Sylvia Rivera in front of MCCNY

Sylvia’s Place is a homeless shelter  in the basement of the Metropolitan Community Church of New York offering roughly 11 beds for LGBTQ youth. This site serves as an emergency shelter and drop in place dedicated to providing safe space for homeless LGBTQ youth. The shelter opened in light of Sylvia Rivera’s legacy of providing for queer youth in her own lifetime. Beginning in the late 1990’s, Sylvia served at the church and worked in the Food Pantry. After her death on February 19, 2002, Rev Pat Bumgardner, senior Pastor at MCCNY, renamed The Sylvia Rivera Memorial Food Pantry and began Sylvia’s Place in an effort to provide further support to New York City’s LGBTQ low income and homeless youth. MCCNY will always be a very special place for Sylvia; Her ashes still live at the church, re-emerging each Sunday to attend mass among her children, as per a request she asked before her death.

For the past 6 years, artist Samantha Box has documented visual and oral histories from New York City’s homeless LGBT youth population at this Midtown emergency shelter.

Photo Credits: Photographer SAMANTHA BOX