If Beale Street Could Talk is the newest release from award-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins. The film is Jenkins’s adaptation of a novella by James Baldwin of the same name. The story, based in 1970s New York City, is about mother-and-wife-to-be Tish, who vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her […]
Napoleon Eugene Charles Henry LeBrun, a prominent and prolific American architect of the late 19th century, was born on January 2, 1821. He began his career in Philadelphia and designed a number of notable buildings there and other Pennsylvania towns. In 1864 he moved his family and his practice to New York City. He would […]
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. Few businesses survive decades. Fewer still survive […]
Straddling Greenwich Village and the East Village, the neighborhood south of Union Square between Fifth and Third Avenues was once a center of groundbreaking commercial innovations, radical leftist politics, and the artistic avant-garde. With the city’s recent decision to allow an upzoning for a “Tech Hub” on the neighborhood’s doorstep on 14th Street, there are […]
I was holiday shopping at my local bookstore and was delighted to encounter Emily Jenkins’ “All of a Kind Family Hanukkah.” In the book, a Jewish immigrant family prepares for Chanukah in their Lower East Side Tenement in 1912. The family’s four daughters share a room, make latkes, throw tantrums, and in the end light […]
Privately owned public spaces, or POPS, are public areas adjoining or adjacent to buildings created through incentivized zoning. What this zoning means is that by providing a public space, developers are given a floor area bonus, allowing them to build a larger building with a greater Floor Area Ratio (FAR) than they would have been […]
New York City is full of hidden surprises that even the most dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker may not know about. One such example is the elusive “backhouse” or rear house. There are literally scores of these hidden structures throughout the older neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan like Greenwich Village and the East Village. But because they are […]
“For all of us who were worried that the conservative backlash in this country would bring about unnamed terrible things, the future is now.” These words date to November 1980, and were written by activist and journalist Andy Humm following the mass shooting at the Ramrod bar on West Street in Greenwich Village on November […]
“Small Business Saturday” is this coming Saturday, a day to promote the independent retailers and other businesses that enrich our neighborhoods. To help you help our local small businesses, we’ve compiled a list of books that we have featured this year at our free public programs, along with local bookstores where you can buy them […]
With the colder air, the shorter days, and the mania of holiday planning that come with late November, it seems right to start spending more time in the warm, comfortable indoors. And looking through our Historic Image Archive, while our neighborhood’s building facades and street life take center stage, it’s also nice to note the […]
This post is part of a series about our favorite things in and about the Village. Andrew Berman, GVSHP’s Executive Director since 2002, has a plethora of favorite things about our neighborhoods, so it’s hard to press him for a discreet list. But there are a few things that Andrew feels particularly passionate about, […]
On November 1, 1871, one of America’s most influential writers, Stephen Crane, was born in Newark, New Jersey. He is probably best know for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage, which he wrote from his home at 61 Washington Square South, part of what was known as “Genius Row” — so named […]
GVSHP has partnered with the free Urban Archive App over the past year to share our historic image archive via this location-based tool. As part of this partnership, we conducted scavenger hunts in the East Village and Greenwich Village, and created guided walking tours of the Bowery and Meatpacking District. Now we’re sharing the opportunity […]
In a recent application to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to make some changes to the building at 770 Broadway (8th/9th Streets), there is a great picture of this impressive building being constructed; the photos from this application are now part of our historic image archive. This photo really showcases the construction technology of a steel […]
Among the many delights included in this weekend’s Open House New York will be three iconic Greenwich Village buildings–a Gothic Revival church with many architectural firsts, a library that was originally a courthouse which heard the “Trial of the Century,” and a groundbreaking artists’ housing complex that was formerly home to Bell Telephone Labs and the site […]
The New York City subway system is messy, crowded, unreliable, full of musicians, and generally teeming with folks who will bowl you over if you’re not careful. It’s also full of art. Graffiti and advertisements, yes, but that’s not the kind of art we’re talking about. The stations themselves were built with art. The tiles may be […]
Gay Street is one of the most charming and picturesque streets in Greenwich Village, an icon of the historic neighborhood’s anachronistic character. But the origins of its name are hotly debated, with the LGBT rights movement and abolitionism often cited as the source of its unusual nomenclature. And while the street certainly has strong connections to […]
The Village is known as one of the oldest parts of New York City, where historic architecture can be found everywhere, and charming houses from a bygone era still stand. Here at the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, a perennial question we’re asked is “which is the oldest house in the Village?” It’s a […]
