Ken Lustbader
Ken Lustbader is a co-founder and co-director of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project, an award-winning cultural heritage initiative and educational resource that is documenting and memorializing LGBTQ site-based history in New York City. For over 30 years, he has been national leader in issues related to LGBTQ history, documentation, and historic preservation. His interest in this field of inquiry began in graduate school when, in 1993, he authored “Landscape of Liberation: Preserving Lesbian and Gay History in Greenwich Village.” In 2016, Ken was part of the team that led advocacy efforts for the designation of Stonewall National Monument. In 2018, Ken was the guest editor of LGBTQ Heritage, issue 8.2, for Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment, published by the University of Pennsylvania. Between 2007 and 2015, he served as Historic Preservation Program Officer at the J.M. Kaplan Fund where he was responsible for developing and implementing U.S. and international grant initiatives. Prior to that, he was consultant to the Lower Manhattan Emergency Preservation Fund, a coalition of five preservation organizations that was formed in response to the September 11 attacks. Between 1994 and 2002, he was the Director of the New York Landmarks Conservancy’s Sacred Sites Program. Ken holds a B.A. in Economics from Vassar College and M.S. in Historic Preservation from Columbia University.
