February 2025 Programs: Alvin Ailey, Fifth Avenue, Joan Mitchell, and More

Did you know that Village Preservation members receive advance notice of many of our public programs? Our tours and other programs sometimes offer limited capacity, and often fill up quickly. 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 information about our past programs, including lecture recordings, click here.

Member’s Tour of the Whitney Museum’s Edges of Ailey Exhibition

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 
5 PM  
Whitney Museum of American Art

In person
Pre-registration required 
Free to members $50+

Village Preservation members are invited to join us for this special tour of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s extraordinary exhibition Edges of Ailey.

Edges of Ailey is the first large-scale museum exhibition to celebrate the life, dances, influences, and enduring legacy of visionary artist and choreographer Alvin Ailey. This dynamic showcase brings together visual art, music, a range of archival materials, and a multiscreen video installation drawn from recordings of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater repertory to explore the full range of Ailey’s personal and creative life.

A Whitney Teaching Fellow will lead the group on a 1-hour tour of the exhibition and provide in-depth analysis. They will draw draw unique connections by adding historical and cultural context and visual analysis to several key pieces.

Please note: Registration is NOT confirmed until you receive a personalized email from our Programming Team. We will check your membership status prior to sending your personalized registration confirmation.


Becoming Fifth Avenue: A Bicentennial Celebration of Architectural History Along One of NYC’s Most Notable Streets

Tuesday, February 11, 2025
6 PM 


Virtual
Pre-registration required

Free

If you missed December’s in-person presentation, join us for this virtual encore presentation of Village Preservation’s research team’s illuminating journey uncovering 200 years of architectural history that will include some highlights of additional buildings and layers of history not previous covered.

On November 1, 1824, Fifth Avenue was born. At the time, the first portion of the avenue, extending from Washington Square North (then “Art Street”) to 13th Street, was nothing more than a country road, surrounded by farmland. But a mere quarter century later, Fifth Avenue was already transforming into one of New York City’s grandest thoroughfares, lined by opulent mansions for some of the city’s wealthiest inhabitants. While most of those original homes have since been demolished in favor of towering 20th-century hotels and apartment buildings, a select few remain in place to this day.

Join Village Preservation’s research team, Dena Tasse-Winter and Chloe Gregoire, in discussion as they explore how they uncovered the history of every single building to ever be constructed along lower Fifth Avenue. They’ll reveal just how many of the avenue’s current buildings have been in place since the beginning, and which others are only the second generation of structures to be constructed there (almost all of them!).

Dena and Chloe will take us on a virtual tour through the history and evolution of the avenue, its people, and its architecture, showing how it became the centerpiece of Greenwich Village, and of New York City. You can preview some of this compelling history via Village Preservation’s Fifth Avenue Storymap.


Acknowledging NYC History of Slavery: Exploring Church Archives

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 
6 PM
The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York

In-person
Pre-registration required

This event is co-sponsored by First Presbyterian Church and Merchant’s House Museum

Join us for this panel discussion examining First Presbyterian Church’s 2022 report Old First and Slavery.

The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York City, founded in 1716 on Wall Street, moved to its current location on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street in 1846. Over the congregation’s long history, several accounts of its early period have been written, but none have mentioned the congregation’s intersection with slavery and the slave trade. As several major universities and religious institutions have recently researched their histories related to slavery, a small group of First Church members were inspired to write a report on the congregation’s connection to the institution during the 18th and 19th centuries. 

The result is the report Old First and Slavery. Completed in 2022, it covers the period of the church’s founding through the end of the Civil War. This panel discussion will include members who collaborated on the report and who will present and discuss the archival resources and research methodology used during the drafting process.


