Did you know that Village Preservation members receive advance notice of many of our public programs? Our tours and other programs sometimes offer limited seating or spaces. By becoming a member, you can take advantage of that advanced notice and register before the general public. Find out how to become a member here.

For videos, details, and other media from our past programs, click here. 

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Film Screening of Maggie’s Plan

Location: Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Avenue (at 12th Street)

Announcing the kick-off event to the new 2024 joint public program series co-presented by Village Preservation and the Salmagundi Club Library Committee. 

The first in the series will be the screening of the film Maggie’s Plan, the acclaimed 2015 romantic comedy. Much of it was shot in Greenwich Village, very near the Salmagundi clubhouse. Starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Travis Fimmel, written and directed by Rebecca Miller based on an original story by Karen Rinaldi (later published as the 2017 novel The End of Men). Approx 100 minutes.

What the critics say:
Rotten Tomatoes (86% rating): “With a typically absorbing performance from Greta Gerwig leading the way, Maggie’s Plan gives rom-com sensibilities a smart, subversive twist.”

Variety’s Dennis Harvey: “Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, and Julianne Moore making a pleasing triangle in Rebecca Miller’s offbeat romantic comedy.”

Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair: “a smart, goofy delight,” praising the cast as being in “near-perfect harmony, creating a lively, inviting hum.”

Free popcorn provided. Drinks available at the Wiggins Bar.
All attendees are invited to enjoy dinner afterward in the Club Restaurant — advance reservations are strongly suggested.

*Please note that for non-Salmagundi Club members the restaurant and bar are credit card ONLY, cash will not be accepted.

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New York City’s Forgotten Jazz Age Best-Selling Author, Ursula Parrott

Once the most famous ex-wife in America, Ursula Parrott (1899-1957) was a prolific and best-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and headline-grabber. Parrott was Boston-born and -educated (at Boston Girls’ School and Radcliffe), but spent her adult life in New York City, where she set many of her stories, starting with her debut best-seller, Ex-Wife (1929), recently republished by McNally Editions. Parrott wrote dozens of tales about working women in Manhattan who ascend to the peak of their fields, often while trying to balance child-rearing and romance. Her tales that took place all over the city, especially in Greenwich Village during the wild and wonderful 1930s.

Ten films were made based on Parrott’s writing, mostly in the 1930s, and she worked as a screen and story writer out of Astoria as well as during several stints in Hollywood. Her words gave Norma Shearer her only Academy Award with the New York City adultery-and-divorce drama, The Divorcee (1930), and launched Jimmy Stewart’s career as a lead actor in yet another New York tale, Next Time We Love (1936). Gordon’s presentation will focus on the details of Jazz Age New York in Parrott’s stories as she also discusses the years Parrott spent in Manhattan, and will be richly illustrated with images and some short clips from the movies that were made of her stories.

Marsha Gordon is Professor of Film Studies at North Carolina State University, a past Fellow at the National Humanities Center, and a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar. She is the author of numerous books and articles, and co-director of several award-winning short documentaries. Her latest book is Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life & Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott (2023).

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Radicals and Rogues: The Women Who Made New York Modern with Lottie Whalen

From artists to activists, this new book is explosive and eye-opening new history of the women who gave us New York.

This is the story of a group of women whose experiments in art and life set the tone for the rise of New York as the 20th-century capital of modern culture. Across the 1910s and ’20s, through provocative creative acts, shocking fashion, political activism, and dynamic social networks, these women reimagined modern life and fought for the chance to realize their visions. Taking the reader on a journey through the city’s salons and bohemian hangouts, Radicals and Rogues celebrates the tastemakers, collectors, curators, artists, and poets at the forefront of the early avant-garde scene, which was particularly concentrated in our downtown neighborhoods. Focusing on these trailblazers at the center of artistic innovation — including Beatrice Wood, Mina Loy, the Stettheimer sisters, Clara Tice, the Baroness Elsa von Freytag Loringhoven, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Marguerite Zorach, and Louise Arensberg — Lottie Whalen offers a lively new history of remarkable women in early 20th-century New York City.

Lottie Whalen is a writer, researcher, and curator working in the fields of feminist history, avant-garde art, and textiles. She is the cofounder of Decorating Dissidence, an interdisciplinary arts project that considers radical histories of craft and its potential as a force for change in the modern day. She lives in Glasgow.

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Edgar Allan Poe: the Man, the Mystery, the Legend!

In celebration and observance of his birthday on January 19 (his 214th), join thanatologist Matilda Garrido and Poe expert Andrea Janes for a deep dive into Poe’s early life and evolution as a writer, his time in New York, when he lived just steps from the Merchants House, and his mysterious death in Baltimore. If you join us live, you’ll have an opportunity to submit questions in the chat as well as 60 minutes with Q&A.

Andrea Janes is the owner and founder of Boroughs of the Dead and the co-author of A Haunted History of Invisible Women. She has also written the YA novel Glamour and several short stories. She lives in Brooklyn, where she can usually be found roaming in a cemetery, swimming in the ocean, or telling ghost stories to her daughter.

Matilda Garrido is a certified thanatologist (Association for Death Education and Counseling) and holds master’s degrees in thanatology and bioethics. She has extensive experience working with the dying, families of the dying, and the bereaved. Matilda is focused on normalizing the experience of grief and reducing death fears through education, action, and increased community support for the dying and grieving. She enthusiastically supports the mission of the Merchant’s House Museum, including its exploration of 19th century death practices and contemporary death education.

This is a virtual program. You will receive a confirmation email from Zoom within 15 minutes of placing your order, and a reminder email one hour before the program.