– 200 Buildings –
– 200 Years of History –
– Nearly 40 Tours To Choose From –

We are excited to announce the launch of “Virtual Village”: a new online interactive tool that allows you to journey back in time to explore and interact with the rich history South of Union Square.

Learn about the great leaps in music, literature, social movements, and industry that all took place in this area where Greenwich Village meets the East Village, and the pressing need to preserve these historic sites by granting them landmark protection.

You’ll find two hundred buildings in the blocks from Fifth to Third Avenues, 14th to 9th Street, with some of New York’s most incredible stories and architecture. Click on each building for basic information and images, or take one of nearly forty tours for more in-depth information on the area’s rich history, with themes ranging from African American, Jewish, Women’s, and LGBTQ history, to the Civil War, great artists, musicians, writers, booksellers and publishers, leftist/labor, pop culture, the Roosevelts and Stuyvesants, and much more.

At every turn you’ll learn why this unprotected and endangered area of Greenwich Village and the East Village is so critical to New York and American history, and how you can help save it.

You’ll find things like:

• Where Billie Holiday’s recording career began, where The Feminine Mystique was published, where Benny Goodman changed the course of music history, and where many of the first integrated musical recordings were made — all in the same building!
• Where the campaign for women’s suffrage in New York City was led.
• Where a young Jackson Pollock began the Washington Square Art Show.
• Where the Italian anti-fascist movement in New York was headquartered.
• Where Anais Nin hand printed some of her very first revolutionary wrtitings.
• Where the first woman doctor in America lived, practiced, and helped establish the American Red Cross.
• Where Martha Graham changed the face of dance.
• Where the Loyal National League fought to end slavery, not just in the rebel states but throughout the country.
• Where the nation’s oldest and largest African American civil rights organization was headquartered and began flying their iconic “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday” flag, where great writers of the Harlem Renaissance started their careers, where the ACLU began, and where the fight to expose and stop the Armenian genocide was led — all in the same building.
• Where the first national LGBTQ rights organization in the country was located, and won historic battles against discrimination.
• Where some of the great albums of the 1960s through the early 2000s were recorded, by the Talking Heads, Simon and Garfunkel, David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Tito Puente, Whitney Houston, Frank Zappa, Public Enemy, Patti Smith, among others.
• Where Willem de Kooning and the other “New York School” painters moved the center of the art world from Paris to New York.
• Where some of the greatest battles against censorship were waged and won, and some of the most revolutionary works of literature of the 20th century were produced. 

…and so much more.

We hope you’ll enjoy, explore, and advocate for saving this amazing neighborhood. #SouthOfUnionSquare is an irreplaceable piece of New York, American, and world history, and an unprotected but essential slice of Greenwich Village and the East Village.