This post is part of a series about Village intersections that correspond to the date. September is here and a new month means a new corresponding Village intersection! Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue is now the site of several large apartment buildings, but did you know it was once the location of the famous Brevoort […]
We recently unveiled the new addition to our Historic Image Archive, Carole Teller’s Changing New York, Part 4, which includes about two hundred fifty images of Greenwich Village, the East Village, NoHo, the Lower East Side, and everywhere from Times Square to the Financial District from the 1960s to the 1990s. Between Carol’s memory and our […]
It’s an often-overlooked enclave with the largest concentration of Federal and Greek Revival style houses in New York City. Its origins can be traced back to historical figures as esteemed as George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jacob Astor, but it’s just as deeply connected to Italian immigrants and radical 20th-century innovators. The […]
It’s not often that a building plays a starring role in a major motion picture. But in In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, which premiered on August 1st, 1954, that is exactly the case. Most people know that Hitchcock set the film in Greenwich Village, but did you know that the location he used as a […]
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 something especially welcoming when you […]
In the mid-1970s, New York City was falling apart. Its finances, infrastructure, and social cohesion were, figuratively speaking, crumbling. But in one very tragic case, they were literally crumbling, too. And it all came tumbling down on August 3, 1973, when what was once one of the world’s grandest hotels (which had more recently become known for […]
Last week we shared an online Historic Bowery Walking Tour. This week we are sharing a walking tour of the Gansevoort Market Historic District, landmarked in 2003 thanks to efforts by GVSHP. Back in 2002 GVSHP wrote: “Gansevoort Market is one of Manhattan’s defining neighborhoods – gritty, hard-working, low-rise, with its own special character, and a rich collection […]
The Young Lords announced the founding of their New York Chapter in Tompkins Square Park on July 26, 1969. The Puerto Rican nationalist group started as a turf gang in Chicago’s Lincoln Park in 1960, but by the mid-60s had transformed into a civil and human rights movement, led by Jose Cha Cha Jimenez.
Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales […]
Twenty years ago, on July 20, 1998, Mayor Rudy Giuliani sold former Public School 64 on the Lower East Side, then home to the Charas-El Bohio Community and Cultural Center, to a developer, despite opposition from the building’s occupants and the surrounding community. The decision and the building remain mired in controversy to this day. Community groups […]
The Village is a very far cry from the Nebraska prairie where Willa Cather spent much of her childhood. But her most productive writing period was indeed while she lived in various apartments in the Village, where she lovingly and vividly wrote about the people and places she knew and cherished from her childhood in […]
They Lived on West 9th Street: Dashiell Hammett is the 4th in a series. Dashiell Hammett (May 27, 1894 – January 10, 1961) is arguably one of the most mysterious and alluring characters of American 20th century literature. Dashing and elusive, he rose from nothing to becoming one of the most celebrated of American writers.
They Lived on West 9th Street: S. J. Perelman is the 3rd in a series. Born in Brooklyn in 1904, S.J. Perelman grew up in Providence RI, the son of a dry goods store owner. Perelman entered Brown University in 1921 but dropped out in order to pursue his dreams in New York City. He […]
On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, an event that led to the start of World War I. While the Archduke himself bears few of any ties to the Village, WWI had a significant impact on the social and cultural life of the neighborhood and beyond. The atrocities of WWI marked an […]
On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5 to 4 decision (United States v. Windsor), declared unconstitutional part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which defined marriage solely as a legal union between a man and a woman. This landmark case had its roots here in the Village with the […]
Recently, I responded to a portion of a recent “report” by the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) that (incredibly, but predictably for REBNY) blamed the retail vacancy crisis impacting our city on landmarking and historic districts. In that case, they misrepresented and inflated the number of days until storefront permit is issued by the […]
This picturesque wintry scene of Christopher Street was painted by Greenwich Village resident and artist Beulah Bettersworth in 1934. Looking west from Hudson Street along Christopher, it shows the Ninth Avenue El Christopher Street Station and St. Veronica’s Church beyond. Currently, this painting is part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. […]
On June 15, 1904, a disaster of unprecedented proportions took place in New York City, resulting in the loss of over 1,000 lives, mostly women and children. This largely forgotten event was the greatest peacetime loss of life in New York City history prior to the September 11th attacks, forever changing our city and the […]
