Pride Week is here, shining a rainbow just as many New Yorkers feel fed up. A lot of Pride events fall in June, but you can celebrate every day by supporting queer-owned small businesses. Here are some of our top community-based picks. But first …
A reminder of some of the queer pride history we’re celebrating
On June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, one of the city’s then rare safe spaces for the queer community, in Greenwich Village. It sparked days of protests against police harassment and systemic oppression led, in large part, by Black and Latina trans activists. The following year, New York City commemorated the action with one of the first LGBTQ pride marches in the country.
In Queens, the queer pride movement gained momentum in the early 1990s. In 1990, the murder of Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican bartender, in a Jackson Heights schoolyard, galvanized the community. About a dozen other gay men had been killed in the neighborhood since Stonewall, but until then, the NYPD hadn’t responded to any of these hate crimes — or even acknowledged they were bias-related. Rivera’s case, too, was classified as a drug related crime.
However, the community response — in candlelight vigils and protests, together with Rivera’s family and LGBTQ rights groups — led to the city eventually re-classifying his murder a hate crime. It also spurred the arrest and conviction of the three white men who killed Rivera.
The following year, the city’s Department of Education introduced the “Children of the Rainbow” curriculum for first-grade teachers. It was designed to promote diversity and inclusivity (long before “DEI” was misappropriated by the political right-wing) and address prejudice against nontraditional family structures, including those led by queer people.
The backlash took over school board elections. Queens activists organized. The “Children of the Rainbow” curriculum was never implemented, but it helped catalyze both anti-LGBTQ and LGBTQ rights advocacy in the borough. The first Queens pride parade — the second oldest in the city, outside Manhattan — was held in 1993.
While Queens’ and Manhattan’s queer pride is rooted in this activism, it also continues to thrive in joyful expressions of identity. Here are three creative and community-focused queer-owned spaces that do this well:
Fringe Records
With Fringe Records in Ridgewood, Queens, owner Andrew Hurtado, a longtime collector and creator of underground, industrial and experimental music, turned his teenage dream into a DIY success story.
Hurtado started hitting up local shops like Generation Records at age 13. As he grew older, he got into “more bizarre” and experimental genres, making his own industrial music and playing in a metal band. Hurtado ultimately started Fringe with this background and community in mind: by carrying titles from friends and contacting labels that released music curated to his taste.
With just five rows of vinyl, a few shelves of Ephemera memorabilia, and lots of punk ethos, Fringe Records has quickly become a go-to for niche music and community. The shop stocks everything from doom metal to disco, serving crate-diggers, noiseheads and curious neighbors alike. Fringe Records also hosts Fruit Basket Comedy, a twice-monthly queer comedy night run by Hurtado’s partner Anddy, plus screenings and local artist markets for all kinds of chosen families.
While it’s the “noise hub” for North Brooklyn and Queens neighbors, Fringe Records is also calling to like-minded musicians from the West Coast and as far away as Japan. Apart from metal and experimental music, the shop carries genres like Italo disco, house music, queer dance music and old-school boogie disco. You’ll likely leave with a rare tape and a new friend.
Read more about Fringe Records.
A.R.T. Therapy
What started as a mission to keep art supplies flowing in Jackson Heights,Queens has grown into much more than an arts store. Art Retail Therapy (A.R.T.) — a longtime partner of Epicenter NYC’s arts programming — was founded by Francisco Segarra in 2021.
When a beloved stationery shop closed, Segarra stepped in to fill the gap. With help from best friend and now business partner Charlie Márquez, the two transformed a former dry cleaner into a bright, wheelchair-accessible, art-filled sanctuary. The vibe is equal parts polished, playful and inclusive: repurposed wood shelves, Hello Kitty kitsch and “Make America Gay Again” decals.
Beyond shelves stocked with high-quality supplies, A.R.T. offers weekly figure drawing classes, pop-up shows by local artists, and everyday services such as document help, translations and tech support, especially for older or Spanish-speaking neighbors. Need a copy of your immigration papers made with care and confidentiality? Segarra’s your person.
Whether you’re picking up a brush, attending a drawing session, or just need help with a hospital bill, A.R.T. is a one-stop welcome shop. As Segarra puts it, “It started off as this cool thing to run an art store — and now I get [people saying] ‘everything I need is here.’”
Read more about Art Retail Therapy.
Yu and Me Books
Yu and Me Books is the first queer Asian-American bookstore based in NYC. It opened in Manhattan’s Chinatown in Dec. 2021, after a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes inspired founder Lucy Yu to fill an unmet need.
“It was just terrible to see, and I wanted to create a space for people that look like me, and people that look like my mom and grandma to come in and see stories that resonate with them,” she told Epicenter NYC.
Yu, a chemical engineer, saw a solution: build more community, especially among immigrants and their children, through coffee, books and beer. By all accounts, it’s working: Yu often hears from visitors that they see themselves and their lived experiences on the shelves.
Yu and Me Books carries a larger selection of Asian and Asian-American writers than others in the area. From its diverse shelves and book clubs to its intimate record listening sessions, the bookstore-café-bar continues to fulfill its Covid-era mission. Read more about Yu and Me Books.
The post Queer-owned small businesses to support in NYC appeared first on Epicenter NYC.
