Watch the recording here:
Description: After the 1969 Stonewall Riot, the NYPD’s Bureau of Special Services (BOSS) intensified its film surveillance of queer groups, labelling them part of a dangerous ‘Gay Liberation’ movement. Audio Visual Archivist Christopher Nicols from the NYC Municipal Archives highlights these ‘Gay Liberation’ surveillance films and contextualizes them in the NYPD’s broader efforts to surveil counterculture movements of the 1960s and 70s.
Christopher Nicols has been the Audio Visual Archivist at the New York City Municipal Archives since 2018 after getting his masters degree in Moving Image Archiving and Preservation from NYU in 2017. At the Municipal Archives, he has worked to preserve and make accessible NYPD surveillance films, as well as thousands of films, discs and tapes from municipal broadcasters WNYC-TV, WNYC Radio and Channel L. Chris is also an active member of XFR Collective, a NYC based group of archivists that provide low cost tape digitization and education services to often marginalized creators and communities.
