Co-Sponsored by the LaGuardia and Wagner Archives

In the 1960s, the Village Independent Democrats (VID) was arguably the most powerful local political club in the nation. Based in Greenwich Village, the club emerged in 1956 in the wake of Adlai Stevenson’s unsuccessful campaign for president. VID led the Democratic Party Reform Movement and challenged Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio’s Tamawa Club for power in the district. They campaigned against bossism and patronage, and advocated for clean government.

The club eventually defeated DeSapio for district leader several times in the 1960s, supported by Democratic Party luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt and Herbert Lehman, in races that attracted national media attention. VID stood for civic participation in local government and supported an agenda oriented toward civil rights and neighborhood preservation.

In 2023, VID donated their archives to Village Preservation. The collection, digitized and accessible online, chronicles the origins of the club, the epic battles against DeSapio, the rise of the political careers of Ed Koch and Carol Greitzer, and VID’s involvement in community affairs, such as the battle against Robert Moses’s plan to expand Fifth Avenue through Washington Square Park in the 1950s.

Join us for this discussion with Stephen Petrus on the Village Independent Democrats and their initiatives to reform the Democratic Party and spark civic participation in Greenwich Village politics.

Stephen Petrus is Director of Public History Programs at LaGuardia and Wagner Archives at LaGuardia Community College.  Petrus received his Ph.D. in history from the CUNY Graduate Center and specializes in New York City history.  Since 2017, he has co-curated six LGBTQ exhibits at LaGuardia, including  A Seat at the Table, on LGBTQ elected officials in the New York City Council and the State Legislature.  Prior to his work at LaGuardia, he held Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships at the New-York Historical Society and at the Museum of the City of New York, where, in 2015, he curated the exhibition Folk City: New York and the Folk Music Revival and co-authored the accompanying book, published by Oxford University Press.  His next public history project at LaGuardia will examine AIDS policy in New York City from 1981 to 1996.