There’s no lack of artists deeply associated with New York. But among the many painters who’ve been inspired by our city, perhaps none has had a more enduring and deeper relationship than Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882–May 15, 1967), particularly with Greenwich Village. Hopper lived and worked in Greenwich Village during nearly his entire adult life, […]
Immigrant Heritage Week is held by NYC each year to honor our collective immigrant heritage. Here at GVSHP, we held a walking tour on Tuesday, April 17th to honor that history. On April 17th, 1909, 11,747 immigrants entered the U.S. through Ellis Island, more than any other day in history. If you missed the tour, […]
NYC has designated the week of April 17 as Immigrant Heritage Week, because on April 17, 1907, more immigrants entered the U.S. through Ellis Island than any other day in history. April 19th happens to be the birthday of one of our neighborhood’s many incredible immigrants, noted East Village photographer Marlis Momber. In 2015, GVSHP […]
In the course of our research about buildings and events in our neighborhood, we often come upon some unusual characters and stories. One which certainly qualifies is Richard Harding Davis, an American journalist and writer of fiction and drama born on April 18th, 1864, andthe house he lived in, 108 Waverly Place (between Washington Square and […]
Immigration history in New York City is long, storied and full of notable events and movements which are personal and political. The City of New York is the ultimate city of immigrants and migrants. On April 17, 1907, more immigrants entered the U.S. through Ellis Island than any other day in history – it took 11,747 people […]
Village Preservation shares our oral history collection with the public, highlighting some of the people and stories that make Greenwich Village and the East Village such unique and vibrant neighborhoods. Each of these histories includes the experiences and insights of long-time residents, usually active in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life. Merce Cunningham […]
Within our Historic Image Archive of over a thousand images of our neighborhoods and other parts of New York City, a few mysteries lurk in terms of where exactly a picture was taken. A few weeks ago one such mystery was solved when the location of the 1970s photo of a piragua vendor from our archives below […]
The 12th of April isn’t a particularly special day of the year, but the spots around 4th Ave. and 12th St. are some special locations themselves. In honor of today’s date, we are taking a look at some of the buildings and history on and around this intersection.
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. Spring is here, and that means flowers! […]
Ida Tarbell was a trailblazing writer and investigative journalist – although she famously did not like the term “muckraker” — who is best known for exposing the corrupt business practices of John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil.
Valerie Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) is nothing if not divisive. She was a mysterious Villager known for being a radical lesbian feminist separatist, for writing the wild, controversial SCUM Manifesto, for shooting Andy Warhol and two others at Warhol’s Factory in Union Square and defending herself at her trial. It’s clear that what is known […]
On April 6th, 1968, The Who rocked the Fillmore East as part of a two-night residency. On April 20th, they will release a double CD and triple LP of that seminal two-night stint, in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. The Who have played around the world for decades, but among their many performances they chose to […]
Christopher Park has come a long way; beginning its life as a condemned parcel of land on April 5, 1837, the park was born, transformed, and eventually born again as a National Monument. The park is public space, historic space, and adored by Village residents and visitors alike. In many ways, Christopher Park reflects everything […]
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. This ended the life of one of the 20th century’s most revered and influential figures. It also began a 15-year campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday — the first-ever honoring an […]
On an average day in New York City, you might catch sight of the Statue of Liberty on the subway, meandering down the High Line, or maybe if you are somewhere along the Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn waterfront.
