The East Village has for decades been one of New York City’s most vital Hispanic enclaves, and a thriving hub of latin culture. One need only look at Avenue C’s official designation since 1987, “Loisaida,” to get a sense of the Latin-American footprint in the neighborhood. The term “Loisaida,” a phonetic transliteration of the Spanish […]
Sometimes Christmas comes early; sometimes it arrives on-time; sometimes it’s a bit late. But occasionally, when you’ve been really good, it comes on all three occasions. If that’s the case, then Village Preservation must have been really good indeed this past year. The Early Present The former P.S. 64 building at 605 East 9th Street […]
This holiday of Festivus was developed as an alternative to the commercialization of the Christmas season and is celebrated annually on December 23rd. First celebrated in the mid-1960s by author and editor Daniel O’Keefe (father of Seinfeld writer Dan O’Keefe) it was popularized on Seinfeld’s December 18, 1997, episode “The Strike” when Kramer refuses to […]
Each year, New York City’s 1 million public school students return to school after a long summer break. Few realize that one man is responsible for so profoundly shaping our idea of how a school would look and function, and that some of his best work is located right here in our own community. In […]
In 2015, Village Preservation conducted an oral history with community organizer Carlos “Chino” García, one of the co-founders of the legendary community organization CHARAS. CHARAS for many years occupied the landmarked former P.S. 64 building on East 9th Street in the East Village. That interview gave some unique, first person insights into one of the […]
Village Preservation has partnered with Urban Archive to explore the history of the former P.S. 64/Charas-El Bohio Cultural Center in their Story of a Building campaign. The former P.S. 64 is located at 605 East 9th Street and opened in 1905. It was designed by architect C.B.J. Snyder and served as an innovative model in […]
Village Preservation collaborated recently on a major project with Google Arts + Culture. We put together tours of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo that highlighted the deep and rich cultural and artistic movements in our neighborhoods, one of them being Latinx History. With Google’s innovative technology and a voice-over by actor John Leguizamo, going through the Latinx tour on the Google […]
Twenty years ago, on July 20, 1998, Mayor Rudy Giuliani sold former Public School 64 on the Lower East Side, then home to the Charas-El Bohio Community and Cultural Center, to a developer, despite opposition from the building’s occupants and the surrounding community. The decision and the building remain mired in controversy to this day. Community groups […]
This Friday, July 20, marks the 20th anniversary of the controversial auction of the former P.S. 64/CHARAS-El Bohio Community and Cultural Center at 605 East 9th Street by then-Mayor Giuliani over widespread community opposition. Check out the Facebook event page here.
Show your love for community centers and spaces for a powerful and quick event next Tuesday. Join GVSHP, elected officials, community groups, and neighbors for a rally and press conference on the steps of City Hall to save the former Charas/El Bohio Community Center (the old P.S. 64) at 605 East 9th Street, which is in grave danger […]
“Alternative facts” seems to be the buzzword this week, and may become the phrase of the next four years. For better or worse, for those of us involved in the fight for preservation and against overdevelopment, tackling the concept of “alternative facts” — assertions by someone in authority that seems to have no basis in […]
East Village activists were surprised to learn recently that the city’s Department of Buildings had issued new work permits for 605 E. 9th Street, the former public school that served as the CHARAS-El Bohio community center for two decades, until it was sold by the Giuliani administration to a private developer in 1998. Since 2001, […]
Free Image from Creative Commons The Jones-Shafroth Act, which conferred United States citizenship upon residents of Puerto Rico and set the stage for the huge migration of Puerto Ricans to NYC following WWII, was enacted on March 2, 1917. In 1945, there were 13,000 Puerto Ricans in New York City. Within 10 years this number […]
