Hi History Makers, Eric here. A few months ago we launched Making Gay History's Patreon

channel, a place where we're sharing new video interviews never before heard clips from

my archive that didn't make it into the episodes and more. If you're not a member of our Patreon

community yet, I hope you'll join today. Just $5 a month gets you access to these Making

Gay History extras, and you'll support us as we work to bring LGBTQ history to life

through the voices of the people who lived it. Find out more at patreon.com slash making

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And thank you so much.

I'm Eric Marcus, and in this season of Making Gay History, I'm sharing part of my story.

With an audio memoir in my own oral history of navigating my 20s in New York City in the

1980s, of navigating life as a young gay man in the shadow of AIDS. This memoir is also

about the people I met along the way, and what happened to them. This is Chapter 3, 318 West

22nd Street. It was a late spring afternoon in 1984, just a couple of weeks after I graduated

from journalism school at Columbia University, when I walked up the steps of a Manhattan

row house and into the headquarters of the gay men's health crisis. By 1984, more than 816

New Yorkers had died from complications of AIDS, and the administration of Mayor Ed Koch

had spent just $24,500 in response. It would take several years, thousands of deaths,

and the relentless pressure of activists like members of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to

Unleash Power, for the city, the state, and the federal government's response to catch

up to the scale and urgency of the crisis. I wanted to help, to do something, and in New

York City in the early 1980s, there was only one place to go if you wanted to do something

to help in the AIDS crisis, an old brick townhouse on West 22nd Street in Chelsea.

...