[2][3] The primary objective of the group, besides enjoying the sun and book reading, was to create awareness that New York law allows toplessness in public and to change social attitudes to the exposure of women's breasts.

The group invited any woman (and a small number of men) to join them and had received a generally favorable reception in the media and by the public.

[5] The group actively encouraged new female members to join, inviting "open-minded, free-thinking, body-positive women whose favorite things include reading books and being naked".

[7][8][9] They had also been allowed to use the roof top deck of the "nude-friendly, gay-friendly, everything-friendly"[7] Colonial House Inn in Manhattan's Chelsea District.

[10][9] The group engaged in a wide variety of topless activities, including reading in public, going to restaurants and plays, cycling around New York, visiting beaches, and having snowball fights.

[9] Throughout the group's history, they did not have unfavorable interactions with the New York City Police Department, although one female officer told them during their first summer in Central Park to put their shirts on.

[11] Group members generally read pulp fiction and had received advance copies of books from a number of publishers, including Hard Case Crime and the Feminist Press,[12] as well as authors such as Elmore Leonard.

Andrews told a reporter in 2014 that she was talking with a male friend about the law in New York that allows women to be topless anywhere a man can, but how no woman ever did.

[5] According to a former group member who was interviewed by the Village Voice, "[m]ost of the time women are too nervous or anxious to take advantage of" New York State law that permits public toplessness.

[15] On Twitter the group participated in advocacy for body-positivity and body-freedom, including the Free the Nipple campaign, as well as sharing and promoting full female nudity.

[26] Actor Jake Austin Robertson stated in a New York Daily News interview "I hope that audiences will push past the shock of nakedness on stage, and see what it tells us about Hamlet.

[30] The New York State Court of Appeals ruled on that day that Ramona Santorelli and Mary Lou Schloss were not guilty of violating Penal Law § 245.01.

In their ruling, the two judges wrote: [Defendants] contend that to the extent that many in our society may regard the uncovered female breast with a prurient interest that is not similarly aroused by the male equivalent ..., that perception cannot serve as a justification for differential treatment because it is itself a suspect cultural artifact rooted in centuries of prejudice and bias toward women.

One of the most important purposes to be served by the equal protection clause is to ensure that "public sensibilities" grounded in prejudice and unexamined stereotypes do not become enshrined as part of the official policy of government ...

The mere fact that the statute's aim is the protection of "public sensibilities" is not sufficient to satisfy the state's burden of showing an "exceedingly persuasive justification" for a classification that expressly discriminates on the basis of sex.

[30] Holly Van Voast, a Bronx photographer and performance artist, cited the memorandum when she filed a suit after the police detained, arrested or issued summonses to her on 10 occasions during 2011 and 2012.