Marsha P. Johnson State Park

Marsha P. Johnson (1945-1992) was a Black trans activist, drag performer, and Stonewall veteran who co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries with Sylvia Rivera in 1970. She was one of the most visible figures of the first decade of gay liberation and died under circumstances the NYPD ruled a suicide but which activists have long questioned. In February 2020 New York State renamed the former East River State Park in her honour — the first New York State park named for an LGBTQ+ person, and one of very few named for a Black woman. Governor Cuomo made the announcement flanked by trans-of-colour activists; the state parks agency commissioned a permanent mural in 2021 (by Brooklyn artist Toshiaki Higashi) that dominates the park's Kent Avenue entrance. The park itself is a 7-acre patch of Williamsburg waterfront: sloping lawn, restored trolley tracks from the East River terminal that stood here from 1866 to 1936, sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline. It hosts the summer Smorgasburg food market on Saturdays; on weekdays it's locals with strollers and lunch-hour readers. There's no dedicated Johnson exhibit inside — the park itself is the memorial. Easy to reach: Bedford Avenue L, then 12 minutes' walk. Open dawn to dusk; free. Best visited late afternoon for the Manhattan skyline across the water, or on a Saturday for the market.