Village Preservation regularly works to recognize the many women who shaped our communities, culture, and struggles for equality. Few places in New York contain as many layers of women’s history as the area south of Union Square, where Greenwich Village and the East Village meet. Village Preservation has long advocated for landmark protections for this […]
Elizabeth Blackwell (February 3, 1821–May 31, 1910) was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree and was a pioneering figure whose work reshaped both medicine and the social history of our neighborhoods. Over the years, Village Preservation has returned again and again to Blackwell’s story, tracing her footsteps through Greenwich […]
In 2021 and 2022, Village Preservation developed an innovative outdoor public art exhibition that was displayed throughout Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. VILLAGE VOICES featured photographs, artifacts, and soundscape recordings to celebrate and honor the artistic, social, political, and cultural movements that have grown in our neighborhoods, and the people who gave them […]
The roots of LGBTQ+ life in our neighborhoods are deeper than we even know. In the documentary PS. Burn This Letter Please, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and was presented at one of Village Preservation’s Pride programs, gay historian George Chauncey spoke about using police records and newspaper articles because personal papers […]
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree, which she put to great use when she opened in NoHo the first infirmary run by women for women. Born on February 3, 1821, in Bristol England, Blackwell and her family moved to the United States in 1832. Following the […]
It times of great uncertainty or need, special people emerge to address challenges that face us all. Often it starts with the plight of the most vulnerable among us, which if not attended, can spread to the larger society. This Women’s History Month we take a look at once such special figure — a woman who […]
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 […]
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 […]