Saturday's shooting scene is a few blocks from the StonewallInn, the site of 1969 riots that helped give rise to gay rights when patrons reacted to police harassment.
Carson was walking with a companion when he was followed and taunted before being shot in the face on a street blocks from the StonewallInn early Saturday, police said.
The gay rights movement crystallized in the Village in June 1969, when a police raid at the StonewallInn touched off a riot and demonstrations that came to symbolize gays' resistance to being relegated to society's shadows.