Pi Gardiner
Margaret “Pi” Halsey Gardiner was born in New York City in 1949. Her family history in New York State spans back several generations, particularly on Long Island, where her great-great-great-grandfather … Continued
Full TranscriptVillage 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.
- Activists & Advocates
- Arts
- East Village
- Greenwich Village
- Immigration
- LGBTQ
- Local Business
- Preservationists
- South Village
- Westbeth
Greenwich Village
Jonathan Ned Katz
Jonathan Ned Katz grew up in Greenwich Village in a house on Jane Street and attended the Little Red School House as a kid. There, he was encouraged to make … Continued
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Lucy Komisar
Lucy Komisar has been a resident of Greenwich Village for decades. Having grown up in the Bronx and Long Island, she then moved to Manhattan when she was a student … Continued
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Shirley Wright
Shirley Wright has lived in Greenwich Village for three quarters of a century, and co-founded the West Village Nursery School, a model, progressive, nursery school that has been a cornerstone institution in Greenwich Village for over sixty years, teaching children through play.
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Christina Maile
Christina Maile is a Greenwich Village-based artist who has lived at Westbeth since it’s opening more than a half century ago. Raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn by parents of Malaysian and … Continued
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Calvin Trillin
Calvin Trillin has lived on and off in Greenwich Village since 1969, but refers to himself as a “resident out-of-towner” with deep ties to the Midwest and, in particular, to Kansas City, … Continued
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John Guare
John Guare (b. February 5, 1938) is a playwright and screenwriter known for Six Degrees of Separation and The House of Blue Leaves, among many other works. Born in Manhattan … Continued
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Rob Mason
For more than a quarter century, Robert Mason (b. 1946) operated RPM studios from his live/work loft on 12th Street south of Union Square, one of the first boutique recording studios … Continued
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Michael E. Levine
Michael E. Levine (b. 1943) is an urban planner who worked as the NYC Department of City Planning’s CommunityBoard #2 liaison beginning in the 1960s, and was intimately involved in … Continued
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Mimi Sheraton
Mimi Sheraton (February 10, 1926–April 6, 2023) was a food critic and food writer who had lived in the Village since 1945. In 1975 she was hired as the first … Continued
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Ralph Lee
Puppeteer Ralph Lee (b. 1935, d. 2023) lived at Westbeth beginning in 1970 and was known as the “Father” of the famous Greenwich Village Halloween Parade.
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Rich Wandel
Rich Wandel (b. May 20, 1946) is a former president of the Gay Activist Alliance, and served as the Archivist Historian at the LGBT Community Center from its founding in … Continued
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