birthplace of american modernism - Village Preservation

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31 Literary Icons of Greenwich Village

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Black History Month: Alex Haley

…site is 92 Grove Street, where Pulitzer-Prize winning American author, Alex Haley had a writing studio during the 1960’s. Probably best known for his books Roots: The Saga of an American Family…

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What’s In A Name?: Wanamaker Place and the Nearly Forgotten Son

…lives of Native Americans and the disappearance of their race. In the early 20th century Americans were not yet willing to confront atrocities committed against Native Americans on a large…

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Irish Parade Riots

…both Irish and American. Much of mainstream America was not ready to embrace the Irish Catholic immigrants as Americans, however. Increasing immigration heightened tensions between the newcomers and so-called native-born…

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Black History in Greenwich Village – Winter 2023 Series

…own culture. Learn about Black Americans from our neighborhoods who fought in the Civil War, participated in the Underground Railroad, and were members of the abolitionist movement. As we move…

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Remembering Japanese Internment Through East Village Experimental Theater

…Americans, German Americans, and Italian Americans in U.S. internment camps. Jerry and his young family, along with his parents, his siblings, and their neighbors lost their constitutional rights and were…

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W.E.B. Du Bois Makes – and Teaches – History at the New School, September 27, 1948

…was to look at American history and stories through the lens of the Black experience. Since American history was told by white people who, he argued, would never include this…

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Pioneers Converge on MacDougal Street: Dr. Robert Hogan, Rev. Henry Highland Garnet, and Sarah Smith Garnet

…city’s African American community, who advocated for abolition and suffrage in and beyond the Village. One was the first African American to address the U.S. House of Representatives, and the…

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Politicians, Playwrights, and Parades: The Irish legacy of the East Village and Greenwich Village

Photo of White Horse Tavern (bottom left) courtesy of Wikimedia; Photo of the Merchant’s House Museum (bottom right) courtesy of Village Preservation on Flickr For many, celebrating Irish American heritage in March brings one…

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Politicians, Playwrights, and Parades: The Irish legacy of the East Village and Greenwich Village

Photo of White Horse Tavern (bottom left) courtesy of Wikimedia; Photo of the Merchant’s House Museum (bottom right) courtesy of Village Preservation on Flickr For many, celebrating Irish American heritage in March brings one…

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March 2024 Programs: Black History in Greenwich Village, Berenice Abbott, Jane Jacobs, and More

…Provincetown Players and their influence on modern American theater. The Provincetown Players created a revolution in American theater, making room for truly modern approaches to playwriting, stage production, and performance…

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“Artists in Revolt, Form New Society:” The 1913 Armory Show

…ideas behind the exhibition. Interior of the 69th Regiment Armory installation (1913), Archives of American Art “Façade of a City Residence,” Raymond Duchamp-Villon model (1913), Archives of American Art In…

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Why Isn’t This Landmarked?: 112 Fourth Avenue

…prominent American manufacturers of and dealers in uniforms and equipment of the 19th century. Today, their products are found in several renowned museums and institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of…

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Fred W. McDarrah’s Greenwich Village and the East Village of the 1950s and 60s

…Times Square in January, 1967. Portrait of American musician Jimi Hendrix (1942 – 1970) (seated), South African-born American music producer and engineer Eddie Kramer (standing left) and studio manager Jim…

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Celebrate Black History Month and Protect the Rich But Endangered History in Our Neighborhoods

…Smith Garnet, as well as prominent African American businessman Jacob Day, who helped lead fights against slavery and for equal voting and civil rights for African Americans. The building has…

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Underground Railroad Church Once Located in Greenwich Village Led Abolitionist Cause

The Shiloh Presbyterian Church is one of many African American churches once found in Greenwich Village, when nearly all the city’s leading African American churches were located in this neighborhood….

