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.

Village Preservation is looking for your feedback! Click here to take our 5-10 minute program survey. Scroll to the bottom of this newsletter for more information. Thank you!

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Tour of Hunter College’s “Acts of Art in Greenwich Village” Exhibition

Join Village Preservation for this special tour of Hunter College Art Galleries’ new exhibition “Acts of Art in Greenwich Village,” the first comprehensive account of the six-year history of Acts of Art, a gallery dedicated to showcasing the work of Black artists in downtown Manhattan.

Founded by artists Nigel Jackson and Patricia Grey in 1969, Acts of Art was first located at 31 Bedford Street and later moved to 15 Charles Street in the West Village. In 1971, the gallery mounted “Rebuttal to the Whitney Museum Exhibition,” the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition’s strategic response to the Whitney’s concurrent “Contemporary Black Artists in America.” That same year, the gallery hosted the inaugural exhibition of the Black women artists collective Where We At. Before Acts of Art closed in 1975, it presented one- and two-person exhibitions by 26 different artists, and numerous group exhibitions. “Acts of Art in Greenwich Village” centers Acts of Art and its director’s curatorial vision, tracing the gallery’s exhibition history as it intersects with other histories of Black art and artists in New York — and with formations like the BECC, Where We At, and the Weusi Artists. Installed in Hunter College’s Leubsdorf Gallery, the exhibition features artworks from the late 1960s and 1970s by 14 artists with close ties to the gallery, a number of which were first shown at Acts of Art.

Curated by Howard Singerman, Phyllis and Joseph Caroff Professor of Art History, with Katie Hood Morgan, Chief Curator and Deputy Director, and with MA and MFA students enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate Seminar.

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Celebrating 150 Years of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney: A Tour of the New York Studio School

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was born on January 9, 1875. The life she chose for herself was nothing short of revolutionary, having a huge impact upon the art world, and the Village.

Join Village Preservation to help mark the 150th anniversary of Whitney’s birth with a tour of the very place she created, the original Whitney Museum of American Art (now the New York Studio school), which contains many of her incredible artworks

2024 marked the 60th anniversary of the founding of the New York Studio School in 1964 by Mercedes Matter and her students. Since its inception, the New York Studio School has been an innovator in arts education, prioritizing daily continuity of study for artists through work in the studio. In 1967, the school moved into what had been the original Whitney Museum of American Art on West 8th Street, where it continues today to offer its signature programming: MFA and certificate programs, Evening Lecture Series, exhibitions, and internationally recognized marathons. The tour will discuss the storied art career and patronage of Whitney, founder of the Whitney Museum who was also a prominent sculptor in her time. Participants will walk through the historic spaces that have played a significant role in the history of American art for over a century, including the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Studio, decorated by Robert Winthrop Chanler.

This tour will be guided by Lauren Allshouse (she/her), the librarian at the New York Studio School. She received an Master of Library Science degree from Pratt Institute and a Bachelor of Arts in Painting from the University of Minnesota.

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Members’ Tour of the New York Public Library’s “Becoming Bohemia”

Join Village Preservation for this exclusive tour of the New York Public Library’s exciting new exhibition “Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923.”

During the 1910s an extraordinary gathering of groundbreaking artists, writers, radicals, reformers, and free spirits from across the United States and Europe settled in Greenwich Village, lured there by inexpensive housing and the promise of a relaxed, permissive atmosphere in which to work. Though harboring diverse creative and personal agendas, these iconoclastic transplants shared an impulse to upend not only the established principles of their respective arts but also the era’s social conventions and political status quo.

Drawn from collections across The New York Public Library, “Becoming Bohemia: Greenwich Village, 1912–1923” surveys key individuals, places, events, and works that defined America’s first large-scale countercultural enclave, while also noting factors that led to the decline of this vibrant, storied setting.

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.

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Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing

Co-sponsored by the Salmagundi Club, Coffee House Club, Merchant’s House Museum, and Victorian Society NY

Elizabeth L. Block, art and cultural historian, and Senior Editor in the Publications and Editorial Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, visits to discuss her new book, Beyond Vanity: The History and Power of Hairdressing, with Village Preservation Director of Programming William Roka.

In the 19th century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, it could affect one’s place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay of local, national, and international commerce. In Beyond Vanity, Block expands the nascent field of hair studies by restoring women’s hair as a cultural site of meaning in the early United States. With a special focus on the places and spaces in which the industry operated, Block argues that the importance of hair has been overlooked due to its ephemerality as well as its misguided association with frivolity and triviality. As Block clarifies, hairdressing was anything but frivolous.

Block will touch on how our neighborhoods contributed to the development of hairdressing at famed hotels and department stores such as James McCreery & Co.

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Member’s Discount for Untapped Cities Tour: Washington Square and the Birth of 5th Ave

Join our friends at Untapped Cities for a walking tour celebrating the birth of Fifth Avenue!

Village Preservation members get a 20% discount with the code VP20

Fifth Avenue turns 200 this year! In 1824, the central avenue of Manhattan’s radical new street grid system began at the foot of a potter’s field and cut through 13 blocks of marshy farmland in old Greenwich Village. This examines the relationship between the Village’s iconic Washington Square and the genteel age of early Fifth Avenue. Stroll by extant 19th-century mansions, discover hidden Greenwich Village alleys, and gaze upon one of the oldest cemeteries in NYC. Learn how the old “blue blood” age of early Fifth Avenue gave way to the excesses of the Gilded Age and then the later Bohemian era we all associate Greenwich Village with today.

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Village Preservation Programming Survey

As valued members of our community, we want to hear from YOU! What kinds of programming would you like to see from Village Preservation in the future?

This year, we have offered over 75 programs, almost all of which are free and open to the public. Our programming, which explores the rich history and culture of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, has served over 4,000 people in the past year alone.

As we look forward to 2025, we want to hear from you! 

Our survey provides opportunities to give feedback on past programs and offer general and specific ideas for the future; What kinds of programming do you like best? Is there a certain neighborhood-related topic you want to know more about? A speaker you’ve been eager to hear from? A museum or exhibit that you want a private tour of?

Now is the time to let us know!

This survey should take approximately 5-10 minutes. We appreciate you letting us know who you are, and the data we collect will be used for this research purpose only. Your feedback is crucial to improving our programs, and we thank you for your time.

Please email rsvp@villagepreservation.org with any questions.