| William Way LGBT Community Center | |
| Type: | LGBT Community Center |
| Founded Date: | 1975 |
| Location: | 1315 Spruce Street. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania United States |
| Key People: | Board Co-Chairs, Sue Gildea & Kira Kinsman Executive Director Chris Bartlett |
| Area Served: | Delaware Valley |
| Homepage: | http://www.waygay.org |
The William Way LGBT Community Center is a nonprofit organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and nearby communities, located at 1315 Spruce Street in Philadelphia in the Gayborhood.[1]
Chris Bartlett has been the center's executive director since 2010.
This community center was founded in 1975 as the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia. Organizers purchased its current building at 1315 Spruce Street in 1997; the center has owned it since local businessman Mel Heifetz paid off its mortgage in 2005.
The western wall of the community center features Ann Northrup's block-long mural, "Pride & Progress", with images of LGBT citizens who have contributed to Philadelphia's cultural and intellectual life throughout history.
The center's programs include an extensive library, and programs in peer counseling, senior services, education, and arts and culture. The center also offers numerous twelve-step meetings throughout the day and night, and opened the Arcila-Adams Trans Resource Center in 2019 to centralize resources for trans people in Philadelphia.[2]
In 2021, the center collaborated with HIV/AIDS healthcare provider Philadelphia FIGHT to provide COVID-19 vaccines to LGBTQ people in Philadelphia.[3]
The center houses the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives, which collects and preserves local and regional LGBT documents and artifacts.[4] The archive is one of the most important collections of LGBTQ documents and artifacts in the United States. Along with researchers from the ONE Archives in Los Angeles, archivists from the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives have been searching for unidentified men photographed at a gay wedding held in 1957.[5] The search, which began in 2013 and is still ongoing, was covered in both LGBT and mainstream press.[6]