Trump administration removes pride flag from Stonewall National Monument in New York
The National Park Service removed a rainbow flag from Christopher Park following a January interior department memo restricting flags at federal sites.
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The Trump administration has removed a large pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, according to multiple reports on Tuesday.
The National Park Service took down the rainbow flag from a pole in Christopher Park, located in front of the Stonewall Inn, a historic gay bar. The agency cited a January 21 memorandum from the Department of the Interior that restricts which flags may fly at national park sites.
According to the interior department directive, only the following flags are permitted to fly at national park sites: the United States flag, Department of the Interior flags, and the POW/MIA flag, with limited exceptions. The National Park Service told Gay City News that it was following this recent guidance on flag-related policies.
The Stonewall National Monument commemorates the June 1969 riots that followed a police raid on the Stonewall Inn. The six days of protests against the police action were a key moment in sparking the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, and the site has since become a national symbol of LGBTQ+ Pride.
Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn, characterized the removal as an act of erasure. "Taking that flag down out of this particular park… it's not political, it's about the erasure of our community," Lentz said.
Allen Roskoff, 75, founder of the Jim Owles LGBT Liberal Democratic Club who came out at age 19 shortly after the 1969 Stonewall Riots, expressed strong opposition to the removal. "It's disgusting. It's outrageous," Roskoff said.
West Village resident Daniel Mercurio, 58, stated that the flag is not a political symbol. Other residents and advocates similarly rejected characterizations of the pride flag as political.
Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who is gay, confirmed that the pride flag had been removed over the weekend of February 7. In a social media post, he wrote, "They cannot erase our history. Our Pride flag will be raised again."