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Author: Ariel Kates

St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church, Honoring their Open Door

Walking through the 11th Street horse-walk into the courtyard of St. John’s in the Village Episcopal Church is like walking through a magical passageway into a holy place. It’s all the more meaningful knowing that this passageway was used by countless anonymous Villagers with HIV/AIDS beginning in the 1990’s, all of whom were on their […]

Valerie Solanas: Questions, Context, and a Messy Legacy in the Village

Valerie Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) is nothing if not divisive. She was a mysterious Villager known for being a radical lesbian feminist separatist, for writing the wild, controversial SCUM Manifesto, for shooting Andy Warhol and two others at Warhol’s Factory in Union Square and defending herself at her trial. It’s clear that what is known […]

Westbeth – Adaptive Reuse Trailblazer, Home, Studio, and Community for Over 50 Years

1968 was a big year for New York City and the world – music, arts, staggering political and social change. And, in the midst of it all, a tan block-square collection of connected buildings known as the Bell Telephone Laboratories was transformed into the Westbeth Center for the Arts.  A key component of that transformation […]

Rock On, Fillmore East!

Today, 105 Second Avenue is a bank. The city moves on and overtakes what used to be at a given spot pretty quickly, but maybe you know that 105 Second Avenue was the home of the legendary Fillmore East from 1968 until 1971. It’s a narrow building with a brick facade and a domed roof, […]

    GVSHP Oral History: Paula DeLuccia Poons

    GVSHP is excited to share our oral history collection with the public, highlighting some of the people and stories that make Greenwich Village and the East Village such unique and vibrant neighborhoods. Each of these histories includes the experiences and insights of long-time residents, usually active in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life. […]

    Edward Hopper’s Village Muses

    This weekend I went to the Whitney Museum, and as I was wandering around on the 7th Floor I found images of the Village that are familiar, nostalgic, bright, and utterly unique. Identifiable from a distance, Edward Hopper’s paintings live in moments of light, clear and still, while also evoking movement like film stills, eerie […]

      Black History Month 2018 – Learn and Celebrate with Us!

      Black History Month gives us the opportunity to look at an important and too often overlooked or undervalued part of American, New York, and neighborhood history and highlighting.  Within our neighborhoods, there is an incredible array of African American histories, contributions, and culture all around us — sometimes hiding in plain sight. African Americans have […]

      Mapping Civil Rights and Social Justice — A Year Later

      On January 3, 2017, GVSHP launched our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map.  Something in the air told us there might be a hunger and need for this kind of information.  But even we would not have guessed that the map would receive over 70,000 views in that time, with its praises sung in BrickUnderground, […]

      A Great Tool for Seeing History Wherever You Are

      My colleague, Director of Research and Preservation Sarah Bean Apmann (she tells me that “Exalted Majesty Tour Guide” also works as a title), led the first GVSHP walking tour that I attended – our Bleecker Street walking tour  – and I was so lucky to have been there. I have walked up and down Bleecker Street countless times, […]

      Remembering Jimi Hendrix

      Who doesn’t know the opening notes? Who can’t recognize the wild, seething energy behind them? Who hasn’t seen his face, wavering with smoke and mystery? We heard him at concerts and celebrations all over the world. We watched and heard those first stark notes at Woodstock. We see him in his bright, colorful outfits. We […]

      November 22, 1909: A Frail 23 Year Old Woman Ignites the Strike of the 20,000 at Cooper Union

      On November 22, 1909, a frail 23-year-old woman, who’d been brutally beaten by strike-breakers, was helped up onto the stage of the Great Hall at the Cooper Union. Leaders of the labor movement – all men – had been speaking for hours to a crowd of thousands, speaking out against poor garment factory working conditions […]

      African Free School, First in America for Black Students, Found a Home in Greenwich Village

      The African Free School was founded on November 2, 1787 in Lower Manhattan by the New-York Manumission Society and founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and John Jay. It was the very first school for blacks in America.  Ultimately consisting of seven schools, the system’s third school was located in Greenwich Village, at 120 west 3rd Street, then known […]

      Happy Birthday to Wolf Kahn, who Draws the City like a Landscape

      The renowned painter Wolf Kahn was born on October 4, 1927.  In his oral history with GVSHP, Wolf Kahn brought wit, snark, and great, detailed memories about his time in the Village and the role he played in the art scene there, attending salons, renting half his apartment to Robert De Niro Sr., and spending […]

        W.E.B. Du Bois Makes – and Teaches – History at the New School, September 27, 1948

        On September 27, 1948, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, more commonly known as W.E.B. Du Bois, began teaching the very first African-American history and culture class ever taught at a university, at Greenwich Village’s New School for Social Research. This history-making event appears on GVSHP’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Map (which can always be found […]