On April 3rd, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered what would become both his last and one of his most powerful speeches, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” In it, he called for unity and non-violent protests while challenging the United States to live up to its promise and ideas, saying he could see the day […]
Victoria Woodhull is perhaps best known (if she is known at all) as the first woman to run for President of the United States, a campaign she first publicly announced on April 2, 1870 with a letter to the New York Herald. In fact, she was so much more. This one-time resident of what we […]
On March 30, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was certified as duly ratified, prohibiting the denial of citizens the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” by state or federal government. This was of course meant to ensure that African-American men could vote, though that right was […]
We recently added copies of GVSHP’s newsletter The Anthemion dating back to the organization’s founding in the early 1980s to our website, which you can view here. There is so much rich history about the work of our organization and ever-changing preservation and development issues over the years contained within them; in fact, as you […]
Gerde’s Folk City was a Greenwich Village music venue central to the folk and rock scenes in this neighborhood for a quarter century. Though always moving locations, the club finally came to an end on March 26, 1986 after an iconic 25-year run. Today we take a look back at the history of this once […]
We all know that New York University has an enormous presence in Greenwich Village and the East Village — one that has grown tremendously in recent decades, and is continuing to grow with the construction of their “NYU 2031” expanded campus on the Washington Square Village and Silver Towers superblocks south of Washington Square. The […]
Change in New York is an expected norm, sometimes so constant it almost goes unnoticed. It’s such an ingrained part of the New Yorker’s experience, we often forget just how much our city has transformed, and what we have left behind. To help us remember, we have Carole Teller. A Brooklyn-born artist who’s lived in the […]
Born Thomas Lanier Williams, III, on March 26th, 1911, playwright Tennessee Williams was as much a New Yorker as anyone, really. While his place of birth was really Columbus, Mississippi, he was an itinerant traveler of the world, but spent much of his professional career in New York City, primarily in Greenwich Village. Much like […]
On March 26th, 2018, GVSHP and friends will gather around the Cherry Lane Theater stage by candlelight to celebrate the trailblazing women poets of the Village. Each poet merits an entire book (at least) in celebration of her life, work, and legacy. But today we’ll focus on just two of them: Lola Ridge and Sonia […]
On March 26, 1647, Anthony (also referred to as Antony) Congo, a newly manumitted slave of the Dutch West India Company, was granted six acres of land by the Council of New Amsterdam just east of the Bowery. His was one of more than thirty land grants to freed slaves by the Dutch New Amsterdam […]
Only three months into the year and we have already experienced four Nor’easters here in NYC! Though a definite inconvenience, snow is nothing new to New Yorkers, and many have stories and memories of other winter woes from years gone by and how that affected the city and their neighborhoods. One Nor’easter that has stood […]
1968 was a big year for New York City and the world – music, arts, staggering political and social change. And, in the midst of it all, a tan block-square collection of connected buildings known as the Bell Telephone Laboratories was transformed into the Westbeth Center for the Arts. A key component of that transformation […]
Lucy Cecere, who passed away on March 19, 2011, at the age of 89, was small in stature, but a true giant in a neighborhood of outsized personalities in which she lived her whole life. She was someone who deeply loved her Greenwich Village neighborhood and was willing to fight to preserve it. She and her husband […]
As we approach St. Patrick’s Day, we realized we’ve discussed Irish churches, Irish heritage, Irish parade riots, and have written about cool East Village bars, East Village sports bars, historic bars, many posts on LGBT bars, and bars in general. But we have never done a post to highlight our favorite Irish bars. There is no […]
Beware the Ides of March! Though Caesar may have had cause to worry, thankfully the Village is a little more manageable than the Roman Republic. However, that doesn’t mean this Ides we can’t be aware of it with our own twist. Below are a few tidbits of Village history that hopefully help you notice the […]
Diane Arbus was born on March 14, 1923, and died by her own hand a mere forty-eight years later on July 26, 1971. The acclaimed and celebrated photographer’s body of mid-20th century work focused largely on people marginalized by “mainstream” society. Arbus’s first Greenwich Village address was a rear carriage house at 131 1/2 Charles Street where […]
Scrolling through Off the Grid or any other collection of New York history, we’ve all become familiar with the legendary characters of the Village – Dylan, Kerouac, Hendrix, Duchamp, and the countless figures who have become synonymous with the neighborhood. Alongside them were incredible female creators who, although undoubtedly well-known, are sometimes forgotten. Today we […]
Delmonico’s, synonymous with elegant dining and fine cuisine in the heart of the Financial District, has enjoyed a long history in New York City. The restaurant was first started by Swiss brothers John and Peter Delmonico (originally Giovanni and Pietro) in 1830 at 25 Williams Street, next to their confectionery at 23 Williams Street. According […]
