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.

From Service to Social Change: A Conversation on the Settlement House

Co-Sponsored by Greenwich House

Inspired by the release of A Slumless America: Mary K. Simkhovitch and the Dream of Affordable Housing, this conversation explores how the settlement-house movement shaped public housing reform, strengthened local communities, and helped lay the groundwork for today’s social safety net.

Please note that the panel will take place on the second floor, and there is no elevator on site.

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2026 City Council District 3 Candidates Forum on Preservation Issues

Join us for a forum with all four declared candidates for the 3rd City Council District, formerly represented by City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who recently vacated the position after winning a seat in the state Senate. This district includes all of Greenwich Village west of Sixth Avenue south to Canal Street, and north to 55th Street (district map here).

It will be the only forum for candidates in this race focused on preservation issues. Leslie Boghosian-Murphy, Lindsey Boylan, Layla Law-Gisiko, and Carl Wilson have all confirmed attendance. Q&A from the public will be included. 

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The Unseen Revelers: A Brief History of Female Nightlife Activists in the Village

Join us for a virtual lecture as we delve into the vibrant history of female nightlife activists in Greenwich Village and the East Village. This program will explore the remarkable contributions of women who took up space in taverns, bars, lounges, speakeasies, and clubs to advance political ideas; highlight emerging subcultures and art forms; gather people of classes/races/ethnicities; and shift the zeitgeist.

 The Unseen Revelers features iconic dames and pivotal moments, like Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit; Norma Miller doing the Lindy, Sylvia Robinson introducing Hip Hop to new audiences at Webster Hall, and Patti Astor gathering New Wave artists and graffiti writers in one space.

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In the Footsteps of Bridget Murphy:
The Life of an Irish Servant

This “back-stairs” tour tells the heroic story of the Irish women who worked in domestic service in 19th-century New York. You’ll visit four floors of period rooms, from the ground-floor kitchen to the fourth-floor servants’ quarters, experiencing what daily life was really like for the Tredwells’ Irish servants.

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Women’s History Walking Tour of Greenwich Village

Join Village Preservation as we take a walk through history in our own backyard and learn how our neighborhoods have impacted women’s history in New York City and across the world.

We’ll learn about notable women and Village residents, including the first female Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, pioneering female doctor Elizabeth Blackwell, and one of the first female African American principals in NYC, Sarah Smith Garnet. The tour will end at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where many groundbreaking immigrant women fought for their rights as workers.

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Richard Barone’s Village Nights: Carolyn Hester

Co-sponsored by The Bitter End

Village Preservation is pleased to partner with musician and author Richard Barone for his revitalized new series, Village Nights, coming to the Bitter End nightclub with four unique events in 2026. Each event will focus on a specific decade of the Village’s musical history, featuring legendary musical guests and panel discussions with noted journalists, authors, and historians.

With the first night of this series, New York audiences will have the rare opportunity to experience Carolyn Hester, the legendary folk singer whose luminous voice and trailblazing spirit helped define the American folk revival of the early 1960s. Now, as she returns to New York — the city where her artistic journey took flight — audience members can expect an evening that bridges past and present. Barone will also be joined by author Terri Thal and historian Stephen Petrus for a fascinating discussion.

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Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York

In this presentation, historian Tyler Anbinder will discuss his new book Plentiful Country: The Great Potato Famine and the Making of Irish New York, and how it upends what we thought we knew about the Famine Irish in New York and beyond.   

From the award-winning author of Five Points and City of Dreams, this book is a breathtaking new history of the Irish immigrants who arrived in the United States during the Great Potato Famine, showing how their strivings in and beyond New York exemplify the astonishing tenacity and improbable triumph of Irish America.

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The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City

Join us for this book talk with Henry Sapoznik and his new book on the history of New York’s Yiddish popular culture from 1880 to the present.

The Tourist’s Guide to Lost Yiddish New York City offers a new look at over a century of New York’s history of Yiddish popular culture, a great deal of which was centered in the East Village and along the Bowery and the Lower East Side. Henry H. Sapoznik, a Peabody Award-winning coproducer of NPR’s Yiddish Radio Project, tells the story in over a baker’s dozen chapters on theater, music, architecture, crime, Blacks and Jews, restaurants, real estate, and journalism. 

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Surprising Survivors: 18th-Century Structures Still Standing in Manhattan

Among the nicknames New York City has received through the years, one — “The City That’s Never Finished” — describes New York’s disregard of its past built legacy, demolishing it for the newer, bigger, taller, flashier. In this talk, noted public speaker Anthony Bellov, in acknowledgement of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, shares the stories of those who have escaped the bulldozer and wrecking ball.

Additional February Event

Oswald Ottendorfer at 200: A Transatlantic Change Agent

Co-sponsored by East Village Community Coalition, Lower East Side Preservation Initiative, and Bowery Alliance.

Join us for a special event marking the bicentennial of Oswald Ottendorfer (1826–1900), the visionary publisher and philanthropist who raised the profile of New York City’s Little Germany and advocated for reforms in the treatment of its German immigrants. 

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