From Billy Penn:
If they were stacked vertically, the LGBTQ artifacts at the William Way Community Center would stand 800 feet tall. That’s a tower nearly as tall as the Comcast Center, made up of hundreds of thousands of items like personal letters, artworks, t-shirts and buttons.
We’re talking flyers for drag shows from the early 2000s, diaries handwritten by the city’s public health officials during the AIDS epidemic, even a lifelike diorama of Woody’s, the famed Gayborhood bar.
The Wilcox Archives at William Way are nationally recognized as a powerhouse, according to director John Anderies, who said the collection is easily among the top 10 largest of its kind.
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That is starting to change. The collection of queer history is growing in popularity, thanks to a 5-year-old push for a more organized operation. And on the horizon are continued improvements — including a total digitization of the archives.
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No longer are the archives such a haphazard operation. Credit the William Penn Foundation for extending a $300,000 grant in 2014, which enabled the LGBTQ community center to hire two staffers — one full-time and one part-time — to get the collection under control.
About Gary Price