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. The classic New York lunch or breakfast […]
No. 105 Second Avenue, located between 6th and 7th Streets, was the home of the legendary Fillmore East from its opening on March 8,1968 until its closure on June 27, 1971 — a short period of time in which legendary status was quickly achieved. The building today is narrow with a brick facade and a domed […]
On March 7th, 1898, Our Lady of Pompeii Church was incorporated as a separate parish. This South Village icon has been serving the neighborhood since 1926, but Our Lady of Pompeii has been a part of the Village since 1892. In addition to serving the neighborhood, Our Lady of Pompeii also has a connection to […]
Continuing our celebration of Women’s History, today we look at a seminal figure not only in women’s history but medical history as well — Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. You may already know that she was the first woman in the United States to receive her medical degree. But did you know that she not only lived […]
On March 5, 1967, a rather unusual new arrival made its way to the West Village from way uptown. Decades later, it’s hard to imagine the Village without it. It would be a vast understatement to say that the house currently located at 121 Charles Street is a unique building with a complicated history. Based […]
Scratch the sidewalk anywhere in the Village or East Village and you’ll always find interesting layers of history. Last month, we went out on a limb and talked about 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street in honor of February 2nd (2/2), but today, March 2nd (3/2) we’re expanding our focus. Both 3rd and 2nd Avenues run through the […]
Greenwich Village is well known as the home to libertines in the 1920s and feminists in the 1960s and ’70s. But going back to at least the 19th century, the neighborhoods now known as Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho were home to pioneering women who defied convention and changed the course of history, […]
When March finally rolls around, I feel the need for celebration! Not only does it mean that we have weathered the January/February doldrums, but also because March is Women’s History Month! We have several exciting programs in store for the month long celebration. On Monday, March 26th, we will host and evening of Women Poets […]
GVSHP is excited to share our oral history collection with the public, highlighting some of the people and stories that make Greenwich Village and the East Village such unique and vibrant neighborhoods. Each of these histories includes the experiences and insights of long-time residents, usually active in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life. […]
Over the past six months, GVSHP has participated in the CUNY Corp service-learning program that places students in paid internships throughout the City. GVSHP’s intern, Oluwaseun Eleyinafe, a Lehman College Senior, wrote the post below on Allen Ginsberg and his poem ‘Kaddish.’ As one of the writers at the heart of the Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg […]
Some good news for small businesses and the written word in our neighborhoods. Bucking the prevailing trend of disappearing bookstores, we actually have two new ones in our neighborhood, and more may be on the way! This is a welcome development, and one worthy of celebration. First we welcome Codex Books to the neighborhood. Located […]
Over 80 new historic photos taken by Carole Teller were recently added to the GVSHP Image Archive. Every time we add photos to our collection, we uncover some great stories, like when a woman emailed us that her mother was the subject of this photo, a man let us know this is the only existing photo of his grandfather, […]
This weekend I went to the Whitney Museum, and as I was wandering around on the 7th Floor I found images of the Village that are familiar, nostalgic, bright, and utterly unique. Identifiable from a distance, Edward Hopper’s paintings live in moments of light, clear and still, while also evoking movement like film stills, eerie […]
Exploring African American history in our neighborhoods, today we look at Elizabeth Jennings Graham, a woman who, in her simple quest to get to her church on East 6th Street sparked one of earliest challenges to institutionalized racial discrimination in public accommodations. In 1854 Graham challenged the segregation of New York City’s trasportation system, about […]
1950 was a seminal year in the life of the “last rock star poet,” Dylan Thomas (October 27, 1914 –November 9, 1953). On February 20th of that year the much-celebrated Welsh poet arrived in New York to begin what would be the most exhilarating yet grueling period of his career. The period between 1950 and […]
Happy President’s Day! Though the Village is only one neighborhood in our great, big country (though ask any resident and they will say the Village should be its own country!), it has some distinct connections to several few of our nation’s past presidents. To celebrate the day, we are doing a roundup of our presidential […]
Greenwich Village has been known throughout its existence for breaking new ground and embracing outsiders. One often-forgotten but important element of that trailblazing narrative is the extraordinary role the Village played in relation to African American history. The neighborhood was home to North America’s earliest free Black settlement in the 17th century, to some of America’s […]
In continuing our celebration of black history, we have a new and exciting entry to our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map: North America’s First Freed Black Settlement. According to historian Christopher Moore, the first legally emancipated community of people of African descent in North America was found in Lower Manhattan, comprising much of present-day […]
