← View All

Author: Chloe Gregoire

Getting to Know Our Landmarks60 Timeline Map

On April 19th, 1965 the New York City Landmarks Law was passed. This law was created to protect the City’s invaluable stock of historic sites, allowing for buildings, neighborhoods and other historic locations to be preserved through Landmark Designation. Since the law’s passage, more than 38,000 sites around the city have been landmarked, including a […]

    Seventh Avenue South’s Shifting Streetscape

    Our Historic Images from Landmarks Applications collection is one of the most extensive in our historic image archive. It is regularly updated with additional historic images that are included in local Certificate of Appropriateness applications to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. These provide invaluable documentation of our neighborhoods, and the newest batch includes a number of images of buildings […]

    Exploring the Holland Plaza Building and Hudson Square

    The Holland Plaza Building is a unique, large manufacturing building that occupies an entire, irregularly shaped block, bound by Canal, Watts, and Varick Streets. The building, also called One Hudson Square, helps tell the story of its neighborhood fittingly called Hudson Square. Hudson Square is situated between Tribeca, the West Village and SoHo. For much […]

    The Artists of 30 East 14th Street Show

    In November, 2024, Village Preservation released a report detailing the extensive artistic history of the area South of Union Square. Part of our ongoing campaign to designate this area as a historic district, we have also been working to gather letters of support from individuals and institutions with ties to these artists. We ended up […]

    Exploring Lost Greenwich Village Through Historic Images

    Our Historic Images from Landmarks Applications collection is one of the most extensive in our historic image archive. It is regularly updated with additional historic images that are included in local Certificate of Appropriateness applications to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. These provide invaluable documentation of our neighborhoods, and the newest batch includes several images of […]

    Mayor Ed Koch: New Yorker, Villager & Straphanger

    This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. Two parts of this collection have been published. Part I, documents the club’s work from 1955-1969, and Part II from 1970-1979. “At age 88, I wake up every morning and say to myself, ‘Well, I’m still in New […]

    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 […]

      Celebrating Black History in Local Designations

      We are excited to see the Landmarks Preservation Commission publish the designation report for the Jacob Day House, Manhattan’s newest landmark, located at 50 West 13th Street. This followed a four-year long campaign led by Village Preservation for landmark designation that first uncovered the extensive history of this site and its connections to the abolitionist […]

        Becoming Fifth Avenue: The Brevoorts

        “Becoming Fifth Avenue” is a series of posts in celebration of the bicentennial of the avenue, which was first laid out in 1824. The first segment, in Greenwich Village between Washington Square North and 13th Street, officially opened on November 1st of that year. To celebrate Fifth Avenue’s 200th Anniversary, Village Preservation has launched an interactive […]

        Gothic Glimpses in Greenwich Village

        Gothic architecture originated in Europe in the 12th century. As engineering developments allowed for the construction of significantly larger buildings, the pointed (Gothic) arch rose to prominence and was used to construct tall ceilings while still allowing for natural light to enter interior spaces. In New York City, most examples of Gothic architecture are from the […]

        Villager Philippe Petit Brought Magic to the Twin Towers

        French highwire artist and street performer Philippe Petit rose to prominence following a series of unauthorized tight-rope walks across some of the world’s most iconic landmarks. First, in 1971, Petit tight-roped between the towers of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. In 1973, he crossed the Sydney Harbor Bridge, in Sydney, Australia. And perhaps most […]

        Exploring Federal Era Rowhouses in the Susan De Vries Collection

        The latest addition to our historic image archive, the Susan De Vries — Federal Rowhouses in Lower Manhattan and Architecture Collection Part II, features roughly 350 images taken by Susan De Vries throughout Lower Manhattan in 1995. Susan De Vries is a historian, researcher and photographer who has been active in the preservation field for […]

