May is known not only for its pleasant weather. It’s also known for multiple important historic celebrations that have great resonance with our neighborhoods. And Village Preservation is uniquely well-equipped to let you explore that rich heritage Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo have to offer. 

May is Lower East Side History Month, and nobody shows off our slice of the Lower East Side, the East Village, like Village Preservation.  Explore its rich history with our East Village Building Blocks webpage with guided thematic tours and the history of every building in the entire neighborhood; our report, The Architecture of the East Village, documenting four centuries of the neighborhood’s built environment; our East Village Oral History collection; thousands of images in our historic image archive, including our recent Peter Bennet: Early 1980s East Village Collection; and so much more to be found on our East Village advocacy webpage, where you can also send messages to city officials supporting our East Village preservation campaigns. We’ve also placed dozens of historic plaques marking historic sites throughout the East Village, and celebrated scores of beloved independent small businesses in the neighborhood.  

May is also Jewish American Heritage Month, and we have many ways for you to explore, from our Jewish History Tour on our Greenwich Village Historic District Map (which includes links in our neighborhood to the very first Jews to settle in North America), to our Synagogues and Yiddish Rialto tours on our East Village Building Blocks website, to our Jewish History Tour on our South of Union Square Map, among many other resources on our website.

Finally, May is also Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and we’ve got great insights into the role our neighborhoods played in advancing civil rights for Asian Americans on our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map, as well as lots of information about great Asian-American artists you called our neighborhood home, including Isamu Noguchi, Yoko Ono, Yun Gee, Martin Wong, and Nam June Paik. You can also read more about Chinese-American history in our neighborhoods here and here. 

Explore all of Village Preservation’s online resources HERE.