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, […]
Greenwich Village is known as the birthplace of many things – the modern gay rights movement, Off-Broadway theater, the New York School of artists and poets, the “new urbanism” pioneered by Jane Jacobs, among many other trailblazing firsts. Less closely associated with the Village, however, are radical and transformative innovations in transportation technology. But while […]
On this date in 2016, the Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted to designate the final piece of GVSHP’s proposed South Village Historic District, an incredibly important part of our rich history. After a hard-fought, ten-year campaign led by GVSHP, three new historic districts were created including the Greenwich Village Historic District Extension II in 2010, the South Village Historic District in 2013, […]
Many today are too young to remember that the name LaGuardia didn’t always just refer what is frequently called the worst airport in America. Rather, it also referred to a three-term New York City mayor often cited as New York City’s best mayor (and arguably both its first Italian-American and first Jewish mayor), who championed political […]
My colleague, Director of Research and Preservation Sarah Bean Apmann (she tells me that “Exalted Majesty Tour Guide” also works as a title), led the first GVSHP walking tour that I attended – our Bleecker Street walking tour – and I was so lucky to have been there. I have walked up and down Bleecker Street countless times, […]
Perhaps no single photographer could be said to have captured the energy, the cultural ferment, the reverberating social change emanating from New York City in the second half of the 20th century as vividly as Fred W. McDarrah. McDarrah got his start covering the downtown beat of the Village Voice in the 1950s and ’60s, as that […]
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. Where can you see a play or […]
A film industry location scout with a keen eye for settings, Meredith Jacobson Marciano has been an East Village resident since 1986. An avid photographer with an eye for pop culture, ephemera, and architecture, Meredith captured on film some of her favorite places and the most striking sites she passed in her wanderings through the […]
On December 5, 2012, GVSHP asked the New York State Office of Historic Preservation to find Julius’ Bar (a Village Award winner) eligible for the State and National Registers of Historic Places based upon research and documentation we provided (click HERE to see the letter), citing its critically important place not just in New York […]
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. Greenwich Village has been a hot-bed for creative theatrical minds since […]
Through his writing, televised debates, and public speaking across the globe, author and activist James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 — December 1, 1987) was a vital voice for the civil rights movement. He was part of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as well as the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. From 1958 to 1961 […]
Jimi Hendrix would have turned 75 this week. In his brief 27 years and even briefer musical career, Hendrix left an indelible mark upon guitar playing and rock music, permanently transforming both art forms. But perhaps in some ways his most lasting impact came from a project completed just three weeks before his death–the opening of Electric […]
If you look at Astor Place and Cooper Square on a map, it looks as though somebody took a lasso and tied a bunch of streets together. Multiple streets and thoroughfares converge and diverge here, and perhaps because of that, this New York City nexus has a long and varied history. One longtime witness to […]
On November 29, 1924, artist Jane Freilicher was born. Freilicher was a member of the New York School, “an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s and 1960s in New York City.” She was also a long-time Village resident and has even included her own recollections about her life […]
I found this cool photo in the archives of Fred McDarrah’s work and the neon sign for “The Village Barn” immediately caught my eye. I had no idea what this place was and, intrigued, I of course, consulted Facebook. Turns out that when the Village Barn closed in the late 1960s, it became the basement […]
Who doesn’t know the opening notes? Who can’t recognize the wild, seething energy behind them? Who hasn’t seen his face, wavering with smoke and mystery? We heard him at concerts and celebrations all over the world. We watched and heard those first stark notes at Woodstock. We see him in his bright, colorful outfits. We […]
The Center for Migration Studies of New York is a think tank and educational institute devoted to the study of international migration, the promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and to public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. They have a huge archive documenting the early 20th-century South Village Italian […]
As we reflect upon the turbulence of the past year, we at GVSHP are continually reminded that while the times may be tough, we have an abundance of things for which we are deeply grateful. We have prevailed in several of our most “nail biting” issues. And we continue to fight another day!
On November 22, 1909, a frail 23-year-old woman, who’d been brutally beaten by strike-breakers, was helped up onto the stage of the Great Hall at the Cooper Union. Leaders of the labor movement – all men – had been speaking for hours to a crowd of thousands, speaking out against poor garment factory working conditions […]
On November 20, 1981, The Clash’s genre-defying record ‘This Is Radio Clash’ was released. The band’s last stand-alone single, it presaged not only the direction the band would go in years to come, but also the direction of much of popular music in the decades which followed.
