Federal worker raises American flag at NYC Stonewall Monument in place of removed Pride flag

Barry Williams and Emma Seiwell, New York Daily News on Feb 11, 2026

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NEW YORK — A federal parks worker on Wednesday afternoon raised an American flag inside the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village, replacing the Pride flag removed earlier this week after a Trump administration directive that sparked widespread outrage.

Local elected officials and activists have vowed to re-raise the LGBTQ+ flag Thursday afternoon in defiance of the newly enforced federal policy that only U.S. flags can be flown at federal sites, with limited exceptions.

Following orders from a Jan. 21 memo from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the large rainbow flag was removed from the monument inside Christopher Park that pays tribute to the birth of the gay rights movement near the Stonewall Inn over the weekend.

No flag flew on the pole for at least a couple of days. Then on Wednesday, a National Parks Service worker hoisted a U.S. flag up the black flagpole inside the small park near Grove and Christopher streets about 12:30 p.m. He declined to comment when approached by a Daily News photographer.

Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal on Tuesday said that he and other local, state and federal officials plan to raise a rainbow flag back up the flagpole in protest Thursday. He noted the Trump administration previously removed references to transgender people from the Stonewall National Monument’s government website.

“I really think this is about standing up for the future of the LGBTQ community, just as those Stonewall veterans back in 1969 did,” Hoylman-Sigal said Tuesday. “To me, it’s deeply personal as an out LGBTQ elected official but also as a parent. What lesson are we sending to our young people?”

Stonewall was designated a national monument by President Barack Obama in 2016. The riot at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 is recognized as the beginning of the LGBTQ civil rights movement in the U.S.

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