Shampoo, the iconic movie satire, was released on February 11, 1975, but is set on Election Day 1968, the day Richard Nixon was first elected President of the United States. Released in 1975 soon after the Watergate scandal had reached its conclusion, the political atmosphere provides of the time provides a source of dramatic irony […]
Happy Valentine’s Day! For us at GVSHP, the Village, East Village, and NoHo are our Valentine, and we find new reasons to fall in love with them each and every day. In honor of the holiday, we are listing a few of the reasons why we love our neighborhoods, and ways you can get involved […]
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. There is only one place in New […]
Born on February 12, 1791, Peter Cooper left his mark on the world as a pioneering industrialist and inventor, and his mark on the Village as a great philanthropist. Cooper began his career as a coachmaker’s apprentice, although he had only one year of formal schooling. He also worked as a cabinet maker, hatmaker, brewer, and grocer. From these humble […]
Many New Yorkers were left reeling from the closure and demolition of the Landmark Sunshine Theater on East Houston Street in 2018. Just outside of Village Preservation’s catchment area, the Landmarks Sunshine was a beloved institution which had served up independent cinema for two decades, and in a past life was a Yiddish theater. In […]
The innocuous-looking apartment building at 226 East 13th Street, between Second and Third Avenues, may raise few eyebrows now. But on February 8, 1976, the building became synonymous in the popular imagination with drugs, prostitution, runaways, murder and mayhem, steeped in the urban decay which many saw as defining New York City in the 1970’s.
On February 7, 1960 the New York Times wrote an article discussing changes in Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side. Four years beforehand the El (above ground subway) had been removed from Third Avenue. With that barrier dismantled, Villagers from the west began to move east as “new shops, luxury and middle-income housing, and […]
The presence of banks in neighborhood retail spaces often elicit mixed feelings at best. Typically these tend to deaden the streetscape and are owned and operated by some faceless, distant multinational corporation. But banks also perform an incredibly necessary and important function for local residents. According to americanbanker.com, only 18% of seniors use mobile banking […]
I’ll take Manhattan! If you had to draw a picture of a New York playwright, you would probably draw someone like John Guare. Guare was born on February 5, 1938. A New Yorker’s New Yorker, he has lived in Greenwich Village with his wife, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, for 43 years. In his delightful piece in our […]
Our neighborhood has many wonderful intersections, where generations of history and culture intersect — too many, in fact, to easily do them all justice. But on February 2nd, the second day of the second month, we thought we’d take a closer look at just one of those intersections, Second Avenue and Second Street. It may […]
Fifty years ago this week, the Velvet Underground released their second album, “White Light/White Heat.” Their darkest record, it was also arguably the Velvet’s most influential, inspiring a generation of alternative musicians with the noisy, distorted sound with which the band came to be so closely identified. Perhaps the place with which the Velvets have come to […]
Black History Month gives us the opportunity to look at an important and too often overlooked or undervalued part of American, New York, and neighborhood history and highlighting. Within our neighborhoods, there is an incredible array of African American histories, contributions, and culture all around us — sometimes hiding in plain sight. African Americans have […]
World-renowned composer and East Village denizen Philip Glass was born on January 31, 1937 in Baltimore. The child of Jewish emigrants from Lithuania, his mother aided Holocaust survivors and recent arrivals to America by allowing them to stay at their home until they could find a job and a place to live. In 1964, Glass […]
On January 30, 1968, the Velvet Underground released their second studio album, White Light/White Heat. Following the band’s first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, released in 1967, the band parted ways with manager Andy Warhol and vocalist Nico. White Light/White Heat came out several months later to mixed reviews and barely cracked the Billboard 200, hitting 199 for only […]
To walk by the verdant, lush garden behind the graceful Jefferson Market Library today, one can scarcely imagine that it was once the site of an eleven-story prison, the notorious Women’s House of Detention. Found on our Civil Rights and Social Justice map, this former imposing edifice served as a prison from its opening on […]
This is an updated reposting of a blog by staffer, Matthew Morowitz, January 26th, 2016. Activist, leftist, and radical feminist — these are just some of the words used to describe Angela Davis, a scholar and civil rights leader and fighter who came to prominence in the countercultural era of the 1960’s. Davis was born on January […]
Like most of us who live and work in the city, it’s hard to imagine living or working anywhere else. I, myself, have struggled with this for many years. Where would I go if I left? Alas, I can think of no other city, at least in the U.S., that provides the culture, the depth […]
Today we are going to take a look at Temple Emanu-El located at 65th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It is New York’s largest synagogue, and by reputation is the largest Reform synagogue in the world. But this very uptown institution actually has some very downtown roots, which may surprise you.
