[6] In 1988, walking from Lincoln Center up Riverside Drive and down Central Park West, approximately 16,000 participants raised nearly $2.5 million for GMHC's services to people with AIDS.
[7] Prior to the 1989 AIDS Walk, New York City Ballet stars Heather Watts and Jack Soto used their pre-performance time at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater to solicit contributions for the event, whose opening ceremony was hosted by Harvey Fierstein and Tony Randall.
[11] Throughout the mid-1990s, despite heavy rainfalls, a change in the march route to begin and end in Central Park, and an increasing number of local AIDS Walks in the city's suburbs and elsewhere, AIDS Walk New York continued to raise record funds (generally around $5 million) and attract more participants, including more high school students.
[25] During the opening ceremony of the 2006 AIDS Walk New York, Marjorie J. Hill, the interim president of GMHC, noted that 25 years had passed since public health officials first recognized the then-unidentified epidemic among gay men.
That year's event was emceed by Naomi Watts and Queer Eye stars Carson Kressley and Ted Allen and raised about $6.5 million.
[28] The 2009 AIDS Walk, described as "massive" in the New York Daily News, raised $5.6 million, an amount Craig Miller called impressive "in the midst of this historically difficult recession.