        143-145 Avenue D: Banking, Biscuits, Boat Basins, and More

        Village Preservation previously conducted extensive research on the history of one particularly peculiar East Village Building, 143-145 Avenue D. This research culminated in a five-part blog series which was eventually used as part of the buildings entry on our East Village Building Block Resource. We were recently reminded of this building’s fascinating history following the […]

        NoHo’s Beginnings as an Exclusive Residential Neighborhood

        The area which makes up present day NoHo began to urbanize between the 1820s and 1840s, as Greek Revival and Federal style houses built for many of Manhattan’s most successful businesspeople began to emerge here. These homes, which lined the streets around Broadway between Houston Street and Astor Place, like Bond and Great Jones Streets, […]

        The Village as Film Set

        Historic neighborhoods are great settings that make for striking film locations. Such is the case for our neighborhoods, which have long been the stage for television and movie productions. So much so, that several images of movie productions within our neighborhoods have made their way into our Historic Image Archive. In order to facilitate the […]

          Commercial Buildings in NoHo: Then and Now

          In late June, 2024, we celebrated the 25th Anniversary of the NoHo Historic District, which was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission on June 29th, 1999. The district includes nearly 130 buildings that were constructed between the 1830s and the 1910s. These buildings represent various phases of development, with the neighborhood beginning […]

          Abolitionist History in Greenwich Village

          On January 1st, 1863 the Emancipation proclamation went into effect, and all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. News of this was spread through plantations across the Confederacy by Union Soldiers, many of whom were Black. These soldiers read aloud small copies of the emancipation proclamation, informing enslaved people of their freedom. […]

            Exploring LGBTQ+ History in NoHo

            One of the many benefits of preserving buildings is it provides access and connection to the valuable pieces of human history connected to them. A prime example of this is 647 Broadway, which in addition to being an architecturally significant building in the NoHo Historic District, played an important role in LGBTQ+ history during two […]

              Cable Cars, Cable Buildings, and Multiplexes

              New York City has a long history of ground-level mass transit. One bygone form of this type of transit came to the city in 1827 in the form of the omnibus, a large horse drawn stagecoach. In 1832, the first horse-drawn stagecoach that ran on iron or steel tracks embedded into the street began to […]

                Buildings Sliced by Seventh Avenue South

                In September of 1911, the Board of Estimate approved the extension of Seventh Avenue from Eleventh Street (its previous southern terminus), to Varick Street, connecting the two thoroughfares and creating a continuous connection between the new Penn Station at 32nd Street and Lower Manhattan. The plan had followed several years of discussion, and was also […]

                  Eleanor Roosevelt and the Village Independent Democrats

                  This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. Eleanor Roosevelt was a renowned activist and political figure. She was the country’s longest-serving First Lady, from 1933 to 1945, during which time she transformed the position into a more of an active political role. […]

                    The Village Independent Democrats and Housing

                    This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. The Village Independent Democrats (VID) are a reform democratic club founded in 1956. Much of the club’s advocacy work was related to improving the lives of Greenwich Village residents, including in […]

                      Creating a Historic District in Greenwich Village

                      This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. “Of the Historic Districts in New York City which have been designated or will be designated, Greenwich Village outranks all others. This supremacy comes from the quality of its architecture, the nature of the artistic […]

                        The Last Hurrah for Traffic in the Square

                        This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our new Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. For decades traffic was allowed to freely flow through Washington Square Park, causing much of the park to essentially be an extension to Fifth Avenue. The battle to remove this traffic was hard fought […]

                          A Troubling Look Inside of the Women’s House of Detention

                          This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the fascinating contents in our Village Independent Democrats collection, added to our Preservation History Archive in early 2024. The Women’s House of Detention opened on the site of the Jefferson Market Courthouse, located between Sixth and Greenwich Avenues, on March 29th, 1932. When originally planned and constructed, the Women’s […]

                          Westbeth, Punk, and the Golden Age of Hip-Hop: SD50

                          Westbeth Artist Housing opened in 1970. It is located in the Far West Village, and spans an entire city block bounded by Washington, Bank, West and Bethune Streets. Westbeth was not only the country’s first project to provide subsidized housing for artists, but is also one of the first examples of the large-scale adaptive reuse […]