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Beyond the Village and Back: Historic Weeksville, Brooklyn

…African-American, who purchased the land from Edward Copeland, who had purchased the land from an heir of John Lefferts. At this time, many African-Americans attempted to gain political and economic…

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October 2023 Programs: Native New Yorkers Walking Tour, Book Talks, and More

…Mark’s in-the-Bowery graveyard in the East Village where Peter Stuyvesant is interred. Along the way, you’ll see the streets and plazas through Native American eyes and explore how New York’s…

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Beyond the Village and Back: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

…north and south of the main entrance, built between 1906 and 1926. The American Wing was added in 1922-24 by Grosvenor Atterbury. In 1967 in anticipation of its centennial, the…

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King’s Assassination Began Fifteen Year Quest for a National Holiday

…Birthday a national holiday — the first-ever honoring an African-American. That successful quest began and was spearheaded by a native son of Greenwich Village. According to New York City records,…

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Honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

…East Village. Take Our African American History Tour of the Greenwich Village Historic District The Autobiography of Malcolm X was written here. The first Broadway play by an African American woman was…

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Finding the Most Impactful Women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo

…art while creating enduring portraits of prominent figures from FDR to Booker T. Washington. Willa Cather — Pulitzer-prize winning author considered the great chronicler of life on the American Plains….

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How Greenwich Villager Howard Bennett fought to make Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday

…African-American population, and several blocks from Minetta Street and Lane and Thompson Street, which in the 19th century were the heart of Greenwich Village’s African-American community. In spite of the…

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Who Were the Most Impactful Women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo?

…enduring portraits of prominent figures from FDR to Booker T. Washington. Willa Cather — Pulitzer-prize winning author considered the great chronicler of life on the American Plains. Angela Davis —Political…

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Who Were the Most Impactful Women of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo?

…enduring portraits of prominent figures from FDR to Booker T. Washington. Willa Cather — Pulitzer-prize winning author considered the great chronicler of life on the American Plains. Angela Davis —Political…

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The Ashcan School and the Beginnings of the Whitney

…influential art patron of the 20th century. Born into one of the most wealthy and prominent American families, Whitney was dedicated to supporting artists in order to promote distinctly American…

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2021 Village Awardee: Bon Yagi

…widowed mother. Born shortly after the end of World War II, Bon grew up watching American TV, and experienced the help of American GIs in building a new Japan following…

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Richard Wright in Greenwich Village

…first African American authors to protest the treatment of black Americans by white Americans, and would greatly influence an entire generation of African American writers. Iconic works such as Native…

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Dorothy Canning Miller: Champion of Abstract Expressionism

…and 1963, each similar in theme with a focus on emerging artists. “Sixteen Americans” in 1959, for example, introduced such essential postwar American artists as Jay DeFeo, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth…

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A Tour of Jewish Historic Sites South of Union Square

…collection of histories. This neighborhood was a critical touchstone in the African American, LGBTQ, and women’s civil rights movements; it was home to the revolutionary “New York School” of artists;…

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(Even More) Civil Rights and Social Justice Champions in Our Neighborhoods

…American, Women’s, LGBTQ, Latinx, Asian American, and other social justice history has been made in our neighborhoods. Recently, we have added the homes of a groundbreaking Black theater company, a…

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Fighting for Civil Rights at 80 Fifth Avenue

…was also in charge of the IWO’s involvement in “I Am An American Day” held on the third Sunday in May. The first “I Am An American Day” is believed…

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#SouthofUnionSquare: Home to (even more) Trailblazing Artists, Dancers, Labor Leaders, and Birth Control Advocates

…Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Philip Guston, Motherwell is considered one of the great American Abstract Expressionist painters. Credited by The American Art Book as being the…

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Exploring Women’s History South of Union Square

…for equal rights for women and Chinese Americans, and had recently caught the attention of white American suffragists who invited her to this monumental event. While Lee’s appearance garnered much…

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#SouthOfUnionSquare Tour — Musical Heritage and History

…1933. While Goodman is often credited with integrating American music by working with African American musicians and vocalists, Goodman himself would credit Hammond, who made it his personal mission to…

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Rosetta Stones Right in Our Home: Little Germany

…which reads “Deutsches Dispensary,” or German Dispensary, still remains. German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse. Photo courtesy of Ephemeral New York. Probably the finest example of a bilingual…

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Groundbreaking Artist and Educator Selma Hortense Burke’s Home at 88 East 10th Street

…to the art of sculpture and to art education; for her highly regarded portrayals of towering African American figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Booker T. Washington, and Mary…

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Retracing The East Village’s Historic Little Italy

October, the month when we mark Columbus Day, is also Italian-American Heritage and Culture Month. That combined with the recent celebrations around the 125th anniversary of Veniero’s inspires a closer…

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Clifford Odets and The Group Theatre

…Guild was the mecca of every actor. The Guild was the first to really produce theatrical literature on the American stage; both European plays and those of burgeoning American voices….

