Gay dance clubs, besides offering sweaty, blissful spaces to let loose, served as safe havens during the darkest days of the crisis. Places where the LGBTQ community gathered for emotional support, to share vital information, and to raise money for AIDS groups like ACT UP, GMHC, and amfAR.
The Brant Foundation is about to revive the East Village as a downtown arts mecca. This spring, the institution will debut "Keith Haring," a major new exhibition opening on March 11, 2026, that zeroes in on the artist's meteoric early years, when a young Haring was chalking subway walls, working out a new graphic language and helping rewrite the rules of what art could look like. The show will be held at the Foundation's East 6th Street space, just blocks from where Haring's rise began.
Born in 1925, Lansbury made a name for herself as an MGM actor in the 1940s before she dominated the stage in Mame and other musicals. Throughout her life, Lansbury firmly cemented her status as a gay icon. She was a tireless AIDS activist who raised millions for the cause, and brought to life some of the most iconic roles in film, television and Broadway history.
The year was 1987. Phill Wilson was 31, a recent transplant to L.A. from his hometown of Chicago. A mysterious infection that weakened its hosts' immune systems was killing people at a terrifying rate, while the Reagan administration downplayed and openly joked about the disease. Some major news outlets initially wrote off the emerging epidemic as a "gay plague," insinuating that other Americans didn't need to worry about it.