                          The Village Independent Democrats Fight NYU

                          This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our Village Independent Democrats collection, added to our Preservation History Archive in early 2024. In 1953, Robert Moses announced plans to demolish a large swath of Greenwich Village, from West Houston Street to West 4th Street, and LaGuardia Place (then known as West Broadway) to […]

                            Carol Greitzer: Helping Defeat Tammany Hall & Saving Greenwich Village

                            This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our Village Independent Democrats collection, added to our Preservation History Archive in early 2024. Carol Greitzer is a politician, activist and longtime member of the Village Preservation Board of Advisors. During her decades-long career, much of which took place within Greenwich Village, Greitzer has […]

                            Village Independent Democrats: Integration in 1960s Greenwich Village

                            This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our new Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive. The Village Independent Democrats are a reform democratic club founded in 1956. The club recently donated their archives to Village Preservation, and we have released the first batch of the collection, which […]

                              The Never-Built Verrazano Street: Community Organizing at its Best

                              This is one of a series of blog posts which highlights the information found in our new Village Independent Democrats collection in our Preservation History Archive.The successful fight against the proposed Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX) is arguably one of New York’s most famous and significant preservation battles. As originally proposed, it was a multi-lane, above ground expressway that […]

                                The Long-Gone Hamilton Fish Park Library on Houston Street

                                Even we here at Village Preservation learn new things about neighborhood history every day. In response to an inquiry we received from someone researching family history, we were asked to provide information about a library that was located near East Houston Street in the 1920s and 1930s. While we were not sure if such a […]

                                The WPA’s Hudson Square Home

                                In the summer of 1935, the Federal Writers Project and Federal Art Project were founded as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Like other New Deal Programs, these programs were established by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and aimed to alleviate the unemployment and economic uncertainty faced by the United States during the Great Depression. […]

                                Patricia Field’s Village Shops

                                Costume designer and fashion icon Patricia Field is best known for, among other accomplishments, her work on the television show Sex and the City. For decades, Field also operated a boutique in Greenwich Village that became a fashion mecca, and font of downtown energy and creativity.  After graduating from New York University in 1963, Field […]

                                  A Glimpse into the Gilded Age East Village of the Tiffanys

                                  Many would be surprised to learn that Charles Tiffany, the founder of Tiffany & Co., known for the manufacture of goods which came to be synonymous with the wealthiest New Yorkers, actually lived in the East Village with his family for most of the 1850s. This included his son, Louis Comfort Tiffany, who went on […]

                                    Patricia Field’s Village Shops

                                    Costume designer and fashion icon Patricia Field is best known for, among other accomplishments, her work on the television show Sex and the City. For decades, Field also operated a boutique in Greenwich Village that became a fashion mecca, and font of downtown energy and creativity.  After graduating from New York University in 1963, Field […]

                                      South of Union Square: Where Bowlmor Lanes Began

                                      Bowlmor Lanes was opened at 110 University Place by Nick Gianos in 1938, at the beginning of what has been referred to as the “Golden Age of Bowling”. During this time, roughly the 1940s through 1960s, the popularity of the sport exploded with the introduction of the automatic pinsetter. From the beginning, Bowlmor Lanes was […]

                                      The Italian Cafés of the South Village

                                      October is Italian American History and Heritage month, and it is impossible to deny the influence that Italian culture and immigration has had on our neighborhoods. This is especially true in the South Village, an area which in the early 1900s was a predominantly Italian neighborhood, and one near and dear to Village Preservation’s heart, […]

                                      Second Avenue Station: The Hub that Never Was

                                      When it first opened in 1936, the Second Avenue station was supposed to become a hub for the subway system. Today, the station, located at Houston street and Second Avenue, though mammoth and meandering, feels almost unnecessary. It provides no subway transfers, and exists in close proximity to other stations along the same line. Notably, […]