West Village Block Named After Couple Who Won Gay Marriage Rights

WEST VILLAGE, NY — A street in the West Village now officially bears the name of a local couple who won gay marriage rights in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The intersection of Fifth Avenue and Washington Square North was designated "Edie Windsor and Thea Spyer Way" on Thursday in a bill passed by the City Council.

Windsor and Spyer, who lived on the corner for 43 years, worked for decades as local LGBTQ advocates before Windsor's historic battle in the Supreme Court, which ruled in 2013 that federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.

Spyer and Windsor, who met in 1965, were married in Canada in 2007, at which time the Defense of Marriage Act restricted the term "spouse" to marriages between a man and woman.

Windsor brought a lawsuit claiming "spouses' rights" and changed the course of the nation's history.

Following Windor's lawsuit, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA's definition of spouse, and granted same-sex married couples the rights to federal benefits that only heterosexual married couples were allowed previously.

Thyer died in 2009, while Windsor passed away in 2017.

The couple were also founding members of the LGBT Center at 208. W. 13th St., as well as SAGE — New York's oldest advocacy group for LGBTQ+ elders.

In a Community Board 2 meeting in April, members spoke glowingly about the possibility of the street co-naming.

"I can't imagine a more appropriate co-naming for the corner of the home where they lived for more than four decades," a CB2 board member said when discussing whether the group supported it. "It's because of the work they did — and Edie Windsor's fight at the Supreme Court which she won for marriage equality — that my husband and I were able to be legally married."