Did you know that Village Preservation members receive advance notice of many of our public programs? Our tours and other programs sometimes offer limited seating or spaces. 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.

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Landmarking in NYC Since 1965: The Highs and Lows

Co-Sponsored by the New York Preservation Archive Project and and Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts

Earlier this year, Village Preservation released a first-of-its-kind analysis of all landmark designations in NYC since the law first allowed them in 1965. The results were illuminating, surprising, and in terms of the recent past, extremely concerning.

Documented for the first time by chronology is the vast array of buildings, parks, neighborhoods, trees, bridges, clocks, street patterns, and interior spaces that have been designated over the last six decades. Interesting patterns emerge showing when landmarking began to focus on certain kinds of places and sites, and when it began to turn away from them.

But there are also disturbing trends. With 38,000 properties designated over nearly 60 years, the analysis found a profound curtailing of new designations in recent years, particularly under Mayor Adams. It also found that since the passage of a bill pushed by real estate interests in 2016, the breadth and depth of designations have also plummeted. In spite of promises of “equity” in new designations, the numbers have plummeted in every corner of the city (though some, such as “the Manhattan Core,” more than others), and the Landmarks Preservation Commission has increasingly leaned upon designations of sites facing no immediate or foreseeable danger, and often those already protected in some way, while forgoing those under more imminent threat.

Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman and Director of Research Dena Tasse-Winter will present the report’s meticulously detailed findings, discuss what to make of all of it with leaders from NYPAP and Friends, and open it to the public to answer questions and hear feedback.

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Yankee Doodle Dandy:
George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage

From “You’re a Grand Old Flag” to “Give My Regards to Broadway,” you can’t talk about American theater without referencing the great showman — George M. Cohan. Cohan’s beginnings are very much in the Village, at the former Union Square Theatre at Broadway and Fourth Avenue, where he made his debut.

The first book about Cohan in over 50 years, Yankee Doodle Dandy: George M. Cohan and the Broadway Stage by Elizabeth T. Craft explores and analyzes Cohan’s work, but is also the first to critique and reckon with Cohan’s output and legacy. It’s also a book about how the American musical became the American musical, how Broadway became Broadway, and how the United States became the United States. Drawing on information previously unexamined and once-inaccessible archives, Yankee Doodle Dandy shows us how Cohan’s life and work offer keen insights into the evolution of American culture.

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Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York

In Spaces of Enslavement, Andrea C. Mosterman addresses the persistent myth that the colonial Dutch system of slavery was more humane than later versions in either British or American New York. Investigating practices of enslavement in New Netherland and then in New York, Mosterman shows that these ways of racialized spatial control held much in common with the southern plantation societies.

Mosterman describes how the movements of enslaved persons were controlled in homes and in public spaces such as workshops, courts, and churches. She addresses how enslaved people responded to regimes of control by escaping from or modifying these spaces so as to expand their activities within them. Through a close analysis of homes, churches, and public spaces, Mosterman shows that, over the 17th and 18th centuries, the region’s Dutch communities were engaged in a daily struggle with Black New Yorkers who found ways to claim freedom and resist oppression, including in places like today’s Greenwich Village and East Village. Spaces of Enslavement is a critical and overdue chapter on the place of slavery and resistance in the colony and young state of New York.

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Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital

Join us for a book talk with author David Browne to discuss his new book, Talkin’ Greenwich Village: The Heady Rise and Slow Fall of America’s Bohemian Music Capital in conversation with Stephen Petrus.

Talkin’ Greenwich Village is the first panoramic history of a now-mythical music community. David Browne’s connection to the scene dates back to his days as a college student at NYU. For this book, he interviewed more than 150 people associated with the scene, including such legendary musicians from its earliest days as Judy Collins, Herbie Hancock, Tom Paxton, Sonny Rollins, and John Sebastian, to those who emerged during its last great era of music in the neighborhood, including Suzanne Vega, Shawn Colvin, Terre, Suzzy Roche, Steve Forbert, and actor/musician Christopher Guest.

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A Miloš Forman Tribute — A Screening of His Film Debut, and Conversation with His Writers and Actors

Co-Sponsored by Anthology Film Archives

In this tribute to acclaimed filmmaker Miloš Forman, who passed away in 2018, Village Preservation and Anthology Film Archives will host special screenings of Forman’s rarely seen American debut and one of his greatest films, Taking Off (1971). Presented in collaboration with actor Miles Chapin, who appeared in Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) and Man on the Moon (1999), the first screening, on Wednesday, November 20, will begin with a conversation between Chapin, the great playwright John Guare (who co-wrote Taking Off), and other special guests!

PLEASE NOTE: When registering, you will receive a confirmation from Anthology Film, NOT Village Preservation. Thank you!

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Getting Past “Yes”: Disentangling the Relationship Between Housing Supply and Affordability

The Adams Administration is trying to change the city’s zoning rules in an ostensible effort to address the city’s affordable housing crisis. Its proposal, “City of Yes for Housing Opportunity,” currently under public review, constitutes a far-ranging upzoning aimed at stimulating the construction of market-rate housing. Critics of the plan point out that post-upzoning development tends to increase housing costs. The city, however, insists that academic research concludes the opposite and that the example of cities like Austin and Minneapolis support the fundamental logic of the City of Yes approach.

This panel, hosted by Village Preservation Special Projects Director Juan Rivero and consisting of planning and housing scholars with expertise in the residential markets of Austin, Minneapolis, and New York City, will consider the city’s contention, in view of empirical evidence about the relation between market rate housing supply and housing costs.

Historic Preservation: Past and Future: Andrew Berman in conversation with Carl Raymond

Co-sponsored by: Salmagundi Club, Coffee House Club, and Merchant’s House Museum

Andrew Berman, Executive Director of Village Preservation, will be joined in conversation by Carl Raymond, host of The Gilded Gentleman history podcast. Andrew will discuss his career in historic preservation over the past 22 years. He will share several case studies of projects that have met with success as well as challenges in the preservation of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. In addition, Andrew will discuss some of the issues facing historic preservation in the current environment, as well as some simple yet deeply powerful actions passionate local preservationists can do to make a difference.