Native American poet Diane Burns was a luminous, integral fixture of the Downtown arts scene beginning in the 1970s until her death in 2006. Her poetic body of work contains achingly earnest descriptions of her personal experiences as a Native American woman to droll, prophetic indictments of early gentrification in the East Village. Born in […]
Village Preservation’s Spring House Tour Benefit is finally making its long-awaited return! The time-honored and much-beloved event heralds the start of spring in our beautiful neighborhoods, and we are pleased and excited to be able to produce our 22nd tour on Sunday, May 7th. While the locations are always a closely kept secret until the […]
If you’re ever on the Upper East Side or just strolling through Central Park and looking to immerse yourself in some literary history, the Grolier Club is the perfect place for that. The Grolier Club’s exhibitions are free to all visitors, making it an accessible space for bibliophiles or anyone itching to check out how literary history has evolved over time.
Walking through the East Village means walking through history. The neighborhood features 30 individual landmarks, one of the highest concentrations in the city, that offer a unique view of our architectural and cultural heritage. Some of those buildings were landmarked in the early days of the Landmarks Preservation Commission in the 1960s, others gained the […]
Art Smith was an influential American jewelry designer who gained popularity in the mid-20th century for his bold and abstract designs. At his studio in Greenwich Village, Smith created unique theatrical pieces, inspired by surrealism and biomorphism. His jewelry was meant for everyday wear, designed to be comfortable enough for daily use but suitably eye-catching […]
Your input is needed! Today we feature our latest Business of the Month — help us to select the next. Tell us which independent store you love in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo: click here to nominate your favorite. Want to help support small businesses? Share this post with friends. If your evening could use a little kick, […]
Immigrant Heritage Week was established in 2004 and is coordinated by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs as a city-wide celebration that honors the experiences and contributions of immigrants in New York City. The week commemorates April 17th,1909, when 11,747 immigrants entered the U.S. through Ellis Island — more than any other day in history. This citywide celebration honors […]
Today we welcome Dena Tasse-Winter as Village Preservation’s Director of Research and Preservation. A native New Yorker, Dena joins us with a background in architectural and landscape history, archival research and writing expertise, and extensive experience within the governmental and cultural non-profit sectors in both New York City and Washington, D.C. Prior to joining Village […]
There were many facets to the extraordinary life of Otis Kidwell Burger. A West Village native, her experiences in the early preservation battles of our neighborhood were a part of the story of keeping the Village the Village. As the great-granddaughter of abolitionist and National Anti-Slavery Standard editor Sydney Howard Gay, and the granddaughter of […]
Greenwich Village lost one of its most eloquent voices with the passing of food critic and author Mimi Sheraton (1926-2023). She was a champion of her neighborhood, where she lived for almost 80 years, a friend to Village Preservation, collaborating with us on numerous occasions, and a generous font of knowledge and wit to generations […]
April is a wonderful time in New York City, as we transition into spring with flowers blooming and people filling the streets once again. Today we explore April through our Historic Image Archive — a carefully curated collection of nearly 4,000 images of our neighborhoods and New York City from the late 18th through the […]
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd (November 25, 1816 – May 30, 1892) was born in Morrisania, New York to a family who was already a familiar presence in American political history. His grandfather was U.S. Senator John Rutherfurd of New Jersey, whose own father, Lewis Morris, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. By all accounts, […]
From 1939 until 1941, the New York City Department of Taxation collaborated with the Federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) to take photographs of each building in the five boroughs. Known then as the “Real Property Tax Card Record System for the City of New York,” the initiative started in 1938 when the Department of Taxation […]
There comes a time each spring when one can’t help but marvel at the sights and sounds of our neighborhoods. The blooming magnolias and budding leaves are made even more beautiful by smiles on the faces of New Yorkers who seem to have finally defrosted after a long winter. But if you keep a close […]
April is National Poetry Month! Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, the month of April marks a marvelous opportunity to celebrate the expressiveness, delight, and pure charm of poetry. National Poetry Month reminds us of the integral role of poets and poetry in our culture. It is only fitting to recognize several […]
In the early 1800s, the area around modern-day Christopher Street was suffering from overcrowding, following the migration of residents from lower Manhattan after the yellow fever outbreak of 1822 that helped to create Greenwich Village. A devastating fire in 1835 led to residents calling for open space, and on April 5, 1837, they got their […]
The East Village Eye was only in publication for eight years, but the magazine left a huge mark on the neighborhood it chronicled. The East Village Eye, nicknamed the Eye, was a monthly magazine dedicated to covering the art, music, fashion, and politics of the East Village. At its peak, the magazine had a circulation […]
On March 31, 1943, the classic musical Oklahoma! opened on Broadway at the St. James Theatre. It ran for five years, setting a record with its 2,212 performances before closing on May 29, 1948. Oklahoma! was a groundbreaking show in several ways, and one of its stars lived right here in Greenwich Village in the two years […]
108, 110, 112, and 114 Waverly Place are a curious collection of houses. They are all that remain of nine houses built in 1826 for city comptroller Thomas R. Mercein. What were originally federal style houses have all been extensively altered throughout the years, resulting in a diverse spread of architectural styles. Maybe this eclecticism […]
Independent small businesses are one of the cornerstones of our neighborhoods. They don’t just provide services and goods, they respond to the particular tastes and needs of their community. Fashioned as they are after the individual visions of their owners, they also help create a distinctive sense of place. In addition, they often enhance local […]
Founded in 1892, and constructed between 1926 and 1928, Our Lady of Pompeii church has commanded the corner of Bleecker and Carmine Streets for nearly one hundred years. The neoclassical style of the building contains the asymmetrically placed tower that frames the view across what is now Father Demo Square. The construction of this church […]
As we approach the deadline for the 2023 Village Awards, we want to share some past awardees to inspire your nominations for this year! We will celebrate the award winners at our 33rd Annual Village Awards & 43rd Annual Members Meeting 2023 on Tuesday, June 13th at The Cooper Union’s Great Hall!
