Richard Meier
Architect Richard Meier (b. October 12, 1934) was commissioned in 1967 to renovate the former Bell Laboratories in Greenwich Village into the affordable artist’s housing Westbeth.
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.
- Activists & Advocates
- Arts
- East Village
- Greenwich Village
- Immigration
- LGBTQ
- Local Business
- Preservationists
- South Village
- Westbeth
Arts
Joan Davidson
Daughter of J.M. Kaplan and a member of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, Joan Davidson (b. 1927) coordinated the founding of the Westbeth Project, an artist’s residence in the West Village.
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Merce Cunningham
Merce Cunningham (1919 -2009) was an American dancer, choreographer and leader of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, located since 1971 at Westbeth in the West Village.
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Peter Cott
Peter Cott (1924-2014) served as the Executive Director of the artist’s community Westbeth from 1970 to 1973.
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George Cominskie
Since 1983, Cominskie has lived in Westbeth, a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations, located in the old … Continued
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Ana Steele Clark
Ana Steele Clark worked at The National Endowment for the Arts for over thirty years, serving the organization from soon after its 1965 founding. Her oral history focuses on the … Continued
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Dixon Bain
Dixon Bain served as the project manager for planning and construction of Westbeth Artist’s Residence in the West Village from 1967-1971.
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Matt Umanov
Umanov (b. August 28, 1947) is the founder and proprietor of Matt Umanov Guitars, located at 273 Bleecker Street. Since 1965, Matt Umanov Guitars has been buying, selling, and repairing … Continued
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Gloria McDarrah
McDarrah (1932-2020) lived in the Village since the 1950s. She worked in publishing and was married to Fred McDarrah, who established himself as a photojournalist and a leading documentarian of … Continued
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Leticia Kent
Leticia Kent (1928-1999) was an esteemed freelance journalist and long-time Villager. This oral history was conducted in anticipation of an interview Kent was scheduled to conduct with Jane Jacobs and … Continued
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Edwin Fancher
Edwin Fancher (b. 1923) was a co-founder and part-owner of the Village Voice from the 1950s until the 1970s. In this oral history, Fancher describes the origins of the Voice—how … Continued
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Virlana Tkacz
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 … Continued
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