On January 23, 1917, poet Gertrude Drick, painters John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp, and actors Russell Mann, Betty Turner, and Charles Ellis climbed to the top of Washington Square Arch. Drick read a declaration of independence for the “Free and Independent Republic of Washington Square” with the intent of having a neighborhood free from mainstream convention.
A while ago I wrote about a wonderful resource on the GVSHP website, the GVSHP Landmarks Application webpage. This page contains all upcoming, pending and closed applications for alterations, demolitions, and new construction on landmarked sites in our neighborhoods (Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo). It also lets you know how you can weigh […]
One of the facts of life that has always bummed me out is that I can’t visit history, to experience the past first-hand. Thankfully, though, GVSHP has just released Part 2 of our Historic Image Archive collection “Carole Teller’s Changing New York”. While the entire Carole Teller collection offers a wide-ranging view of New York […]
The disembodied church steeple sitting in front of a 26-story NYU dorm on East 12th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues makes for one of the more head-scratching sights in New York. This jarring juxtaposition results from a confluence of powerful New York forces, including religion, immigration, real estate, and the expanding appetite of one […]
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. What’s the West 8th Street stop for […]
In this part of New York, the Stuyvesant name is all around us: Stuyvesant Street, Stuyvesant Town, Stuyvesant Square, the old Stuyvesant Casino (a former East Village jazz club, now the site of the Ukrainian National Home) and, Stuyvesant Polyclinic, just to name a few. Many know that this stems from the Stuyvesant clan being the […]
On January 16, 2004, Jodie Lane was walking her dogs in the East Village, where they began to act erratically around the corner of 11th Street and 1st Avenue (about a block away from GVSHP’s offices). When Jodie went down to investigate, she received a fatal dose of electricity coming from a metal ConEd junction […]
For our first post in this series, we would like to highlight a pair of important and often overlooked landmarks. The Gould Memorial Library and Begrisch Hall are both located in a dramatic hilltop setting on the campus of Bronx Community College in the University Heights section of the Bronx.
The stately church building at 141-145 West 13th Street in the West Village is the picture of serene elegance. Built in 1846-47 in the Greek Revival style, the classical balance and symmetry of the façade mask a history full of controversy, including the birth of a notorious slur in American politics, which arguably changed the […]
In late April of last year, President Trump signed an Executive Order aimed at reviewing all National Monuments created under the Antiquities Act since 1996. As the Stonewall National Monument, designated in 2016, would fall within this review, many individuals and advocacy groups have voiced their concerns that the current administration might strip the monument […]
Nearly all of the East Village falls in line with the Manhattan street grid, dating back to the Commissioners’ Plan of 1811. However, one defiant street, only one block long, stands at odds with the grid, Stuyvesant Street. Running true East – West, it was named for Petrus Stuyvesant (1727-1805), the great-grandson of Petrus Stuyvesant […]
When a woman born into the privileged class bucks the system and comes into her own as an artist and philanthropist, a great story is born. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was decidedly born into the privileged class, on January 9, 1875. But the life she chose for herself was nothing short of revolutionary, having a huge […]
The tenth annual ranking of national retailers in New York City by the Center for an Urban Future (CUF) just came out, and it reveals a 1.8 percent increase in the number of store locations over last year in the city as a whole. You can see the full report here. The report breaks out […]
The former firehouse located at 84 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village is often noted for being the renovated and restored home of TV personality and journalist Anderson Cooper. But it’s just as noteworthy for an unusual history connected to Benjamin Franklin and insurance underwriters, and for not being the kind of firehouse you think it is at all. […]
On January 4, 2017, GVSHP released its report cataloging for the first time in one place all new buildings approved by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission in the Greenwich Village Historic District since its designation in 1969 — click HERE to see the report. It’s been updated since its release and to date, we have […]
On January 3, 2017, GVSHP launched our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. Something in the air told us there might be a hunger and need for this kind of information. But even we would not have guessed that the map would receive over 70,000 views in that time, with its praises sung in BrickUnderground, […]
