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Tag: Frank O’Hara

The Lives of Writers #SouthOfUnionSquare

Today we’re celebrating the accomplishments of some historic writers and authors who made their mark in the neighborhood South of Union Square. Writing is one of the many creative professions that has thrived in this district (one that has yet to be recognized and protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but you can help preserve […]

Village Preservation Plaques Highlight LGBTQ+ History Throughout Our Neighborhoods

On April 21, Village Preservation joined with the the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project to honor the city’s oldest gay bar and a pioneering event from the early days of the movement for LGBTQ+ rights. The honoree was Julius’ Bar at 159 West 10th Street and the notable event was the Sip-In. In the 1960s, […]

Ferlinghetti and Rosset: Censorship-Battling Superheroes

Our neighborhoods are not only places where great literature was written. It’s also where great literature was published, sometimes at great legal peril, and where tectonic-shifting battles against censorship were led and won. Nowhere is that more true than in the area South of Union Square, where art, commerce, and activism collided. And perhaps no […]

East Village Building Blocks Tour: Theaters!

The East Village has been fertile ground for theatrical innovation since the beginning of the 20th century. Off-Off Broadway productions began in the East Village as an anti-commercial and experimental or avant-garde movement of drama and theater. To celebrate the iconoclasts and innovative creators in our neighborhoods, we’ve created a tour of current and former […]

Hettie Jones, 2019 Village Awardee

Hettie Jones is a talented writer, a loving mother and grandmother, a forceful activist, a nurturing teacher, and a friendly neighbor and preservationist. She is the stuff neighborhood dreams are made of. Showing no signs of slowing down at 85, she is easily one of the earth mothers of our community – and we’re thrilled […]

Frank O’Hara’s East Village

This post is adapted and updated from an earlier Off the Grid post written by Karen Loew in 2014. On June 10, 2014, GVSHP and Two Boots Foundation had the great pleasure of marking, with a commemorative plaque, the home of poet Frank O’Hara at 441 East 9th Street (just west of Avenue A). In […]

    Remembering East Village resident and musician Lead Belly

    As regular readers of “Off the Grid” will know, one of many ways Village Preservation has worked to preserve the neighborhood heritage of Greenwich Village has been to install a series of plaques remembering everything from the radical politics of saloon-keeper Justus Schwab (50 E. 1st Street) and the longtime home of poet Frank O’Hara […]

    LGBTQ History: MacDougal Street

    (This post is the first of a series on the history of the LGBTQ community in Greenwich Village.) It is easy to assume, in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots, that Greenwich Village’s LGBTQ history happened entirely on Christopher Street. Of course, there’s a lot more to LGBTQ history in the Village than Stonewall, just […]

    The San Remo Cafe: Archive Edition

    Off the Grid often features images from GVSHP’s Preservation Archive and Oral History Project. The image archive includes approximately 300 images from ten different collections that document the architecture, cultural history, and preservation of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. This summer, we were pleased to accept two new images into the archive.

      Ten or More Questions with Bob Holman, Village Poet Extraordinaire

      Bob Holman has been making poetry downtown for over 25 years. Among his many endeavors, he is perhaps best known locally as the impresario of the Bowery Poetry Club, founded in 2001 and morphed into Bowery Arts + Science last year. He is the author of 16 works of poetry. We’re delighted that Holman is […]