On a quiet Upper East Side street Thursday, an impromptu memorial for feminist icon Gloria Steinem began forming.
One by one, women walked up to Steinem’s longtime home and left bouquets of flowers and cards, often stopping in silence to take in the moment and the array of florals lining her gate. Most cards thanked Steinem for her life’s work, while others went on to call her a “hero to all women,” or cribbed one of her oft-attributed sayings writing, “Women need men like fish need bikes,” which Steinem popularized, but always cited Australian writer and educator Irina Dunna as the original author.
One letter under the gate read, “Humanity is more evolved, more informed and we’re given the opportunity to be seen and heard because of you.”
Steinem passed away at her longtime home Thursday at the age of 92, “surrounded by many who loved her,” according to her foundation. One of the most popular members of the feminist movement, Steinem is known for championing women’s rights, both in government, with the formation of the National Women’s Political Caucus, which she co-founded alongside Congresswoman Bella Abzug, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm and Betty Friedan, among many other causes, as well as in her pioneering feminist publication Ms. magazine.
In the 1990s, Steinem furthered her legacy by helping to establish Take Our Daughters to Work Day, to help broaden career possibilities for young women, and in 2005, she co-founded the Women’s Media Center, alongside Jane Fonda and Robin Morgan, to raise visibility of girls and women in the media.
Throughout her advocacy, Steinem’s home, which she moved into with a roommate in 1967 and remained in for the rest of her life, as she acquired two more floors, has played a prominent role. It was there that Steinem hosted her “talking circles,” in which she would gather groups of women to discuss politics, debate and discuss solutions to issues facing women across the world and delve into their personal lives, across the decades. The home will continue to be used for political gatherings after her death, according to The New York Times.
“Talking circles have always been — since people gathered around a campfire — a crucial life-giving community,” Steinem told the Times in 2025, after a circle that included actress Lupita Nyong’o, former professional soccer player Ashlyn Harris, businesswoman Jenna Lyons and more.
“My brain has not converted to A.I.,” she added, “We don’t experience empathy in the same way unless we are physically together.”
Lena Dunham, a friend of Steinem, reminisced in a post Thursday on one of several gatherings she had experienced at the late icon’s home.
“A few months ago, you welcomed a group of us into your home. You could not have felt more alive, more eternal, and the room took on a hush when you spoke, the same awed disbelief that I felt whenever you offered me the chance to spend time with you. You knew the effect you had and so you doled out jokes with ease, made us all laugh as if drinking mocktails next to you was the most natural thing in the world. It’s rare that I’ll ever be as delighted as when you said, “Philip Roth used to stand by a pile of his own novels at the bookstore with a pen, ready to sign them to any woman who looked his way. I had to avoid that bookstore!,” she wrote.
Among the small crowd gathering Thursday, Larz May, founder of a non-profit aimed at improving the next generation’s relationship with tech, traveled to her home to commemorate Steinem, who she called “an inspiration.” May began hosting her own talking circles inspired by Steinem and was also able to participate in a talking circle at Steinem’s home about technology.
“We got to walk through a time capsule in her basement, and to sit on her couches and see and know that this is a jewelry box of the most incredible humans in the world,” May said of her time in the home, adding that Steinem surprised them all by pulling out a pair of tap shoes, one of her little known former hobbies.
Rather than just flowers, May bent down to light a stick of incense at the gate, to pay homage to another one of Steinem’s oft-quoted sayings.
In an interview with Time magazine, Steinem once said, “People keep asking me … who I’m going to give my torch to, right? And I always say to them, I am not giving up my torch, thank you very much, I’m keeping my torch, and I’m using it to light other people’s torches, because the whole idea that there is only one torch is the problem.”
“I’m here to light a candle and literally and figuratively take Gloria’s life forward, and hope to light up the world,” May noted on Thursday. “I think one of the things that I learned from her was that it’s not about passing the torch, it’s about lighting it.”
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