101 Avenue A: Melting Pot to Hot Spot

A Panel Discussion Moderated by Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman

Few buildings embody the full zeitgeist of everything East Village as does 101 Avenue A. Find out how the architecture and social history of this 130-year-old tenement inspired Village Preservation to call for landmark status for the building, triggering an international story about what some called the first proposed “drag landmark.” 101 Avenue A was home to one of the most important German-American social halls in New York, the “Mayor of Avenue A,” and groundbreaking events in the history of labor organizing. In later years it was the home of Warhol Superstar Nico and the Pyramid Club, where politically conscious drag performance art was born and many a downtown icon’s career was launched.

Moderated by Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman, the panel discussion will feature historic preservationist Melissa Baldock, immigrant scholar Peter Conolly-Smith, performance artist Iris Rose, and drag historian Joe E. Jeffreys, and will include a short film of Nelson Sullivan’s archival footage of the Pyramid Club in the 1980s.

This event is co-sponsored by Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick, the East Village Community Coalition, the East Village History Project, the Cooper Square Committee, and Place Matters, a project of City Lore and the Municipal Art Society.