Walking through the 11th Street horse-walk into the courtyard of St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church is like walking through a magical passageway into a holy place. It’s all the more meaningful knowing that this passageway was used by countless anonymous Villagers with HIV/AIDS beginning in the 1990’s, all of whom were on their […]
Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, one of Greenwich Village’s most inventive and exciting producers of new works, is partnering with GVSHP, the NYC AIDS Memorial Board, St. John’s in the Village, and the Stonewall Chorale to present a new play by Villager Cusi Cram. With dramaturgy by Villager Guy Lancaster, and starring (former Villager!) Kathleen Chalfant (Angels […]
June is Pride Month, which makes it especially exciting time to be in the Village. LGBT history is closely tied with the Village and environs, and throughout the course of this month we’re focusing on four areas of our neighborhood — the West Village, East Village, South Village, and NoHo — to highlight important locations, […]
“What thoughts I have of you, tonight, Walt Whitman.” This opening line of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “A Supermarket in California,” draws meandering inspiration from one of New York’s most renowned meanderers, Walt Whitman, who was born on May 31, 1819. But the admiration of noted East Village poet Allen Ginsberg is only one of many connections […]
One of the most radical and influential women of the 19th century changed the course of public health history while living and working in Greenwich Village and the East Village. Elizabeth Blackwell, America’s first female doctor, established cutting-edge care facilities and practices throughout these neighborhoods, the imprint of which can still be felt to this […]
Greenwich Locksmiths, located in the heart of the Greenwich Village Historic District, is one of our 2018 Village Awardees. Located at 56 Seventh Avenue South for the last several decades, this Village fixture and its owner embody what is truly special about our neighborhood.
The 20th Annual Spring House Tour Benefit on May 6th, 2018 featured an array of homes unlike any others in the tour’s twenty year history. Tour goers and volunteers alike were delighted by the variety and depth of interest in each and every dwelling. Today we have a round up of those gorgeous homes.
Anthology Film Archives is an international center dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema. GVSHP is proud to honor Anthology Film Archives with a 2018 Village Awards at our upcoming June 6th Annual Meeting & Award Ceremony. Click here for more information about the event and […]
Jane Jacobs’ birthday on May 4 is marked throughout the world as an occasion to celebrate one’s own city — its history, diversity, and continued vitality. “Jane’s Walks” are conducted across the country to encourage average citizens to appreciate and engage the complex and dazzling ecosystems which make up our cityscapes (Here in NYC, MAS is […]
William Shakespeare is believed to have been born on April 23, 1564, and coincidentally died 52 years later on April 23, 1616. Of course his legacy continues to live on throughout the world, and can certainly be felt right here in Greenwich Village.
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
“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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Our neighborhoods are home to many charms and delights, known throughout the world. But they’ve also been home to more than their fair share of horror and mayhem. Below are just a few of the more notorious examples that have wreaked havoc upon our neighborhoods. The Butchery on Bond Street On January 31st, 1857, dentist […]
In a city filled to the brim with galleries, museums, artists’ studios, and, of course, avid art lovers, we’ve all undoubtedly walked by a display of Pop Art at some point. From sidewalk tables of Warhol-esque souvenirs, to t-shirts and tote bags featuring iconic pieces, and even to public works, the over-60-year-old movement is still […]
There’s no shortage of sites in the Village and East Village where great makers of popular music lived or performed. Less well known, however, are the multitude of sites that were the backdrop for iconic album covers, sometimes sources of inspiration for the artists or just familiar stomping grounds. Today, many are hiding in plain […]
Underneath the lyrical and much-admired sherbet-colored facades of the twin lofts at 827-831 Broadway lies a New York tale like no other. Incorporating snuff, sewing machines, and cigar store Indians; Abstract Expressionists; and the “antique dealer to the stars,” it also involves real estate and big money, and the very real threat of the wrecking ball. Ahead, […]
The utilitarian building at 151 Avenue C between 9th and 10th Streets would hardly elicit a second glance from the casual passerby today. But its unassuming looks belie the incredible story of how Gilded Age science and philanthropy converged here to save thousands of children’s lives. In the 1800s, intestinal infections and diseases like tuberculosis caused by […]
On this day in 1970, the Landmarks Preservation Commission granted landmark status to the dignified Greek Revival house at 37 East 4th Street. This three and a half story house was built in 1844-45 by Samuel Tredwell Skidmore, a relative of Seabury Tredwell, who lived with his family only a few doors away at 29 East 4thStreet, […]
Everyone knows the folk-rock classic “Summer in the City” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, which topped the charts 51 years ago this August in 1966. But fewer know the song’s roots in Greenwich Village–lead singer John Sebastian actually grew up in the neighborhood and the act got their start in the local clubs–and fewer still know […]
