22 Bromfield Street, Downtown, Boston
“There has been a long-standing need in the Boston gay community for improved communication between the various gay organizations and the gay individual.”
So opened the inaugural issue of the Gay Community Newsletter on June 17, 1973. First published at the Charles Street Meeting House (70 Charles Street, the birthplace of Charles St. AME Church), its declared purpose was “to list all the events and information of interest to the gay community in one publication.” In less than a year, the local newsletter upgraded to a 16-page newspaper, changed its name, and moved to offices on the second floor of 22 Bromfield Street.
Published by the Bromfield Street Education Foundation, Gay Community News quickly grew in terms of its reach, readership, and goals. In early 1975, the small, low-paid, female and male staff and its volunteers—the paper operated as a collective—voted to turn it into a regional newspaper (for the U.S. Northeast), and, about three years later, into a national one. While the weekly publication’s circulation never numbered more than five thousand, it had a large influence and played a key role in uniting local and regional organizations into a national movement for gay liberation. It was widely considered the most progressive of national gay and lesbian newspapers. In addition to serving as forum for debate on issues of importance to the queer community, the content of the paper reflected the much broader political concerns of its collective members—from police brutality and nuclear disarmament to racism and U.S. intervention in Central America. As such, many in progressive and left politics outside of the lesbian and gay community were regular readers. GCN, as part of its Prison Project, also provided free subscriptions to lesbian and gay prisoners, among other forms of support.
On July 7, 1982, a seven-alarm blaze—one caused by an arson ring whose members were concerned about decreasing public funds for police and fire departments in Massachusetts (it included a Boston police officer and a city firefighter)—destroyed GCN’s offices. The publication then moved to 167 Tremont Street. Due to financial difficulties, Gay Community News ceased weekly publication in July 1992, and resumed in 1993 as a bimonthly paper. In 1999, after moving to 25 West Street and, then, 29 Stanhope Street, the Bromfield Street Educational Foundation closed its doors for good after publishing the paper’s last issue.
Built in the late 1840s, the Bromfield Street building (nos. 20-30) that housed Gay Community News still stands. As one of a small number of extant, 19th-century, granite commercial buildings in Downtown, it is an official Boston Landmark.
Getting there:
Red Line to Downtown Crossing. 0.1 mile (two-minute) walk.
To learn more:
Hoffman, Amy. An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007.
Image: Gay Community News contingent, Gay Pride March, Copley Square, June 1980. Photo by Susan Fleischmann.