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October Programs: Building Community in our Neighborhoods

…this exciting, free program. Established in 1892, the mission of the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) is to foster awareness and appreciation of American Jewish heritage and to serve as…

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They Dwelt on West 9th Street: William J. Glackens

…specialize in American art and is historically important for exhibiting work by many American artists well-known to us today, including Glackens, Henri, Sloan, Winslow Homer, and Andrew Wyeth. The show…

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You Are Here: Lawrence Henderson Guides Village Preservation through Historic NYC Black Heritage Sites

…National Museum of the American Indian, and curator of a 2020 exhibit on “native New Yorkers.” The Native American’s dress in the relief sculpture is typical of a Plains Native…

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New April and May 2024 Programs: Walking Tours, Histories of Fifth Avenue and The Village Voice, and More

…Out to Write is not only a story of American journalism but American culture. New Yorkers, fans of the Voice, and readers interested in the evolution of media will find…

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The Public Theater’s Manahatta and the Confluence of Three Nations at Astor Place

…arts and history in our neighborhood, check out these links: Contemporary Native American Art Sites Native American Poet, Diane Burns The Native American Community House Art and Archives of the…

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The Scopes Monkey Trial and its origins in Greenwich Village, south of Union Square

…largest chapter of the American Federation of Teachers), and the NAACP. 70 Fifth Avenue, 2012 While located here, leaders of the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) founded the National Civil…

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Jessie Redmon Fauset: The Unsung Heroine of the Harlem Renaissance

…African American figures, from some of the first black churches in New York to the home of author Richard Wright: Our South of Union Square Map contains an African American history tour with nearly…

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September 1st, 1939

…Americans. 128 East 13th Street Over 16 million Americans served in WWII, and over one million were killed or wounded. To fill the labor gap, millions of women entered the…

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Traveling the World from Home, with Village Authors

…fifty years after their publication. Considered classics of American literature which inspired generations of American writers, these were among the first books to use American vernacular speech, and transport the…

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GVSHP 2016 Book List & Holiday Gift Ideas

…Ada Calhoun- St. Marks Is Dead: The Many Lives of America’s Hippest Street A vibrant narrative history of three hallowed Manhattan blocks―the epicenter of American cool. St. Marks Place in…

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King’s Assassination Began Fifteen Year Quest for a National Holiday

…Birthday a national holiday — the first-ever honoring an African-American. That successful quest began and was spearheaded by a native son of Greenwich Village. Howard Bennett was born in 1911…

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Why Aren’t These Landmarked? Black History Month Edition

…American causes and institutions while living here, including efforts to further self-determination, provide access to ballots, and prevent attempts to re-settle Black Americans in Africa. In his 1885 History of…

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How Harlem Renaissance Artists Made Their Mark in the Village

…transformed American culture. In the early 20th century, many Black Americans from the South sought job opportunities and greater safety and social mobility in the Midwest and North, an exodus…

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Seized During the Red Scare, This Lefty Archive from Our Neighborhood Is Now Available Online

…it offered non-discriminatory rates to immigrants, to miners, and to Black Americans.” 31 pages. ALP (American Labor Party) candidates pamphlet [1944] “Security with FDR” by 7 term Congressman Vito Marcantonio…

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Organizing for Irish Independence #SouthOfUnionSquare

…from Fenian Brotherhood. The Brotherhood believed his support of the Candian uprising cost Irish-American lives and money; the Americans also began to focus on the issues facing Irish-Americans here rather…

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Lincoln and Memorial Day

…the American holiday calendar as we know it today. Holidays such as Thanksgiving and Memorial Day and celebrations of individuals like Lincoln helped unite the country and give Americans a…

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A Different Kind of Transit ‘Signal’ at Broadway-Lafayette

…Contemporary Native American Art Movement and past curator of the American Indian Community House Gallery. The artwork is one of several key locations representative of New York’s contemporary Native American…

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Skyscraping and River-Spanning Landmarks of Midtown Manhattan Go #BeyondTheVillageAndBack

…he worked closely with the architect William Van Alen (1882-1954) on the design. In the Chrysler Building, Van Alen was able to apply the tenets of modernism slowly gaining ground…

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Black History Month in the East Village: Black Arts Movement

