Shirley Hayes
Shirley Hayes (1912-2002) was a community activist who led the successful fight in the 1950s against Robert Moses’ plan to extend a highway through Washington Square Park.
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.
Preservationists
Margot Gayle
Margot Gayle (1908-2008) led the grassroots effort to save the landmark Jefferson Market Courthouse building in Greenwich Village and transform it into a library. Gayle begins this interview by discussing the origins of that effort — the formation of the Village Neighborhood Committee and its activities in the late 1950s to reactivate the courthouse’s clock.
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Edwin Fancher
Edwin Fancher (1923–2023) 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 he met his business associate Dan Wolf, what the local New York City press scene was like in the 1950s, and why he and Wolf decided […]
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Doris Diether
Doris Diether (1929-2021) was a long-serving member of Manhattan’s Community Board 2 and Greenwich Village preservationist. Diether helped found Save the Village, a campaign focused on reforming zoning and rent laws in Greenwich Village. It was while working with Save the Village that Diether was first introduced to New York City’s zoning laws.
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Ingrid Bernhard
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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Frances Goldin
Frances Goldin (1924-2020) was a successful Manhattan literary agent and activist in practically every progressive movement of the past 70 years on the Lower East Side. A fighter for equitable housing, she was a founder of the Metropolitan Council on Housing and the Cooper Square Committee, and was a leader in the successful effort to […]
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Marilyn Appleberg
A published author, Marilyn Appleberg (b. January 6, 1944) has been committed to neighborhood betterment since she moved to the East Village in 1969. She is the founder and president of the 10th and Stuyvesant Streets Block Association, catalyst for improvement of the city park in front of St. Mark’s Church — as well as […]
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James Stewart Polshek
James Stewart Polshek (February 11, 1930–September 9, 2022) has lived in Greenwich Village since 1955, and his career as an architect has included buildings across the globe. His work in Greenwich Village has focused on complementing the neighborhood’s historic architecture, scale, and character. Notably, he designed the Washington Court apartments, completed in 1985. He was […]
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