Why would you want to take the time to nominate your favorite for a Village Award? Here are some great reasons!
The Cherry Lane Theatre opened as the Cherry Lane Playhouse in 1923, and is located within what was designated as the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Cherry Lane has the distinction of being New York City’s oldest, continuously operating Off-Broadway theatre. Tucked away from the bustle of the city along […]
Your input is needed! Today we feature our latest Business of the Month — help us to select the next. Tell us which independent store you love in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo: click here to nominate your favorite. Want to help support small businesses? Share this post with friends. They say: keizoku wa chikara nari; or at […]
For most of its existence, pedestrians were able to freely and joyfully spin the black monolith known as the “Alamo” (more commonly referred to as the Astor Place Cube, or just “the Cube”) that sat between Lafayette Street and Cooper Square. That freedom to rotate came to an end in April 2022, after structural damage […]
In honor of Irish-American Heritage Month, it’s worth remembering the cultural legacy of Sin-é (Gaelic for that’s it), a former music venue and café located at 122 St. Mark’s Place. Sin-é opened its doors in the East Village in 1989 thanks to Irish immigrant Shane Doyle, and early on became a regular fixture for fans […]
Since our founding in 1980, Village Preservation has cultivated a staggering collection of historic research and resources. Among the jewels of this collection are our Historic Image Archive and our Preservation History Archive. The latter capture in images the history of our neighborhoods and other New York landmarks over the last two and a half […]
St. Patrick’s Day is finally upon us! While we deeply appreciate the cultural, political, social, religious, and economic heritage that the Irish have brought to our neighborhoods, let’s not forget the infusion of important gathering places and civic centers that the Irish brought to our shores: The Irish Pub. New York City’s drinking culture has […]
First opened over 200 years ago, the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary was founded by two doctors, Dr. Edward Delafield and Dr. John Kearny Rodgers, with the hope of bringing accessible ophthalmology to the residents of New York. One of the most significant sites of medical history in our city, the New York Eye […]
Jimmy DeSana was a photographer known for his provocative and experimental work during the late 1970s and early 1980s. His unique style of photography captured the raw and rebellious energy of the East Village punk scene and queer subculture, making him a beloved figure of 1970’s counterculture. DeSana’s work challenged traditional notions of beauty and […]
Ada Louise Huxtable (March 14, 1921 – January 7, 2013) was arguably the most formidable critical voice regarding architecture of the second half of the 20th century. Huxtable, who became the New York Times’ first full-time architecture critic in 1963, had the uncanny ability and excellent foresight to analyze architecture in a manner that highlighted the […]
2023 Awards Nominations are Now Open! Each year, Village Preservation honors invaluable local leaders, institutions, business, places and organizations at its Annual Meeting and Village Awards. This fun and free public event highlights and celebrates those that make our neighborhoods some of the most interesting and exceptional in the city. Nominations are now open until […]
Originally broadcast through radio in 1929, the Academy Awards have evolved over time to become one of the most anticipated award ceremonies in the world. A trademark of Hollywood, the event has always been hosted in Los Angeles, California, an area where many of the nominated films were made and nominated actors reside. However, our […]
Today we welcome a new small business to our neighborhoods — help us welcome the next. Tell us which new independent store in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo you’re excited about by emailing us at info@villagepreservation.org. As advocates for local small business, we find great satisfaction in hearing of new independent establishments opening […]
International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Of course we do that all year round as we explore the stories behind the streets, buildings and people of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, which are filled with remarkable women and advocates for the rights of women. Our research […]
Evelyn G. Haynes (1909–2001) was a dedicated preservationist and a member of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission during its earliest days. Her family donated a collection of her records to Village Preservation, which are now available on our website. You can also see her contribution of many beautiful pictures of historic buildings of Lower Manhattan […]
Each year since 1991, Village Presentation has solicited nominations from the public to honor the people, places, businesses, and organizations that represent the spirit of our neighborhoods! We then gather at our Annual Meeting in June to present these amazing people, places, and institutions with a Village Award and celebrate their unparalleled contributions to the […]
Wayne Shorter is a pioneering jazz musician and composer whose innovative work has had a profound impact on the genre. Throughout his career, he pushed the boundaries of jazz and experimented with new sounds, textures, and compositional techniques. He has also been recognized as one of the most influential saxophonists in jazz history, known for his unique sound and lyrical improvisations.
