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America's First Gay Senior Center Opens In NYC In January
By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 20, 2011
Modified Oct 20, 2011
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Chris the other Chris's flickr
By
Garth Johnston
Published Oct 20, 2011
Modified Oct 20, 2011
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New York City is really getting gay these days. We've got the gays getting gay married all over the place, a gay "urban resort" in the works and now comes word that we'll soon be home to the nation's first LGBT senior center. Because gay people get old and want to complain about how nobody visits them to their gay friends, too!
It won't all be bitching though. The SAGE Center, which will operate out of the SAGE headquarters at 305 Seventh Avenue, opens in January and will have program sites in all five boroughs so that older (over 60) gays and lesbians can enjoy "hot meals, programs covering issues from health and wellness to workplace skills, comprehensive social services, a wide range of social activities, and much more" without trekking across the city. There will also be lessons on things like Skype.
"This is how New York City will remain the most age-friendly city in the 21st century," Bloomberg boasted recently regarding the center and the city's other upcoming senior programs. "We need to abandon the one-size-fits-all approach that has shaped our senior centers for the last 50 years and begin re-imagining them anew."
The new center is meant to make life easier for the estimated 100,000 LGBT seniors in the city who were said to have felt uncomfortable having to hide their sexuality in traditional senior centers. Remember back in the '80s and early '90s when it seriously looked like AIDS was going to wipe out all the gays in the city? Who'd have thought they'd be getting their own senior center now. Progress!
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