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.
Paula DeLuccia Poons (b. 1953) and her husband Larry Poons have lived at 827-831 Broadway since 1977. Both are artists, following a long tradition of artists who have taken refuge in the buildings over the last half century. In this recording, Paula talks about other occupants of the buildings including Willem de Kooning, MoMa Director […]
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Robert Sanfiz (b. March 20, 1969) has been the Executive Director of La Nacional since 2008. La Nacional is the 150-year-old Spanish Benevolent Society located on West 14th Street, which represents and historically advocates for the “Little Spain” community that stretched from Christopher to 23rd Street along the west side, once the largest Spanish-American community […]
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Orselli (b. 1949) immigrated from Italy to Brazil in 1954 and to New York in 1960. He has been a passionate advocate for affordable housing for almost 50 years, especially in the Lower East Side/East Village. His life-long commitment to activism and advocacy has led to work with the Cooper Square Community Land Trust, Cooper […]
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A renowned painter who focused on views of Lower Manhattan, Ruta (1918-2016) painted for nearly seventy years and lived in Westbeth since its opening in 1970. Born in Germany, he fled to Italy to escape Hitler’s rise to power, finally ending up in NYC. In this interview he discusses his time as an American soldier […]
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Romana Raffetto (1931-2018) is the former owner and her son Andrew the current owner of Raffetto Pasta at 144 West Houston Street. A Greenwich Village and New York institution, Raffetto Pasta was founded by Romana’s father-in-law in 1906.
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Gloria McDarrah (1932-2020) lived in Greenwich Village beginning in the 1950s. She worked in publishing and was married to Fred McDarrah, who established himself as a photojournalist and a leading documentarian of midcentury Greenwich Village. She also worked at the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and promoted her late husband’s body of documentary work.
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Peter Longo (b. October 22, 1951) grew up in an Italian family in the Village, attending Catholic schools and absorbing the immigrant and Beat cultures that surrounded him. He took over, and still runs, the coffee business his father started, the Porto Rico Importing Company.
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Ingrid Bernhard and her husband, Sven, were Swedish nationals who met in New York and lived in a farmhouse on the Upper East Side sometimes known as “Cobble Court” or “the Goodnight Moon” house, as writer Margaret Wise Brown wrote the book while living there. In 1967, the Bernhards moved the house to 121 Charles […]
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Robert Zerelli (b. November 30, 1962) was raised in New Jersey, and at the age of 18, he moved to New York City to work at the bakery founded by his great uncle in 1894 — the legendary Veneiro’s. Zerilli lived above the store at 342 East 11th Street, married a customer, raised a family, […]
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Virlana Tkacz (b. June 23, 1962) was born in Newark, but had family connections to the Ukrainian community in the East Village, to which she eventually moved. She pursued theater at La MaMa under Ellen Stewart, whose encouragement led to the creation of Tkacz’s own theater company. The Yara Arts Group addresses themes related to […]
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Born in 1943 in Berlin, Germany, Marlis has lived in Loisaida since 1975. Her photographs document the struggle of the mostly Puerto Rican people living in that part of Manhattan. Her black-and-white and color photographs have been used to illustrate national and international publications on political and cultural topics such as: gentrification, urban development, slumlords/arson […]
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Born in Lithuania, Jonas Mekas (1922-2019) came to New York City after World War II and became part of the downtown arts scene as a writer, poet and auteur. He pursued his passion for making and displaying avant garde film, founding the world-renowned Anthology Film Archive in 1970.
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