Generations Connect
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Generations Connect

LGBTQ+ New Yorkers of different generations, paired one to one for coffee, walks and long conversations. It’s free, in all five boroughs.

Become a mentor Find a mentor
A woman in round glasses leans her head on a white-bearded man in a Vietnam Veteran cap, both smiling, at Pride in Greenwich Village.
Pride, Greenwich Village, 1997

Where do you fit?

Two older men with moustaches stand close and smile at Pride, 1997. If you’re 50 or over

Become a mentor

Get to know someone younger, listen, and pass on what you’ve learned about this city and this life.

Apply as a mentor
Three friends with their arms around each other, grinning, on a Greenwich Village street in June. If you’re 18 to 30

Find a mentor

Have someone older to ask about work, chosen family and what’s worth holding on to.

Apply as a mentee

Somewhere in between? Host a gathering, help lead a workshop, or look after the pairs as a coordinator: [email protected].

Neighbors of every age at a block party on a closed street, a boy blowing up balloons at a table.
A block party on East 35th Street, 1973
Grassroots, since 2023

A recipe for community

Generations Connect is neighbors introducing neighbors. Volunteers run it, Rêvasser pays for it, and it stays small on purpose.

Serves
Two generations
Prep
Ten minutes
Cost
Free

Ingredients

  • 2LGBTQ+ New Yorkers, a generation or more apart, matched by hand
  • 6months, to start
  • 1–2coffees, walks or calls a month
  • 1table a month, with all the pairs
  • 1good book, from the Reading Club at The Center
  • 1coordinator, a phone call away

Method

  1. Apply. We write back within two weeks.
  2. A short call, then orientation.
  3. Meet your match.
  4. Keep going as long as you like.

The whole method

A grandmother in a feathered hat reads beside a small boy on a waiting-room bench, 1947.
A bench in New York, 1947
In the West Village

The Reading Club at The Center

A book is a low-pressure way to meet someone. You’ve both read the same pages, and there’s a whole world of imagination to talk about. We’re connected with the Reading Club at The LGBT Community Center.

The LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street, New York, NY 10011
Visit The Center
Five walks, seventeen places

The city’s LGBTQ+ history, on foot

A walk is one of the simplest ways to get to know someone. You’re side by side, and there’s always something to talk about. There’s one in every borough, from Harlem’s 135th Street library to the Alice Austen House on Staten Island.

See the walks
  • Marchers walk past a stroller on 34th Street at a gay rights demonstration, 1976.
    34th Street, 1976
  • Dancers in white T-shirts wave pompoms beside the Stonewall 20 float, 1989.
    Stonewall 20, 1989
  • Men on a fire escape hold a We Need Husbands banner over the crowd on Christopher Street, 1994.
    Christopher Street, 1994
  • Two women hold hands and dance in a crowded room, 1997.
    Dancing, 1997

Apply

We’re pairing people now, all over the city. The form takes about ten minutes, and a coordinator writes back within two weeks.

Become a mentor Find a mentor
[email protected] Run and paid for by Rêvasser, a New York clothing brand.