Village Preservation has long paid tribute to the widespread impacts players in our neighborhoods of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo have had on the civil rights and social justice movements in the United States. Few places in America have contributed as much to these histories in such a concentrated area. In 2017, we […]
Welcome to February, and African American History Month! Village Preservation has long documented the stories behind the streets, buildings and people of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. Those investigations have enabled us to offer several great resources to learn more about our neighborhoods, including our African American history, including our Civil Rights and […]
Greenwich Village has long been a mecca and incubator for radical social justice advocates. With Village Preservation’s interactive map of the Greenwich Village Historic District as well as our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map, we can take a virtual walk through the neighborhood to visit significant sites related to many of these remarkable activists. […]
New York City is blessed with a broad range of historic and internationally recognized cultural institutions across the five boroughs. But few know how many of them have origins here in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. A look through our recently released Beyond the Village and Back maps, one covering Manhattan below 72nd […]
Throughout the 20th century, the area south of Union Square attracted painters, writers, publishers, and radical social organizations, many of whom were challenging accepted American social and cultural ideals. The release on February 8, 1915 of The Birth of a Nation — a silent white supremacist propaganda film credited with both resurrecting the Ku Klux […]
Beginning in the late 18th century, the area more or less defined by today’s Bleecker, Mercer, Thompson, Sullivan, MacDougal, and Carmine Streets started to grow as a free Black community in New York City. Institutions were formed — the Abyssinian Baptist Church moved to 166 Waverly Place in 1864 and stayed there for four decades; […]
On January 3, 2017, we launched our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map, a unique online resource that marks more than 200 sites in our neighborhoods significant to the history of various civil rights and social justice movements. Since history is never finished, we continue to add new sites and stories with connections to civil […]
Village Preservation has long made a priority of celebrating civil rights and social justice history in our neighborhoods.
Few places in America have made more significant contributions to civil rights and social justice struggles.
In 1909, the activist, scholar, educator, writer, editor W.E.B. Du Bois co-founded the NAACP.
The five story Italianate style cast-iron loft building at 112 Fourth Avenue was constructed in 1872.
In 1626, Paulo d’Angola arrived to New Amsterdam on the first ship bringing enslaved people to this region.
For nearly a quarter of a century, the International Workers Order fought relentlessly for racial equality.
The Women’s House of Detention, an eleven-story prison in the center of Greenwich Village, closed on June 13th, 1971.
Our neighborhoods have been the home of many of history’s most important civil rights and social justice leaders, as documented in Village Preservation’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. Three of our lesser-known map locations, however, highlight the under-recognized stories of 19th century Chinese American immigrant-rights activists. Some of these influential individuals, families, and organizations […]
On January 16th, 2013, Village Preservation sent a letter to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) requesting that it landmark key sites of significance to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history we had identified. At this time, no buildings in the city were explicitly recognized or protected by the LPC primarily for […]
Village Preservation’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Map was launched on January 3, 2017. This online resource, which marks sites in our neighborhoods significant to the history of various civil rights and social justice movements, includes over 200 locations. We’re proud that the map has been viewed by over 100,000 people in its three short […]
This is one in a series of posts marking the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District. Click here to check out our year-long activities and celebrations. Richard Wright (September 4, 1908 — November 28, 1960), novelist and short-story author, is considered among the most important figures of 20th-century American fiction. […]
The East Village is probably not the first neighborhood that comes to mind when most New Yorkers think about African American history. But this incredibly rich, multi-layered neighborhood was home to some remarkably consequential events, places, and figures in African-American history. To help explore just some of them, we have created a new African American […]
The renowned writer Alex Haley was born on August 11 in 1921. In the 1960’s, the Haley rented a writing studio in the back of the Greenwich Village building at 92 Grove Street. It was here that Haley conducted over 50 interviews with Malcolm X over a 2-year period, beginning in 1963. Malcolm X, the […]
The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted on July 28, 1868, played an important role in setting legal precedents for equality after the Civil War. The most radically worded of the Reconstruction Amendments, it was intended by its post–Civil War Radical Republican sponsors to stop the efforts by the former Confederate states to nullify emancipation. Its language promotes “liberty” […]
Helen Keller’s connections to New York City and Greenwich Village are numerous but perhaps less well known, as they are largely rooted in her work not as an advocate for the disabled, but in her sometimes controversial work as a suffragette, birth control advocate, antimilitarist, socialist, and an early founder of the American Civil Liberties Union […]
On April 3rd, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered what would become both his last and one of his most powerful speeches, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” In it, he called for unity and non-violent protests while challenging the United States to live up to its promise and ideas, saying he could see the day […]
On March 30, 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was certified as duly ratified, prohibiting the denial of citizens the right to vote based on “race, color, or previous condition of servitude” by state or federal government. This was of course meant to ensure that African-American men could vote, though that right was […]
Black History Month gives us the opportunity to look at an important and too often overlooked or undervalued part of American, New York, and neighborhood history and highlighting. Within our neighborhoods, there is an incredible array of African American histories, contributions, and culture all around us — sometimes hiding in plain sight. African Americans have […]
To walk by the verdant, lush garden behind the graceful Jefferson Market Library today, one can scarcely imagine that it was once the site of an eleven-story prison, the notorious Women’s House of Detention. Found on our Civil Rights and Social Justice map, this former imposing edifice served as a prison from its opening on […]
On January 3, 2017, GVSHP launched our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. Something in the air told us there might be a hunger and need for this kind of information. But even we would not have guessed that the map would receive over 70,000 views in that time, with its praises sung in BrickUnderground, […]
Some of the most important events and most prominent figures in the labor movement bear strong connections to the Village and East Village. Without these courageous individuals, or the events connected to them, we might never have had fair wages, better working conditions, or the right to collective bargaining. Below are a few standout homes […]
On September 27, 1948, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, more commonly known as W.E.B. Du Bois, began teaching the very first African-American history and culture class ever taught at a university, at Greenwich Village’s New School for Social Research. This history-making event appears on GVSHP’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Map (which can always be found […]
Last night, GVSHP and the Fortune Society hosted a celebration in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Fortune Society’s founding by David Rothenberg, and marking the release of GVSHP’s oral history with David and his addition to our Civil Rights and Social Justice Map. If you missed last night’s celebration, or want to relive […]
