Highlights from the Village Independent Democrats 1970s Collection
This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights our new Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive.
The Village Independent Democrats (VID) are a reform democratic club founded in 1956. In 2023, the club donated their archives to Village Preservation. In early 2024 we release the first part of those digitized archives covering 1955-69, and we have now released the second part of the collection covering 1970-79. Today we’ll highlight just a few of the interesting items found in there.
1973 Tony Dapolito Dinner Dance
The collection includes a program for a 1973 Dinner Dance co-sponsored by the Village Independent Democrats in honor of Anthony Dapolito, a celebrated community advocate. As highlighted in the program, which appropriately dubs him “Mr. Greenwich Village,” Tony Dapolito was born in Greenwich Village in 1920, and became involved in community work in 1953 as helped oppose a proposed South Village housing development. Dapolito continued to work in the Greenwich Village community and eventually became the chairman for Community Board 2. Much of his work focused on parks and playground advocacy, and he participated in some of the most pivotal community battles, such as fighting Robert Moses’s proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway. He also ran his families bakery, Vesuvio, which he began working at as a bread baker at age 15.
Following his death in 2003, the Carmine Street Recreation was named the Tony Dapolito Recreation Center in honor of his service to the community. Village Preservation is now fighting to save that historic building from demolition.
VID: The DeSapio Years
Arguably, VID are most well known for their work during the 1960s to unseat Tammany Hall Leader Carmine DeSapio. DeSapio was the long term democratic district leader for the area, until 1961, when VID supported Carol Greitzer and James Lanigan in an election against him. The pair would successfully defeat DeSapio and his female running mate Elsie Gleason Mattura. In 1963, VID again supported Greitzer, this time running with future NYC Mayor Ed Koch, who again defeated DeSapio. These elections successfully removed the hold of Tammany Hall control of New York Democratic Politics. Although this happened during the early 1960s, it is highlighted in this collection through “VID The DeSapio Years” a booklet produced by VID which looks at their work in this battle.
1977 20th Anniversary VID Annual Dinner
The collection includes VID Annual Dinner programs from dinners throughout the 1970s. At the 1977 annual dinner, the club celebrated their 20th anniversary. The guest of honor was the Honorable Midge Constanza, who was the Assistant to the President for Public Liaison who was a lifelong advocate for women’s and gay rights. The annual dinner program included a list of past VID Presidents, list of event attendees and guest speakers.
This information comes from the latest addition to our Preservation History Archive, the Village Independent Collection: 1970-1979. Check out this collection, and the previously-released 1955-1969 Collection, to learn more about the group, and the important contributions they made to Greenwich Village and all of New York City.