Happy New Year! We here at GVSHP hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and look forward to 2018! Like many people everywhere, GVSHP has also made some resolutions for the New Year. Some of our biggest goals for this year center on our advocacy efforts, our Historic Image Archive, and our public programming. In 2018 […]
This post was originally published in 2011. One of the many wonderful things about our neighborhoods is the seemingly limitless possibility for surprises. Though small in scale and geography, the Village, East Village, and NoHo may have more unexpected and often unknown nooks and crannies than any other area of New York City. And sometimes […]
This is a re-posting of a piece originally written in 2011. Architect Phillip Johnson and others protesting the demolition of Pennsylvania Station We speak often of historic districts, individual landmarks and national and state register sites but, what do those terms really mean? This post will review how the designation of landmarks came to be, […]
The following is a re-post originally written by Sheryl Woodruff in 2011: An old photograph can help you find out more about the history of your building. The New York Public Library, whose digital gallery we here at GVSHP turn to quite frequently when looking for images to assist in our own research, recently included an article […]
The following is a re-post originally written in 2011: Word that the West Village’s 75 1/2 Bedford Street is back on the market always brings attention to the slender house in which Enda St. Vincent Millay is said to have written “my candle burns at both ends.” But it also raises the question of whether or not this truly […]
The following is a re-posting of a post by Elizabeth Finkelstein from 2011: Call it whatever you’d like: antique, vintage, or historic. If one thing is for certain, the Village is really, really old. Old by New York City standards, and even old by American standards. But which building is the oldest of the old? 121 Charles Street […]
This post by Dana Schulz originally ran in 2011. This secluded alley of beautiful pre-Civil War homes made recent real estate headlines when one of its houses, 5 Grove Court, went on the market for $4.2 million. The Corcoran listing describes its drool-worthy details: “exposed beams, 3 fireplaces, handsome working kitchen and a rooftop garden.” In fact, in 2003, Architectural […]
This is the latest installment of Off the Grid’s series, “My Favorite Things,” in which we showcase some of our very favorite spots around the neighborhood, highlighting the incredible architecture, history, people, and businesses of the Village, East Village, and NoHo; read more HERE. Holiday lights are one of my favorite things ANYWHERE they may […]
Most New Yorkers spend some time underground every day as part of their daily commute, but some spend eternity beneath our streets, and in a few cases occupy some pretty surprising real estate. Manhattan cemeteries are tougher to get into than Minetta Tavern without a reservation on a Saturday night because as far back as 1823, New […]
On December 21, 1969, the Gay Activist Alliance (GAA) was founded. Almost exactly six months after the Stonewall Riots, the group was founded by Marty Robinson, Jim Owles, and Arthur Evans, as an offshoot of the Gay Liberation Front. The GAA was intended to be a “single issue, politically neutral [organization]”, whose goal would be to […]
It’s the case every year – what we want for the holidays, much like every other time of year, is to save our neighborhood. On a very cold December 20, 2004, that was exactly our message when GVSHP hosted a press conference at which we asked the Mayor – at the time Michael Bloomberg – […]
“These are the times that try men’s souls…” so says the opening line of the first pamphlet of the series, The American Crisis, written by Thomas Paine, which was published on December 19, 1776, in the Pennsylvania Journal. Paine, an eighteenth-century philosopher and author of the Enlightenment, was known as the ‘Father of the American Revolution,’ in large […]
I manage GVSHP’s historic plaque program, through which we place two markers on buildings in our neighborhoods each year, highlighting their cultural or social significance. So I am always interested to see when a building has a similar such commemoration on it. One such plaque on Waverly Place has always caught my eye: “Prior Home […]
On December 15, 2016, the City Council approved a zoning change for the St. John’s Terminal site at West and Houston Streets that included a series of neighborhood protections and mitigations that GVSHP demanded. These included an agreement with the City for landmarking the final phase of GVSHP’s proposed South Village Historic District, restrictions on […]
On December 14th, 1963, the Presbytery of the City of New York officially voted that the historic Spring Street Presbyterian Church would close its doors at the end of the month of December, with the last service to be held on December 29, 1963. Why is this important to us today? For so many reasons, […]
