Revisiting Gloria Steinem’s Manhattan Brownstone, Where She Lived for Over 50 Years

Gloria Steinem, the trailblazing feminist, journalist, and activist who came to prominence during the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, died on September 2 at the age of 92. Born on March 25, 1934, in Toledo, Ohio, much of Steinem’s early life unfolded in a mobile home, as her father, a traveling antiques dealer, crisscrossed the domed trailer across the country to buy and sell his wares. Summers were spent at a resort in Clear Lake, Michigan. It wasn’t until Steinem’s parents separated when she was 10 years old that she began to regularly attend school, while living with her mother in Toledo.After graduating from Smith College in 1956, Steinem traveled to India to study political science. There, she participated in nonviolent protests and witnessed caste riots that shaped her views on social justice and change. Two years later, the My Life on the Road author returned to the States to pursue a career in journalism, writing for publications like Esquire, Help!, and a fledgling New York magazine (which she helped found). In 1963, Steinem’s career took off when she wrote an undercover exposé for Show magazine about the harsh, discriminatory working conditions at the New York City Playboy Club. Eight years later, she would co-found Ms., the first national magazine with an all-female staff.Steinem’s activism spanned decades, with many more notable contributions to equal rights efforts than we have room to relay. In 1970, she testified before the Senate in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment. The following year, she cofounded the National Women’s Political Caucus, alongside Shirley Chisolm, the first Black woman elected to Congress; The Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedman; civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer; and congress member Bella Abzug. In 1993, Steinem was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2005, she cofounded the Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan. President Barack Obama awarded Steinem with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013.In 2000, at the age of 66, Steinem married environmentalist David Bale, the father of actor Christian Bale. They were married until he died of lymphoma four years later. In 1998, Steinem expressed her desire to live a long life, not settling down until her “really old age,” she told New York magazine: “In my old age – really old age, since I’m going to live past 100, I hope – I would love to have a diner. A little diner with blue gingham curtains by the side of the road, because diners are the most democratic places. … And in the back room, we could have a little revolutionary meeting from time to time.”According to a statement posted to her Instagram account, Steinem died at home in Manhattan “surrounded by some of the many who loved her.” The post revealed her posthumous plans for her home, stating, “As Gloria wrote in her forthcoming book, An Unexpected Life, ‘I have now lived for more than fifty years in this brownstone, in rooms that have witnessed lives before mine, and will know others after I am gone.’ This book, along with her commitment to her home becoming a center for social justice movements, are among the many gifts Gloria has given the world with the hope they have ripple effects for generations to come.” — Katie Schultz