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You don't need a museum ticket to see some of New York City's newest Pride art this June, just comfortable walking shoes.
As Pride Month winds down, the Flatiron and NoMad neighborhoods have quietly transformed into a sprawling outdoor gallery, with colorful installations stretching from Broadway plazas to historic landmarks. Presented by the Flatiron NoMad Partnership as part of its annual PRIDE: Start with Love program, the district-wide celebration uses streets, sidewalks and public plazas as its canvas, inviting New Yorkers to experience LGBTQIA+ history and visibility while going about their daily commute.
The centerpiece is Rainbow Way on Broadway, a striking tape-art installation by Buenos Aires-born, New York-based artist Kuki Go that snakes through the Broadway pedestrian plazas. Organizers call it the longest rainbow in Manhattan, but it functions as more than just an oversized photo backdrop. The installation is also an interactive trail highlighting places connected to LGBTQIA+ history in Flatiron and NoMad, with QR codes that lead visitors to stories curated by the local queer arts organization SoMad and drag historian and performer Esther, The Bipedal Entity. Scan each stop and you'll be entered to win prizes from neighborhood businesses through a free digital passport.
Elsewhere in the district, the historic clock tower atop the New York EDITION hotel has been glowing in Pride colors every evening throughout June, the first time the landmark has been illuminated in color for the entire month. Down on the Flatiron Public Plaza, Afterglow, a new installation by Charlotte Hailstone Wu and AG Art Designs, frames the long-awaited reemergence of the Flatiron Building through layers of brightly colored acrylic, creating shifting rainbow reflections as sunlight moves across the day. Nearby, an outdoor photography exhibition explores the past, present and future of Pride in the neighborhood through archival images and contemporary portraits assembled in collaboration with SoMad and Esther, The Bipedal Entity.
The project is one of the city's most accessible Pride celebrations—one that doesn't require reservations, admission fees or even a destination in mind. Just start walking and the neighborhood does the rest.