…African-American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism whose themes ranged from black liberation white racism. Many within the African American community compare him to James Baldwin and…

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Civil Rights History and Diversity

…African American History In Memoriam: African American Artists of Westbeth African American Sites in our East Village Building Blocks African American History Tour – South of Union Square Children’s Education…

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Sarah Smith Garnet: Suffragist, Principal, Villager

…played an incredible role in championing African American and women’s rights. Garnet was the first African American woman principal in the New York City school system, for which she worked…

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John Brown and Edmonia Lewis: Civil Rights Crusaders Who Intersected in Greenwich Village

…with Edward Augustus Brackett. She worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy, eventually becoming the first African-American and Native American sculptor to achieve national or international prominence. She began…

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Village Preservation Historic Plaques Honor Trailblazing Women in our Neighborhoods

…in protecting and preserving Greenwich Village in the face of post-war “urban renewal.” With her seminal text The Death and Life of Great American Cities, she changed the way we built, planned,…

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11 landmarks of immigration in Greenwich Village

…came in 1933 when it helped draw and save intellectuals fleeing Nazi persecution, transforming and vastly expanding American academia and intelligentsia. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he began…

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Mine Okubo

Miné Okubo was a Japanese-American artist born in Riverside, California, in 1912. She is best known for her 1946 book Citizen 13660, in which she recounts her experience in a Japanese-American internment…

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Black History Month in the Village: The South Village and Little Africa

GVSHP’s Civil Rights & Social Justice Map February is Black History Month. We here at GVSHP want to celebrate it by highlighting different sites of significance to the African-American community…

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Radical Social Movements in the Village and the Battle for Free Speech

…eight national book awards. He is a former Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014,…

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Ferlinghetti and Rosset: Censorship-Battling Superheroes

…been prescient in sensing that Ginsberg’s poem would upset Eisenhower-era mores. The American Civil Liberties Union had assured Ferlinghetti that they would defend him should any objections to the drug…

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20 transformative women of Greenwich Village

…indignities faced by over 100,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II, and is considered to this day one of the most affecting pieces about that chapter in American history. After the…

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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Mountaintop

…W.E.B. DuBois, the African-American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, and author taught the first course in African-American history and culture ever taught at a university at the New School for…

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#SouthofUnionSquare — Irish History Tour

…among others. However, the American version, founded in 1899, began to diverge in its content and focus more on American writers and issues, especially under the editorship of Frank Harris…

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Celebrating Washington’s Birthday

…the 1870’s Greenwich Village was known as being the “American ward.” It was called this because of its prominent native white Protestant community of higher economic status; this ideal American…

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WeWah & BarCheeAmpe: Pioneers of Two-Spirit Advocacy, Rooted in Greenwich Village

Coined in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American First Nations Gay and Lesbian American Conference held in Winnipeg, the term “Two Spirit” (2S) refers to indigenous individuals whose…

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Remembering Christopher Moore and Honoring New York City’s Whole History

…Research in Black Culture. He published numerous books on African American, Native American, and New York City history such as Fighting For America: Black Soldiers, The Unsung Heroes of World…

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Off the Grid Podcast

…rights. While Native American and Chinese American women and men nationwide, and African American women and men in many parts of the country, still could not vote, sex was no…

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Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney’s Rich and Varied Legacy

…where the museum does more than ever to celebrate and showcase American art and artists. The new Whitney Museum of American Art at Gansevoort Street designed by Renzo Piano …

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The First Global Economic Crisis, and An Easily-Overlooked Greenwich Village House

…after this significant reduction in worldwide purchases of American food crops, it failed. This sent shockwaves through American markets. Less than two weeks later, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust…

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Women Crush Wednesday: The Poets

April is National Poetry Month! Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, the month of April marks a marvelous opportunity to celebrate the expressiveness, delight, and pure charm…

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Reading Between the Lines: The Life of Nella Larsen

East Villager and Harlemite Nellallitea “Nella” Larsen (neé Walker, 13 April 1891 – 30 March 1964) was an American novelist who contributed to the Harlem Renaissance and American Modernism literary…

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The Death and Life of Louis Sullivan

Louis Sullivan, 1895 On April 14, 1924, the architect Louis Sullivan, the “father of modernism,” key figure of the Chicago and the Prairie Schools of Architecture, progenitor of the skyscraper…

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Women Crush Wednesday: The Poets

