Edie Windsor Honored With Plaque On Greenwich Village Home

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — The late Edie Windsor was honored with a plaque outside her longtime Greenwich Village home in recognition of Windsor’s years of activism for the LGBT community and her pioneering role in achieving marriage equality.

Windsor is best known for suing the U.S. government in 2010 after the death of her spouse, Thea Spyer. Windsor, the sole inheritor of Spyer’s estate, was hit with a massive tax bill, one that wouldn’t have applied to a heterosexual couple in the same circumstances. Windsor took her case to court and won, moving the U.S. Supreme Court to declare a section of the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

“This is a very happy building," said Larry Kramer, the esteemed playwright and LGBT activist who came to the ceremony on Tuesday to honor his neighbor's memory. "As awful as things got, she always was there with a smile.”

Windsor, who died in September 2017, lived for years in the towering apartment building at 2 Fifth Ave., just steps from Washington Square Park. Her lifetime of activism were recognized by dozens of supporters who crowded outside the Fifth Avenue home, her second wife Judith Kasen Windsor and Robbie Kaplan, the lead lawyer in Windsor’s suit against the U.S. government, on Tuesday.

A small plaque from the Historic Landmarks Preservation Center was affixed to Windsor’s apartment building to recognize her contribution to New York City and the United States. The center places cultural medallions on New York City building exteriors to commemorate important individuals or events in the city’s history.

The Fifth Avenue building already has two cultural medallions from the HLPC: One honoring the pioneering feminist and politician Bella Abzug and one recognizing Edward Koch, the former mayor of New York City.

Other speakers on Tuesday included former New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Glennda Testone, the director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center, both of whom spoke about remembering Windsor’s groundbreaking work in the fight for civil rights for LGBT people.

“Your dedication to Edie is an inspiration to us all and it ensures that her life and her legacy will always be celebrated,” Testone said to Kasen Windsor. “With today’s medallion dedication the legacy will also be firmly cemented into the fabric of New York City.”

The Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Windsor’s case helped pave the way for the court’s 2015 ruling in Obergefell vs Hodges, which legalized gay marriage across the U.S.

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy / Patch