Pride Flag Is Removed From Stonewall Monument After Trump Directive; The New York Times, February 10, 2026

 Liam Stack, Jonathan Wolfe and Yan Zhuang, The New York Times; Pride Flag Is Removed From Stonewall Monument After Trump Directive

The removal of the flag from the Manhattan monument, the symbolic heart of the gay rights movement, came after a Trump administration memo about flags at national park sites.

"A large Pride flag was quietly removed from the Stonewall National Monument in Manhattan after a directive from the federal government, the latest step in the Trump administration’s nationwide assault on diversity initiatives and the second time in less than a year it has targeted the Greenwich Village site, which commemorates the birth of the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.

The flag’s removal came weeks after the Department of the Interior issued federal guidance on displaying “non-agency” flags in the National Park System, which includes a small park in front of the Stonewall Inn, the bar for which the federal monument is named.

Elected officials and bar employees said they realized the rainbow flag was gone on Monday morning. On Tuesday, a bare flagpole stood on the monument’s grounds as steely clouds hung overhead...

“To think you can go to Stonewall and just take down the Pride flag — that is telling of the time we are living in,” Ms. Lentz said. “It is unbelievable. The flag is not just an abstract symbol; it tells L.G.B.T.Q. people, especially younger ones, that their history will not be sidelined again.”

The Trump administration directive that led to the removal of the flag was issued on Jan. 21. A copy of the memo was provided to The New York Times by Brad Hoylman-Sigal, the Manhattan borough president. The flag’s removal was first reported by Gay City News.

In response to questions about the flag’s removal, the National Park Service on Tuesday pointed to that memo, saying in a statement that “only the U.S. flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on N.P.S.-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions.”"