April is National Poetry Month! Launched by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, the month of April marks a marvelous opportunity to celebrate the expressiveness, delight, and pure charm…

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Landmark Designation Reports

…German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse, 12 St. Mark’s Place German-American Shooting Society Clubhouse NYC LPC Designation Report German Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mark, 323 East 6th Street German Evangelical…

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Remembering the worst disaster in NYC maritime history: The sinking of the General Slocum ferry

…filled with residents of what was then called Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany. This German-American enclave in today’s East Village was then the largest German-speaking community in the world outside of Berlin…

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Socialists, Communists, and Revolutionaries on Fifth Avenue #SouthOfUnionSquare

…artists. The sheer number of organizations located investigated by the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the 20th century would seem to convey a virtual Bolshevik Revolution brewing right…

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The Animal Rights Movement’s Origins (and still-visible legacy) in Greenwich Village

…an animal-protection society. The new organization, the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, was called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The A.S.P.C.A.’s sponsors…

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The Animal Rights Movement’s Origins (and still-visible legacy) in Greenwich Village

…an animal-protection society. The new organization, the first of its kind in the Western Hemisphere, was called the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The A.S.P.C.A.’s sponsors…

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Remembering “The Day The Music Died” With a No. 1 Hit

“American Pie” is perhaps one of the most compelling, beloved, and cryptic songs in the American songbook. Written by Don McLean in 1970, the song sprang from the Folk Music…

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Why Isn’t This Landmarked? 64-66 5th Avenue

…when it expanded to America, then housing one of the most influential movie houses in American history, and later as home to “the Picasso of Dance,” where that art form…

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Demographic Deception: de Blasio’s SoHo/NoHo Plan

…lying, skewing the data, and purposely including poorer and more Asian-American blocks in Chinatown directly east of the rezoning area, as if we determine the boundaries of census tracts (none…

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On This Day: New York City Draft Riots

…was home to Irish and German immigrants and African Americans. In five days of rioting, mobs lynched at least a dozen African American men, destroyed draft offices, burned and looted…

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Great Writers and the Greenwich Village Historic District

…of every important American literary, artistic, and political movement of the period. As part of this milieu, Millay’s work and life came to represent the modern, liberated woman of the…

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The Making of the Whitney Museum

…author of Rebels on Eighth Street: Juliana Force and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as many other books, catalogues, reviews and essays on early twentieth-century American art….

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An Intersectional Black History Month Roundup

…The New School at 66 West 12th Street. Du Bois’s idea was to look at American history and stories through the lens of the Black experience. Since American history was…

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Beyond the Village and Back: Harlem’s St. James Presbyterian Church

…the “old Swamp church,” where it stayed for the next two decades. During this time, from the 1830s to 1847, Theodore Wright, a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society,…

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Learn About Radical Social Movements in the Village and the Battle for Free Speech

…eight national book awards. He is a former Chair of the Board of the American Constitution Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2014,…

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Unveiling the Women of Provincetown Playhouse: Beacons of Artistic Innovation in Greenwich Village

…became a hub for avant-garde performances, revolutionizing American theater, from its first performance, staged on November 22, 1918. Examining the early years of the theater, it becomes apparent that the…

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Anything But Orthodox: The Feminists of the Heterodoxy Club

…Heterodoxy’s original members, the list of which includes some of the most recognizable figures in American feminism. Crystal Eastman, the distinguished suffragist and eventual co-founder of the American Civil Liberties…

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Remembering Experimental Theater Icon Jean-Claude van Itallie

…that a new kind of American theater had arrived — deliberately experimental, savagely funny, politically aware, and critical of standard American life, its institutions and values.” Mr. van Itallie’s prolific…

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Why Isn’t This Landmarked?: 55 Fifth Avenue

…Glad?,” with Hammond at 55 Fifth Avenue in 1934. While Goodman is often credited with integrating American music by working with African American musicians and vocalists, Goodman himself would credit…

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Elizabeth Jennings Graham — New York’s Rosa Parks, A Century Earlier

Exploring African American history in our neighborhoods, today we look at Elizabeth Jennings Graham, a woman who, in her simple quest to get to her church on East 6th Street…

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Radical Social Movements in the Village and the Battle for Reproductive Rights

…study of American social movements, including a discussion of the many American fascist groups in the 1930s. She is one of a very few historians who won the Bancroft prize for best…

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