frequently asked questions

Send an email to the Media Committee to get the information you need.

Heritage of Pride is the publisher of the Official New York City Pride Guide. We are currently accepting ads for this year’s Pride Guide. Please contact the Media Committee for further information and rates.

There is a fee to register floats and decorated vehicles for the March. Click here for registration materials.
The purchase of tickets is required for entrance to Rapture on the River and the Dance on the Pier.

All other events are free to the public.

Over 1 million people attend the New York City Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered March; over 350,000 people attend Pridefest; and a total of 15,000 people attend Rapture on the River and the Dance on the Pier.

Heritage of Pride welcomes the participation of all who wish to attend.

Heritage of Pride strongly supports each individual’s First Amendment rights to free speech and expression. HOP does not believe in censorship. We do inform all organizations in our March registration packets that New York State has a law against public nudity below the waist and the police enforce it.

To become a member you must attend two membership meetings. Meetings are generally held the first Monday of the month. You must also attend the meetings of at least one committee of your choice. You must also complete 10 volunteer hours.

In 1986, Heritage of Pride introduced the Moment of Silence at the March in response to the AIDS crisis. March participants are asked to stop, stand and remember those lost to AIDS. Heritage of Pride feels that this most personal of moments should be respected by all organizations and individuals. HOP added the Ribbons of Remembrance in 1990. At 2 PM, the Moment of Silence envelops the entire March route and participants hold aloft ribbons with the names of loved ones written on them. The Moment of Silence is staggering in its impact on those who experience it.

Up until the late 1960s, routine raids of New York’s gay and lesbian bars were frequent. Same-sex couples were routinely arrested for dancing together, kissing or showing others signs of affection. Individuals were also arrested for wearing clothing of the opposite sex which was considered “unlawful” by the police.

The Stonewall Riots were named after the Stonewall Inn, the Greenwich Village gay bar outside of which the riots took place on June 27-29th, 1969. The riots were three nights of violent street protests and arrests involving over 300 gay people who finally grew tired of the verbal slurs, unfounded arrests and beatings police had subjected them to. The Riots have since been credited with sparking the modern queer liberation movement throughout the world. Twenty years later, in 1989, Heritage of Pride had Christopher Street at the site of the riots renamed “Stonewall Place.”

The Rainbow Flag is an international symbol of Gay and Lesbian Pride. The flag was conceived by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco resident. He had copies of the flag made which were flown at San Francisco’s Pride events in 1978. The flag with its 6 horizontal stripes of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple, represent the diversity and unity of the gay and lesbian community. Heritage of Pride introduced the rainbow flag to the East Coast in 1986.

The pink triangle was used to mark male homosexuals in the concentration camps of Hitler’s Third Reich, while lesbians, female dissidents, and prostitutes were forced to wear black triangles. Both the pink and the black triangles have now been adopted by many in the gay community as symbols of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride and determination.