Includes ACT UP poster-making party (with Larry Kramer, Andy Velez and Russell Pritchard shot by Ellen Spiro) on 3/25/89 (first 4 minutes); civil disobedience training session; and (beginning at 18-minutes) ACT UP pre-action meeting (3/27/89) for Target City Hall Demonstration. (NYPL Tape #01326)

Footage shot by Catherine Gund at the ACT UP Meeting the night before the Target City Hall Demonstration March 27, 1989. (NYPL Tape #01116-A)

This video was made by DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Activist Television), an affinity group of ACT UP. DIVA TV consisted of a core group of 10-12 members, with as many as 40 videomakers contributing video. DIVA TV was formed in 1989 and made 3 tapes: Target City Hall, Like a Prayer and Pride '69 - '89.

Two thousand demonstrators and waves of affinity group CD actions shut down the morning rush-hour traffic around New York's City Hall in protest of the Ed Koch administration’s negligence and mishandling of the AIDS crisis. 200 activists are arrested. While in jail, many of the ACT UP women were subjected to illegal strip-searches, which led to a widely-publicized police scandal and eventual out-of-court settlement. The City of New York agreed to severe limitations to strip-searching arrestees, an agreement that was routinely violated by the New York Police Department.

Footage shot by Testing the Limits at Target City Hall Demo March 28, 1989. (NYPL Tape #1734)

Footage shot by Testing the Limits at Target City Hall Demo March 28, 1989. Interviews with Adrienne Jenik and Gabe Pressman (NYPL Tape #1735)

Footage of the demonstration shot at Target City Hall. Phil Zwickler interviews Charles Stimson, Frank Jump and Howard Grossman. Phil shot 8 20-minute tapes that day. Only Tapes #1 and #4 were digitized and available for this website. The other 6 tapes along with Phil’s other work are preserved in the Human Sexuality Collection at the Cornell University Library and the AIDS Activist Video Collection of the New York Public Library. More information about Phil is available at the website of the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Trust (NYPL Tape # 01083-A)

Footage shot by Phil Zwickler at Target City Hall. Andy Humm interviews Ann Northrop, Rodger McFarlane and Ermanno Stingo. (NYPL Tape # 01083-D)

Footage shot by Jim Hubbard at ACT UP's Target City Hall Demonstration March 28, 1989 (NYPL Tape # 01148)

An experimental reaction to laws that targeted the bodies of women, PWAs and Queer People by Catherine Gund and Zoe Leonard. Shot in Super-8 (NYPL Tape # 01067)

Footage shot by Catherine Gund at Target City Hall Demo March 28, 1989. (NYPL Tape # 01116-B)