KGB Bar-East Village-Interior-Radical history-NYC

From the Occupy Movement to Stonewall and all the way back to the Suffragette movement, New York City has been a center of political change. Since the Europeans first arrived in New York, movements have developed both inside homes and out on the streets and in other public spaces. Here are 10 spaces to check out and explore NYC’s radical past as you wander the city.

10. The Interference Archive

The Interference Archive in Gowanus, Brooklyn, a rather hidden spot, seeks to capture the relationship between social movements and cultural production. The collection contains materials from social movements all around the world, and extends far beyond the usual suspects like anarchism or peace movements. Here you can also find information about more obscure topics like punk feminism and bike advocacy. And it’s not all lefty material – there is a section on the Tea Party and white supremacy – not that the founders support those ideologies.

There are the things one would expect in an archive – stacks of books and ephemera used in social movements (buttons, posters, T-shirts, bumper stickers, photographs, even board games). But there is something decidedly old-school and laid back about this archive founded by a Brooklyn couple from their own personal collection.