Construction on the American LGBTQ+ Museum (ALM) is nearing completion, according to ALM director of Major Gifts Shaun Newport and New York Historical project manager Roy Moskowitz, who brought Gay City News on a tour of the site on Dec. 2.
Set to open in fall 2027, the ALM will be New York City’s first museum dedicated to “global, national, and local LGBTQ history and culture,” and permanently located on the fourth floor of the New York Historical’s Tang Wing for Democracy.
ALM has been under construction for approximately a year, since a brick from the original Stonewall Inn facade was donated in a ceremonial groundbreaking last December. The Tang Wing for Democracy previously topped out in April when the last steel beam was placed on the highest point of the structural frame.
Plans for the museum first took shape in 2021 during a separate groundbreaking ceremony featuring celebrities like Billie Jean King as well as elected officials — including then-Mayor Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and Councilmember Daniel Dromm, among others.
The roughly 5,000-square-foot museum consists of two main gallery spaces, one for rotating exhibits and one for permanent collections.
“I don’t know if you can see in front of you, but it’s a fine dust that’s being ground,” Moskowitz said of the larger gallery space, where workers were grinding the newly laid terrazzo flooring.
The second gallery, a 750-square-foot permanent collections space, is U-shaped and accessible via two entrances off a main hallway. This gallery will feature historical artifacts documenting LGBTQ history in America.
Final design renderings for ALM’s permanent collections may become available in late spring or early summer.
“My personal wish is that you’ll have some dynamic elements in there so that the history can be updated as we find new things, and as things come in,” said Newport, whose work overseeing Planned Giving includes artifacts for the permanent collections in addition to financial contributions.
Newport says the archives are currently under development and being stored amongst a vast network of partners across the country.
Moskowitz noted that all floors and walls in the museum space would be finished in a matter of weeks. “We are very much headed down the home stretch,” he said.
Despite awaiting a physical home, ALM has continued public programming over the past two years in partnership with numerous organizations around the city. ALM’s traveling exhibition, “Queer Justice: 50 Years of Lambda Legal at the Forefront of LGBTQ+ Justice,” opened in NYC in 2023 and visited Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Dallas in 2024.
Supporters looking to become a permanent part of the museum space can do so by contributing a gift of any size via the donation portal. As long as the donation comes in before the museum opens, the gift-giver will be recognized as a founding donor and featured on one of the gallery walls alongside other contributors.
