Carol Greitzer is in so many ways the embodiment of a true New Yorker and Greenwich Villager. Born January 3, 1925, in Manhattan—on 15th Street, in a long-gone hospital—Greitzer grew up in the North Bronx, attended Hunter College after high school, received her master’s degree in English Literature from NYU, and went on to serve […]
Dr. Bruce Raymond Voeller, a pioneer of AIDS research and a significant early gay rights activist, was born on May 12, 1934 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He’s no household name, and his early biography would provide few hints as to why he should be. He graduated from Reed College in 1956, was awarded a five-year fellowship […]
We’re continuing to spend a lot of time thinking about things we used to do before the coronavirus outbreak, that we’re looking forward to hopefully doing again once things return to ‘normal.’ We’ve also been spending a lot of time going through our historic image archive at www.archive.gvshp.org, remembering some of those once-common activities, and just exploring the […]
The McDarrah family loves the Village. The late Fred W. McDarrah was a leading photojournalist and documentarian of late-20th century Greenwich Village. He was the primary (and often only) photographer for the Village Voice for decades, since the newspaper’s inception in 1955. He captured the counterculture of Greenwich Village and the East Village, Gay Rights, […]
On August 8, 1974, President Richard Nixon announced his resignation, effective noon the following day. Following months of impeachment proceedings, Nixon could read the writing on the wall that his time as President would be coming to an end, one way or another. There were several prominent Villagers who played key roles in the push […]
Last week we solved one of our longstanding historic photo mysteries, when Eric Robinson, the cousin of the photographer, Carole Teller, was able to identify the location of this elevated train which had been demolished almost fifty years ago. Many of the images we receive as donations to our historic image archives are unidentified in terms of […]
This is an updated re-posting of a piece written by former GVSHP staffer Dana Schultz. Walk into McSorley’s Old Ale House today and you will see an equal mix of the genders enjoying a beer. It’s hard to imagine that for 116 years this would not have been the case, as women were not allowed […]
On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended that President Richard M. Nixon be impeached and removed from office. And while many remember the two year saga which placed the executive office and country in turmoil, they might not remember that several prominent Villagers were at the forefront of this chapter in our history. […]
Edward I. Koch served as Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, following terms as Greenwich Village’s Congressman, City Councilmember, and Democratic District leader. Koch, a self-described “liberal with sanity”, passed away four years ago today, following several decades living at 2 5th Avenue. Koch previously lived at 81 Bedford Street, 72 Barrow […]
Police brutality, class warfare, gentrification — today these are hot button topics, both nationally and in New York City. But on August 6, 1988, frustrations over these issues converged in the form of protest and riots in Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. These protests reflected somewhat the shifting nature of the park and the neighborhood […]
Much of the Village Voice from the 1950s to the mid-2000s is available to view online via a Google digitization project. The huge trove of scanned newspapers helps reveal the changes that have occurred over fifty years to the architecture of the neighborhood, to music and culture, to local businesses, to politics, to the concerns […]
Much of the Village Voice from the 1950s to the mid-2000s is available to view online via a Google digitization project. The huge trove of scanned newspapers helps reveal the changes that have occurred over fifty years to the architecture of the neighborhood, to music and culture, to local businesses, to politics, to the concerns […]
Tucked away on an unassuming block on LaGuardia Place is the former studio and home of sculptor Chaim Gross and his wife Renee. Gross, whose art can be found in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, worked and lived in the Village for […]
On October 1, 1998, Charlie Zito passed away after years of baking bread on Bleecker Street, in the heart of the South Village. There is nothing like the aroma of fresh-baked bread, and when Zito’s Bakery was making bread, I remember that aroma on Bleecker Street – because sometimes it would stop me in my […]
As you should now be aware, today is primary election day in New York City. The polls close at 9:00 P.M. tonight, so if you haven’t already, check the location of your polling place and go out and vote. As many of the primary races around the city feature people who have worked in their […]
This coming March will mark the twenty-sixth anniversary of the founding of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) — the direct action and advocacy group organized to affect change in order to fight the AIDS Crisis. ACT UP was formed in New York City after a series of meetings at the LGBT Community Center […]
Today we note the passing of Edward I. Koch, Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989 and former Greenwich Village Congressman, City Councilmember, and Democratic District leader. A resident of Greenwich Village since the 1950’s, for the last several decades Koch lived in an apartment overlooking Washington Square Park at No. 2 Fifth […]
Although more and more of the research that GVSHP documents and shares is done online today, we also house a modest non-circulating resource library which contains fiction and non-fiction books, reports and guides on the subject areas of Greenwich Village, Historic Preservation, and New York City history. The library also contains hard copies of designation […]
