Neighborhood/Preservation History Archive

This archive contains printed materials from organizations and individuals involved in historic preservation and other local community efforts, particularly those connected to Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.

• The Association of Village Homeowners Collection
• Evelyn G. Haynes Collection
• Greenwich Village Trust/Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Collection
• John T. Krawchuck Thesis: On Edge: The West Village Waterfront”
• Otis Pratt Pearsall Collection
• Manhattan Promenade Proposal
• Village Independent Democrats
• West Village Committee Collection
• Remembering the Pioneers of Village Preservation

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The Association of Village Homeowners Collection

The Association of Village Homeowners was a community group founded in 1960, which sought to preserve the human scale of Greenwich Village, improve the neighborhood’s parks, and protect the enjoyment and amenities of Village life. Over its more than forty-year existence, the Association was involved in important local preservation battles including those to save the Old Merchants House (now the Merchants House Museum), Jefferson Market Courthouse, and 75 1/2 Bedford Street; and battles against the Lower Manhattan Expressway, Westway, and many others. This collection includes a guidebook to the architectural styles of Greenwich Village rowhouses, written by preservation pioneer Verna Small with the assistance of Regina Kellerman, Village Preservation’s first Executive Director.

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Evelyn G. Haynes Collection

Evelyn G. Haynes (1909-2001) was a preservationist and a member of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in its earliest days. A native New Yorker, she grew up in Brooklyn Heights, attended Smith College, and was an editor at Vogue, where she worked from the 1930s to the mid-1950s. Her collection, largely from the 1960s, focuses on photographs, sketching, writings, and historic materials connected to Greenwich Village, the Charlton King Vandam district, and Lower Manhattan, especially Federal (ca. 1790-1835) and Greek Revival (ca. 1830-1850) row houses and architecture in this area.

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Greenwich Village Trust/Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation Collection

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John T. Krawchuck Thesis: On Edge: The West Village Waterfront”

John T. Krawchuk researched and documented the Meatpacking District, Far West Village, and Hudson River waterfront in the early 1990s as part of his Columbia University graduate thesis in Historic Preservation completed in 1995. The full thesis, entitled “On Edge: The West Village Waterfront”, can be viewed here.

Click here to see the images takes as part of this project on our Historic Image Archive.

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Otis Pratt Pearsall Collection

Otis Pratt Pearsall is an attorney and Brooklyn Heights resident who spearheaded that neighborhood’s successful effort to become New York City’s first historic (landmark) district in 1965. This archive includes correspondence and other information from 1965-68 about Greenwich Village prior to the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969.

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Manhattan Promenade Proposal

Noah Greenberg is an architect who lived on Hudson Street between 10th and Charles Streets in the 1970s with his wife Diane, her dog Dinky, and their daughter Becca. Noah and Dinky used to walk on the tracks of the old, abandoned “West Side Elevated Line” that had transported millions of tons of meat, dairy, and produce to NYC starting in 1933.

In 1979, Noah proposed an elevated park be built upon the structural remains of the abandoned rail line, titled the Manhattan Promenade. This collection includes photos he took and the proposal he submitted to Ruth Wittenberg’s Greenwich Village Historic Preservation Group.

Noah was amazed at the beauty and peaceful character of the structure and its railbed. Particularly interesting was the fact that the line ran through the middle of the streets affording unique views of the Hudson River and the streets of Manhattan. The first section of the line south of Westbeth (Bethune Street) had already been demolished, and Noah felt that this was an important historic structure that should be saved and repurposed. The impetus for his design arose from a proposal being considered at that time to tear down the entire rail structure.

Noah’s proposal was greeted with approval but was never brought to fruition. It would be many more years before any similar proposals were considered, and a full 30 years before the elevated park known as the High Line opened to the public in 2009.

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Village Independent Democrats Collection: 1955-1969

The Village Independent Democrats are a reform democratic club founded in 1956. In 2023, the club donated their archives to Village Preservation. This collection includes much of the club’s archives from their first two decades, 1955 to 1969. The collection chronicles the club’s founding out of the Adlai Stevenson Presidential campaign, their successful efforts to remove the grip of the Tammany Hall Tawana Club from control of local democratic politics, their involvement in the civil rights and other social justice movements, and their support for efforts to preserve the neighborhood, especially from Robert Moses’ urban renewal and highway construction plans. Significant figures whose activities and correspondences are chronicled here include Eleanor Roosevelt, Ed Koch, Jane Jacobs, Robert Wagner, and Carol Greitzer.

Village Independent Democrats Collection: 1970-1979

The Village Independent Democrats are a trailblazing reform Democratic club founded in 1956, perhaps best known for helping to end Tammany Hall control of Democratic politics in Manhattan, shaping progressive political thought and practice in NYC in the late 20th century, and launching the career of notable NYC politicians including Ed Koch. In 2023, the club donated their archives to Village Preservation. This is the second part of the collection, featuring their archives from the 1970s. This collection highlights their work on issues ranging from the opposition to the Vietnam War to fighting the proposed Westway project along the Hudson River waterfront.  

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West Village Committee Collection

The Committee to Save the West Village was formed by Jane Jacobs and neighbors to defeat a Robert Moses urban renewal plan that would have destroyed large swaths of the West Village. They re-formed as the West Village Committee in 1962.

This archive includes over 700 pages of meeting minutes, notices, correspondence, newsletters, and related articles from between 1961 and 1997. It documents decades of preservation battles, including for the creation of West Village Houses, the only built project in which Jane Jacobs had a design hand, and against the construction of Westway.

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Remembering the Pioneers of Village Preservation

Village Preservation honors the preservation pioneers who have passed away in the 21st century. Through their hard work and dedication, they were leaders in preserving our neighborhood’s architectural character.