The Stonewall Inn in New York, a Greenwich Village bar that helped launch the gay rights movement in the US, has been awarded official landmark status by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Passed in a unanimous vote on Tuesday, 23 June, the designation makes this the first site to be recognised because of its significance to LGBT history—and comes just days ahead of the city’s annual Pride Rally this weekend marking the protests that began at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969, when patrons fought back against a police raid. The chairwoman of the landmarks commission, Meenakshi Srinivasan, says these events were a turning point in the LGBT rights movement and in the nation’s history, reports CBSNewYork/AP. “Recognizing and protecting the tremendous historic significance of the Stonewall Inn is incredibly important, long overdue and more than worth the struggle it took to achieve,” says Andrew Berman, the executive director of the Greenwich Village Society of Historic Preservation, which advocated for the site.