Monument in 2014. This week, Americans of every gender and sexuality head to visit National Parks and National Monuments for the Fourth of July.
We place markers, we assign designations, we erect statues (and sometimes take them down) to show what we find important to collectively remember. Commemoration is an act of deliberate remembering.