PHOTO ESSAY BY DONNA ACETO | On August 11, 1981, Nathan Fain, Larry Kramer, Larry Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport, and Edmund White gathered in Kramer’s apartment for an urgent discussion of how the gay community could confront a frightening new deadly disease striking men in their midst. The result was Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the world’s first organization to take on what came to be known as AIDS and HIV.
Thirty-six years later, on August 9, agency staff, clients, and supporters marched from its offices on West 33rd Street to the NYC AIDS Memorial, dedicated last World AIDS Day in the new park opposite the former site of St. Vincent’s Hospital, which housed the city’s first AIDS ward.
Today, GMHC serves more than 12,500 people living with and affected by HIV through mental health and substance use counseling, education, supportive housing, meals and nutrition programs, legal services, testing and prevention efforts, and public policy advocacy.
