Village Preservation Oral History Collection

Village Preservation’s Oral History Project includes interviews with some of the great artists, activists, business owners, community leaders, and preservation pioneers of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. It captures and preserves their first-person perspective on the important histories they witnessed or of which they were a part.  

Click here for an alphabetical list of our entire Oral History Collection.

The views expressed by the contributor(s) are solely those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or endorsement of our organization.

East Village

Alex Harsley

Alex Harsley was born on a farm in South Carolina, where he spent the first ten years of his life being trained to farm. When his mother decided to relocate to New York City to work, he advocated for himself, his brother, and his sister to join her, which they did in 1948. He attended a public school across the street from where he lived in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. 

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