Connie Converse in Greenwich Village

Wednesday, February 19, 2025
6 PM
La Nacional — Spanish Benevolent Society

In-person
Pre-registration required
Free

The trailblazing polymath Connie Converse lived in Greenwich Village, on Grove Street, in the early 1950s, when she was actively revolutionizing American song. The only problem was, nobody knew it, outside of a small circle of friends and admirers. It wasn’t until decades after Converse’s mysterious disappearance at the age of 50 that the music she was making then, hidden away on musty old tape reels in a filing cabinet, found an audience at last.

Today, Converse has been recognized as a pioneer of the singer-songwriter approach to music that would explode in the Village a decade later. She has acquired a legion of fans who see her as a new reference point in the history of 20th-century song.

Join Converse’s biographer Howard Fishman in conversation with actor/director Paul Lazar, as they discuss the songwriter’s legacy.


From Joan Mitchell to the Guerilla Girls: 20th-Century Downtown Women Artists with Village Preservation and On This Spot

Thursday, February 20, 2025
6 PM 


Virtual
Pre-registration required

Free

To help celebrate Joan Mitchell’s centennial and shine a light on other known and unknown boundary-breaking women artists who have been at the forefront of the New York art scene, we are joined by On This Spot NYC.

On This Spot NYC is a nonprofit digital mapping project that aims to tell the stories of a diverse group of women artists through short-form documentary videos. It explores the places where they lived and worked, their favorite spots to eat and drink, their dreams and laughter, and the places where they danced and found inspiration and community to create their art.

The project covers various decades, starting from the 1950s and extending to the end of the 20th century. It has begun in the West Village and East Village, and will be expanding to SoHo, the Lower East Side, Chelsea, TriBeCa, Midtown, Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and Harlem.

On This Spot NYC aims to play a pivotal role in addressing the gender imbalance in our museums, galleries, and textbooks. Its objective is to inspire a new generation of women artists. Learn more about this amazing new project and the light it shines on trailblazing women of our neighborhoods and beyond.


The New Brownies’ Book: A Love Letter to Black Families

Wednesday, February 26, 2025
6 PM 


Virtual
Pre-registration required

Free

In the 1920s, scholar, author, and activist W.E.B. Du Bois started a magazine for children. Calling it The Brownies’ Book: A Monthly Magazine for Children of the Sun, it was the first magazine aimed specifically at Black youth. It was published right here in our neighborhood at 70 Fifth Avenue, a building that Village Preservation successfully advocated to have landmarked to recognize its incredible importance in Black, civil rights, and NYC history. In his role as editor‐in‐chief, Du Bois reached out to the era’s most celebrated Black creatives — writers, artists, poets, songwriters — and asked them to contribute their “best work” to The Brownies’ Book “so that Black children will know that they are thought about and LOVED.” Among its contributors was Langston Hughes, whose first published poems appeared in The Brownies’ Book.

A century later, author, educator, and Du Bois scholar Dr. Karida L. Brown and award‐winning artist and children’s book creator Charly Palmer revived and expanded upon the Brownies’ Book legacy and showcase new art and writing for children from today’s brilliant Black creators. Join us for a presentation as they discuss their new book — packed with 60 all‐new stories, poems, songs, photos, illustrations, comics, short plays, games, essays, and more — designed to reflect, celebrate, and inspire a new generation of children and families.


Untapped Cities Virtual Event: How to Make a Subway Map

Wednesday, January 29
6 PM

Virtual event
Pre-registration required

Free special access for Village Preservation members from our friends at Untapped Cities

How can you build a better subway map? John Tauranac is going to show us! Tauranac chaired the MTA’s subway map committee for the bulk of its existence in the 1970s, and he was the creative director, or “guiding light,” of the official New York City Subway Map published in 1979. Tauranac will share how he and his collaborators radically changed the direction of the subway map’s design.

After leaving the MTA, Tauranac kept making maps. His latest subway map was released in 2020. Join us for a deep dive into the map’s creation and learn how to read the new symbols and visual cues Tauranac has created.

This event is free to Village Preservation members! To become a member, click the link below, and email rsvp@villagepreservation.org to request this event’s Zoom link.

January 23, 2025