The first commercial art gallery in Greenwich Village was owned by noted gallerist Edith Halpert, and was located at 113 West 13th Street. The first woman to open a commercial art gallery, she acquired the space with her friend, Berthe Goldsmith, in 1926 when she determined her own skills in art insufficient for success. Halpert […]
“South of Union Square, the Birthplace of American Modernism” is a series that explores how the area south of Union Square shaped some of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. Isabel Bishop, Fourteenth Street, 1932. Image via Radford.edu. Village Preservation’s proposed South of Union Square historic district attracted painters, writers, publishers, and radical […]
Your input is needed! Today we celebrate 100 Businesses of the Month — help us to select the next. Tell us which independent store you love in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo: click here to nominate your favorite. Want to help support small businesses? Share this post with friends. In November 2014, we started our popular Business of […]
In 1951, Harry Belafonte decided he was finished with singing. For the past few years, he had been taking acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School with the influential German director Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando and Sidney Poitier. All the while he was performing with the American Negro Theater. Belafonte was […]
March is Women’s History Month. To mark the occasion, we’re taking a look at just some of the incredible women of our neighborhoods who had the deepest impact upon our world. With your input, we’re going to select the twenty-five most impactful. Below are seventy extraordinary women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, […]
On the balmy evening of September 9, 1960, there seemed to be an even greater sense of possibility laced through the typically restless Greenwich Village air. This possibility could be traced to West Eighth Street, down thirty-one steep stairs, through the darkness of The Bon Soir, and into the club’s dressing room where 18-year-old Barbra […]
At the core of the Beat Generation was beloved East Villager Allen Ginsberg. He challenged the barriers that restricted what writers could print and created a handful of pieces that revolutionized American literature as we know it today. Recently, we discovered an old photograph via the Allen Ginsberg Project that inspired us to take a […]
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) was housed in our neighborhoods for decades, first in the 12-story Beaux Arts style office building at 70 Fifth Avenue that was constructed in 1912 by architect Charles Alonzo Rich for the noted publisher and philanthropist George A. Plimpton. Shortly after the building opened, the […]
Your input is needed! Today we feature our latest Business of the Month — help us to select the next. Tell us which independent store you love in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo: click here to nominate your favorite. Want to help support small businesses? Share this post with friends. Some people say that love makes the world […]
Today we welcome aboard at Village Preservation Maya Wilson (pronouns: she/her) as our new Programs Associate. Maya has been an intern with Village Preservation since June of 2022, and has collaborated on various research and programming projects during that time. During her tenure as an intern, Maya has developed a new art project for our […]
Author and NYC tour guide, Lawrence Henderson, is sharing his research and walking tours with Village Preservation in February 2023 as we celebrate Black History Month. First, Village Preservation participants were treated to a free opportunity to experience the first hour of Lawrence’s “You Are Here: African American Walking Tour of NYC.” Lawrence offers a unique three-part, 3 hour, downtown walking tour to New Yorkers and visitors alike. The tour is based on Lawrence’s book You Are Here – A Geographical History of Enslaved and Free Africans in Manhattan: 1613 – 1865. He will be updating a new edition of this book, which we hope to celebrate when it relaunches with a future book talk.
Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) is one of the most well-known New York Abstract Expressionist painters. Born and raised in Chicago, Mitchell moved to New York City in 1949 after graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago and completing a fellowship in France. Naturally, she settled in Greenwich Village and the […]
March is Women’s History Month, and we’re taking a good long look at just some of the incredible women of our neighborhoods who had the deepest impact upon our world. With your input, we’re going to select our Top 25 list. Below are seventy of the most impactful women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, […]
Rauh (March 7, 1877 – February 28, 1970) was a writer, sculptor, actor, birth control, activist, and a passionate advocate for labor rights and women’s suffrage. She played a key role in bringing the two movements together. Rauh graduated from NYU law school in 1902, but never practiced law. Instead, she became involved in the […]
Susan Brownmiller (born Susan Warhaftig, February 15, 1935) is the author of “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape,” which has been cited as one of the first books to redefine rape as a political issue rather than an individual crime, and which catapulted the feminist anti-rape movement into mainstream consciousness. Born and raised in Brooklyn, […]
Sonia Maria Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) was the first Latinx, first woman of color, and only the third woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and after being confirmed in the Senate by a vote of 68-31, was sworn in on August […]
Yoko Ono (born Feb. 18, 1933) and her husband John Lennon lived for a time shortly after they were married at 105 Bank Street in Greenwich Village. As per MoMa: Since emerging onto the international art scene in the early 1960s, Yoko Ono has made profound contributions to visual art, performance, filmmaking, and experimental music. […]
Miné Okubo was a Japanese-American artist born in Riverside, California, in 1912. She is best known for her 1946 book Citizen 13660, in which she recounts her experience in a Japanese-American internment camp, which was one of the first widely-circulated personal accounts of the repression and indignities faced by over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II, and […]
Anthropologist Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) received her master’s degree from Columbia University in 1924, then taking a trip to the South Seas where she gathered material for her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). When she was not traveling, Mead worked as a curator at the Museum of […]
Janis Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) lived at 139 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village briefly before her death. During her time here, a bar and steakhouse called the Ninth Circle, owned by Mickey Ruskin of Max’s Kansas City, was located in the basement of the building. Jimi Hendrix frequented the place, as […]
Our Historic Image Archive includes thousands of images from the late 18th through the early 21st centuries. While most of our images show Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, we have a wide range of images from across the five boroughs, particularly of historic landmarks around the city. Today we focus on one of […]
It is perhaps the most versatile of foods, easily customizable to cultural and personal tastes and endlessly variable in style and ingredients. It is somehow both simple enough for home cooks who want to pop whatever is on hand into a toaster oven, and complex enough for chefs who turn its ingredients and their application into […]
It is your job to make photographs,let the future look at them. —Berenice Abbott, 1936 Photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) first arrived in Greenwich Village from her native Ohio in 1918. She quickly made friends with some of those involved with the Provincetown Playhouse and was introduced to the inner circle of artists, dancers, poets, and […]
Our oral history collection contains many incredibly compelling stories about our neighborhoods’ histories, told from a first-person perspective by those who were in the center of the action. Perhaps no one was more central to one of the most epochal battles in our neighborhood — the David vs. Goliath fight to prevent a highway from […]
Many of us may daydream about being transported back to the bohemian Greenwich Village of the 1960s. Beyond our own imaginations, one particularly effective way to do that is via Lorraine Hansberry’s incisive play The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, revived at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from February 4 through March 24, 2023, the […]
Known for its eclectic ambiance and creative energy, the area South of Union Square has historically acted as a magnet for hundreds of musicians, painters, photographers, and the like. As a center of music history, dozens of South of Union Square spots hosted Grammy-award-winning musicians, singers, and producers that shaped the music industry we know […]
Welcome to February, and African American History Month! Village Preservation has long documented the stories behind the streets, buildings and people of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Those investigations have enabled us to offer several great resources to learn more about our neighborhoods, including our African American history, including our Civil Rights and […]
“South of Union Square, the Birthplace of American Modernism” is a series that explores how the area south of Union Square shaped some of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. The neighborhood south of Union Square, which Village Preservation has proposed be designated an historic district, has attracted painters, writers, publishers, and […]
Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006), Korean artist and avant-garde visionary, is well-known for his pioneering video artistry. Less known, however, is that Paik, dubbed the “Father of Video Art,” played a vital role in our neighborhoods’ rich artistic history. Working out of his studio in Westbeth along with his partner […]
Village Preservation is very honored to announce that we have released our Oral History with Alex Harsley. Our oral history project includes interviews with some of the great artists, activists, business owners, community leaders, and preservation pioneers of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. It captures and preserves their first-person perspective on the important histories they witnessed or of which they were a part.
Today we welcome a new small business to our neighborhoods — help us welcome the next. Tell us which new independent store in Greenwich Village, the East Village, or NoHo you’re excited about by emailing us at info@villagepreservation.org. As advocates for local small business, we find great satisfaction in hearing of new independent establishments opening […]
Throughout the second half of the 20th century, the neighborhood South of Union Square was considered the antique furnishing and decorations center of the country. Dozens of such businesses thrived here, including a shop with a more contemporary “antique” bent known as Fifty/50. Founded in 1983 by notable collectors Mark Isaacson, Mark McDonald, and Ralph […]
