Women’s History Month: Celebrate, Explore, and Preserve Women’s History

Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo have been home to a remarkable breadth of transformative women, and the scene of innumerable vital movements for women’s equality and empowerment. This Women’s History Month, we offer many ways for you to celebrate, explore, and help preserve the rich women’s history in our neighborhoods:

Our Women’s Suffrage History Map: Explore dozens of sites in our neighborhoods connected to the struggle for women’s suffrage, and the people, organizations, and events that made it possible.

Clockwise from top left: the 1915 Women’s Suffrage Parade; Sonia Sotomayor, Emma Lazarus, and Bella Abzug

Our expanded and redesigned Civil Rights and Social Justice Map: Among the more than 200 sites in our neighborhood are more than 60 connected to women’s history and the women’s movement, including several new additions regarding women’s history. 

The former Jefferson Market Prison on Sixth Avenue and one-time temporary tenant Mae West, one of the sites on the “Transformative Women” tour found on our Greenwich Village Historic District Map.

Our Greenwich Village Historic District Map + Tours: Take our “Transformative Women” tour to see the homes and learn about the lives of dozens of women who changed politics, the arts, and culture.

(l. to r.) Billie Holiday, Susan B. Anthony, and Ronnie Spector, from our South of Union Square Women’s History Tour.

South of Union Square Map + Tours: The Women’s History tour on our South of Union Square Map contains 20 sites connected to crucial events, figures, and organizations in women’s history, and some amazing women writers, artists, educators, and activists.

Just some of the remarkable women who have been the subject of Village Preservation’s oral histories.

Oral Histories: We have exclusive conversations providing the personal perspectives and experiences of more than thirty of the most impactful women of our neighborhoods, from Jane Jacobs to Mimi Sheraton, Marlis Momber to Penny Arcade, Deborah Glick to Ayo Harrington, Joan Davidson to Frances Goldin and Doris Diether, and many more.

Recent plaque installations have honored (from left) Amelia Earhart, Frances Perkins, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.

Historic Plaques: Many of our historic markers commemorate transformative local women, including Jane Jacobs, Lorraine Hansberry, Frances Perkins, Elizabeth Blackwell, Martha Graham, Amelia Earhart, and more. Explore them all, virtually or in person, here. 

See who our followers chose as the “25 Most Impactful Women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.” 

Historic Image Archive: By far the bulk of our 5,500-piece historic image archive comes from collections donated by women, from our earliest by Evelyn Haynes and Judith Stonehill and Barbara Cohen, to later ones by Carole Teller, Meredith Jacobson Marciano, Ruth Cushman, Jean Polacheck, Jillian Jonas, Susan DeVries, Maia Farish, Marjorie Zien, and many more. Explore them all here, and donate your images here. 

Among our Women’s History Month programs: Richard Barone’s Village Nights: Carolyn Hester and From Service to Social Change: A Conversation on the Settlement House

We have an amazing array of Women’s History Month public programs coming up, from a panel on settlement houses to one on female nightlife trailblazers; a look at the life of a 19th-century female Irish servant to a walking tour of local women’s history; and the first in our series Richard Barone’s Village Nights at the Bitter End, featuring legendary folk singer Carolyn Hester. Explore these and all our March programs HERE. 

And help us advocate to recognize and protect women’s history sites as landmarks.

Some of the many unprotected landmarks of women’s history South of Union Square we are seeking to honor and preserve.

We’ve sent the City a list of 22 unprotected women’s history sites within our proposed South of Union Square Historic District, and urged officials to act on preserving them. Since we’ve done so, one has been landmarked, with no action — or even sign of possible action — on any of the remaining locations. This failure to recognize and protect women’s history is unacceptable.

TO HELP:

Tell the Mayor and Landmarks Preservation Commission you want them to preserve women’s history in our proposed South of Union Square Historic District — CLICK HERE
March 1, 2026