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VILLAGE VOICES II Launches September 18th

Village Preservation is pleased to announce the 2nd year of VILLAGE VOICES, an outdoor public art exhibition produced by Village Preservation that celebrates and illuminates the artistic, social, political, and cultural movements of our neighborhoods, and the people who gave voice to them.

Using the streets of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo as our stage, we tie the past with the present with 25 interactive exhibits that highlight the history of the trailblazing people and places of our neighborhoods. The exhibits feature photographs, artifacts, soundscape recordings, and installations that give inspiring and educational insight into the incomparable history and heritage of our neighborhoods. The exhibition will be complemented by public programming throughout the run and deeper digital content on our website.

The twenty-four art installations include ones dedicated to writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, jazz singer Billie Holiday, Café Society (a club created to showcase African-American talent and the first racially integrated nightclub in the U.S.), and Jane Jacobs, a journalist, author, theorist, and activist who influenced urban studies, sociology, and economics, and whose book The Death and Life of Great American Cities argued that “urban renewal did not respect the needs of city dwellers.” New sites and locations of the shadowboxes include Jean-Michel Basquiat, E. E. Cummings, Merce Cunningham, John W. Draper, Martha Graham, Lorraine Hansberry, Edward Hopper, Helen Levitt, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Joan Mitchell, Joe Papp, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Jackson Pollock, Leontyne Price, Robert Rauschenberg, Maurice Sendak, Patti Smith, and the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

This year, in addition to the shadowbox installations, we are featuring two multifaceted, interactive large-scale installations in partnership with The New School, The Meatpacking District Management Association, Doyle Partners, and MADE Design/Build.

A Monument to Choice will be on display in Gansevoort Plaza. It is a physical and social media platform where people can rise up to show their support in standing for choice in all its meanings and iterations; a destination to make your statement.

70 Fifth Avenue will host a large-scale installation in honor of the trailblazers who created social change from that building. Village Preservation fought successfully to win landmark designation for the 1912 Beaux Arts-style office building that is among several critical civil rights sites Village Preservation has proposed and campaigned to have landmarked in the area south of Union Square. The building served as the headquarters of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, in its early campaigns against lynching, employment discrimination, and voting disenfranchisement. The New School for Social Research came to 70 Fifth Avenue in 1972. A significant institution long associated with Greenwich Village, it was founded in 1919 as a progressive center for adult education. The New School has continued the mission of education for the last 50 years.

Village Preservation continues its fight to preserve and protect the entire area South of Union Square. You can read more about our efforts and find out how to help us achieve that goal here.

W.E.B. Du Bois and 70 Fifth Avenue

All of the installations will be accompanied by digital content accessed through QR codes on each exhibit with narrations recorded by a variety of Village residents, including Rachel Maddow, John Leguizamo, Norman Reedus, Dr. Imani Perry, Jeff Rosenheim, Amy Sedaris, Sienna Miller, and Edward Norton, among others.

On Sunday, September 18th we will have many special events to mark Opening Day of VILLAGE VOICES, including an unveiling ceremony at 1:00 PM to herald the opening of the exhibit, as well as public walking tours throughout our neighborhoods and a watercolor workshop with Nick Golebiewski in Washington Square Park.

This ticketed event which will benefit Village Preservation will include an exclusive tour and preview of the exhibition sites with printed catalogues, audio guides, and live performances followed by The Village Ball at the newly restored Jefferson Market Library.

To purchase tickets for the Opening Day Benefit, please visit VILLAGE VOICES BENEFIT

Following the opening day, a map of the sites will be published on Village Preservation’s website. An announcement and a link to the map will be sent to all of our members and friends via eblast on September 19th.

We are deeply grateful for the support of our many Founders and supporters, with special thanks to:

Benefactor Craig Newmark Philanthropies; Visionaries Douglas Elliman Real Estate, Rob and Nina Kaufelt, Arthur A. Levin, Fred Wistow, MADE Design/Build, and Doyle Partners

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