I recently wrote about the rich and interesting cultural history behind the Ukrainian National Home, located at 140-142 Second Avenue just south of 9th Street in the East Village, for the website 6sqft. That incredibly diverse story extends from Peter Stuyvesant and his direct descendants to German teetotalers, Jewish gangsters, Ukrainian Nationalists, Dixieland Jazz stars, […]
On 2nd Avenue, just south of 9th Street at No. 140-142, sits one of the East Village’s oddest structures. Clad in metal and adorned with Cyrillic lettering, the building sports a slightly downtrodden and forbidding look, seeming dropped into the neighborhood from some dystopian sci-fi thriller. In reality, for the last half century the building […]
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. Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village has always […]
On November 14, 1851, Herman Melville’s magnum opus, Moby-Dick, was published. Unlike the search for a white whale, it isn’t difficult to find Melville’s deep connection to the Village, as his grandfather is the namesake of Gansevoort Market.
Last time we put out a call to the public to help us solve some mysteries in historic photos, we got a great response. While we have identified many of the people and places in the photos on GVSHP’s growing image archive, some still remain a mystery, and therefore we are putting out a call […]
Last week I took a break from my normal duties as GVSHP’s Director of Research and Preservation and led about forty people on a tour of Bleecker Street as part of the #ShopBleecker initiative of the Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce. I confess that I was a bit nervous as this role of tour […]
West Village history can’t be said to live in any one person, but Otis Kidwell Burger has seen a great deal of it, and holds a great deal more in her family tree. She grew up with abolitionists and suffragists, and watched Jane Jacobs get arrested protesting the proposed Lower Manhattan expressway. She threw literary […]
November 25th is Small Business Saturday to supporting shopping local small shops. We recently hosted an architectural walking tour of Bleecker Street to draw attention to the array of shops on that classic strip and are attending the small business forum tomorrow being convened by Senator Holyman. Today we are doing a round up of […]
Some of the most important events and most prominent figures in the labor movement bear strong connections to the Village and East Village. Without these courageous individuals, or the events connected to them, we might never have had fair wages, better working conditions, or the right to collective bargaining. Below are a few standout homes […]
Today we look back on a critical milestone in the health of our democracy and a red letter day for the State of New York. The achievement of full voting rights for women in New York State came three years before the certification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution on August 26, 1920 granted […]
On November 3, 1916, the Provincetown Players performed their first production in their new home in Greenwich Village. The theater company performed King Arthur’s Socks by Floyd Dell, The Game by Louise Bryant, and Bound East for Cardiff by a young, relatively unknown Eugene O’Neill. Referred to as “the birthplace of modern drama”, the Provincetown Playhouse staged the works […]
The African Free School was founded on November 2, 1787 in Lower Manhattan by the New-York Manumission Society and founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. It was the very first school for blacks in America. Ultimately consisting of seven schools, the system’s third school was located in Greenwich Village, at 120 west 3rd Street, then known […]
On November 1, 1967, an enigmatic 20-foot-tall cube first appeared on a lonely traffic island where Astor Place and 8th Street meet. Though several months before the release of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the one-ton Cor-Ten steel sculpture shared many qualities with the sci-fi classic’s inscrutable “black monolith,” at once both opaque and impenetrable and […]
On November 1, 1967, an 8′ x 8′ x 8′ 1,800-pound giant black cube was installed in Astor Place as one of 25 temporary public artworks by the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. However, it was so popular that local residents petitioned the City to keep it, and except for its absences for restorations over the past few years, it […]
As a surprise Halloween treat, this year’s Bowery Boys ghost stories podcast is focused all on the Village! While some of the stories are quite familiar to us at GVSHP, two particularly caught our eyes and ears: one about a haunted NYU dorm and the other about a townhouse on Bank Street…
On October 30, 2007, GVSHP submitted a request to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission that they consider 101 Avenue A (6th/7th Streets) in the East Village as an individual New York City landmark. The request attracted quite a bit of attention, and was soon referred to as a push to make the building New York […]
Who would have thought that the basement of a Catholic church would serve as a crucible of creativity in the East Village in the early Reagan era? One did, however, and it is the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern art called “Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, […]
On October 26, 1900, two great writers with ties to the Village began a correspondence that would spark a lifelong friendship…
Few structures have had a more far-reaching impact upon the West Village and Chelsea than the High Line. Its construction in 1934, then partial demolition in the early ’60s, and final preservation and conversion into a park a decade ago have profoundly shaped the way these neighborhoods have changed over the last 85 years. And while […]
We had a promising hearing last Tuesday at the Landmarks Preservation Commission on our proposed landmark designation of 827-831 Broadway, with a vote planned for this coming Tuesday, October 31st. We’re hoping for an outcome that will be more treat than trick (if you want to do more than hope, send a letter here); for good […]
