San Antonio city panel to vote on Pride Cultural Heritage District
This story has been updated.
At the heart of San Antonio’s newest cultural heritage district is a unifying and universal symbol of pride and hope.
The vibrant rainbow crosswalk, painted over five years ago at North Main Avenue and East Evergreen Street to recognize the area’s significance to the LGBTQ+ community in San Antonio, sits at the center of what is about to become a designated cultural heritage district.
The Historic and Design Review Commission (HDRC) on Wednesday afternoon voted in favor of establishing the Pride Cultural Heritage District which spans a collection of streets mostly within the Tobin Hill neighborhood north of downtown San Antonio.
The district would include North Main Avenue, between East Elmira Street to East Mistletoe Avenue, and the surrounding neighborhood bounded by West Grayson and North St. Mary’s streets to the east and San Pedro Avenue to the west.
The area’s also known as the Main Street Strip or Gay Strip. Additional business clusters and culturally meaningful sites lie outside of those general boundaries.
June is Pride Month, a time when the nation recognizes the LGBTQ+ community and their contributions. Pride Month commemorates the 1969 Stonewall Uprising, a series of protests seen as a catalyst for the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.
The Pride Cultural Heritage District was proposed as a way to recognize the LGTBQ+ community’s contributions in San Antonio, stated city documents.
The city’s Office of Historic Preservation staff has been building a case for the Pride district since the Pride Bigger Than Texas Festival last year.
Staff also worked with Melissa Gohlke, assistant archivist with the UTSA Libraries and Museums and an author of several books on the history and sites relevant to the culture within the district.
In addition to artistic expressions in fashion, music, art and activism, many buildings in the district have hosted multiple LGBTQ+-related businesses and institutions over the years, according to Gohlke. Since 2004, the area has hosted the annual Pride parade and this year it’s scheduled for June 28.
The city’s cultural heritage district designation was established in 2005 to honor and recognize designated corridors for their heritage and the cultural stories told there.
A cultural heritage district is an area with a collection of tangible and intangible resources that contribute to the community’s sense of place and cultural identity.
The heritage title is bestowed by HDRC upon recommendation from OHP staff.
The fourth and most recent area in San Antonio designated under the program is the Silk Road Cultural Heritage District, which includes Wurzbach Road, between Fredericksburg Road and Northwest Military Highway. The district is home to a dense population of resettled refugees from the Middle East and South Asia, the Center for Refugee Services and the nonprofit, Culturingua.
The Pride District designation comes at a time when the city is confronting contentious issues in its LGBTQ+ community, including an allegation that San Antonio voice actor Jonathan Joss was killed in a homophobic attack on June 1, and questions surrounding current leaders’ support for a mayoral candidate who is gay.
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