Preserving Women’s History South of Union Square
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 neighborhood through the proposed South of Union Square Historic District. As outlined in our letter to the Landmarks Preservation Commission just prior to Women’s History Month in 2021, the area features an extraordinary concentration of sites tied to the fight for women’s rights, advances in health care, artistic innovation, and social reform.
One essential site that we succeeded in getting landmarked is 70 Fifth Avenue. Designated shortly after that letter was sent, the building has been home to an amazing array of civil rights and progressive organizations throughout its history. It has been the headquarters of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, founded by renowned women’s rights and peace activist Crystal Eastman, and the Woman’s Peace Party, led by Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Fanny Garrison Villard.
The building at the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 13th Street was also home to The Crisis Magazine, not only the first African American magazine ever published but also one with a notable commitment to gender equality, providing leadership roles to women and showcasing the works of many female writers and artists. Led by literary editor Jessie Redmon Fauset, “the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance,” The Crisis published works by emerging female writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Elizabeth Ross Haynes’ Unsung Heroes (1921) was also published at 70 Fifth Avenue, a book about “the lives of seventeen men and women of the Negro race told in a way to inspire the children of our time” including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Phillis Wheatley.
Unfortunately, nearly all other locations connected to women’s history South of Union Square remain unprotected today. At nearby 80 Fifth Avenue, the International Workers Order operated a pioneering clinic that included birth-control services and contraceptive coverage as part of its health benefits — the first insurance system in the United States to do so. At a time when distributing information about contraception could still be criminalized, the clinic represented a bold step toward reproductive health care access, and it was operated by a woman doctor who had worked with birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger.
No. 10 East 14th Street served as the headquarters of the New York City Woman Suffrage League in the 1890s. From this location, activists organized campaigns aimed at securing voting rights for women in New York State. Under leaders such as Lillie Devereux Blake, the League launched efforts to amend the state constitution and rallied supporters across the city. Though these early campaigns did not immediately succeed, they helped lay the groundwork for the eventual victory of women’s suffrage in New York in 1917, demonstrating the persistence and organizing power of women activists in the neighborhood.
The area also played a crucial role in the advancement of women in medicine. At 80 University Place, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell — the first woman doctor in the United States — established her home and medical office in 1851. Denied professional opportunities because of her gender, Blackwell began treating patients here, most of them women and members of the local Quaker community. Her work in this building helped launch a groundbreaking career that would include establishing both the New York Infirmary for Women and Children and the first medical school run by and for women, opening the door for generations of women to enter the medical profession.
Women’s history in the neighborhood extends beyond political organizing and health reform to culture and community. At 86 University Place, a 19th-century residence later housed the Bagatelle, a lesbian bar that became an important gathering place in the 1950s. Writers including Audre Lorde and Ann Bannon later described the venue as formative in their experiences within the lesbian community during the pre-Stonewall era. The building reflects how spaces south of Union Square nurtured communities that helped shape feminist and LGBTQ+ cultural history.
There’s more local and national women’s history to be found throughout the neighborhoods we serve. Explore our maps on women’s history South of Union Square here and here, and beyond here; send a letter in support of landmark designation here; and read our blog posts on women’s history here.