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, […]
Join us, Frank Stella, and the Whitney Museum of American Art on Monday, Nov. 8, at 6 pm for a virtual plaque unveiling ceremony. Few buildings in New York have had as distinguished a history as 128 East 13th Street. Believed to be the last surviving horse and carriage auction mart in New York City, it […]
The roots of LGBTQ+ life in our neighborhoods are deeper than we even know. In the documentary PS. Burn This Letter Please, which premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and was presented at one of Village Preservation’s Pride programs, gay historian George Chauncey spoke about using police records and newspaper articles because personal papers […]
Today we’re looking at the historic plaques that Village Preservation has placed throughout our neighborhoods commemorating some of the amazing women who have lived, worked, and changed history here. Historic plaques are a great tool to educate the public about the remarkable history of our neighborhoods, and the incredible people, events, and movements connected to sites […]
Historic plaques can be a wonderful way to educate the public about the remarkable history of our neighborhoods, and the incredible people, events, and movements connected to sites all around us. Historic plaques benefit local communities, as well as tourists and visitors, by sparking further interest in local history. Dedication ceremonies, which celebrate the installation […]
Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree, which she put to great use when she opened in NoHo the first infirmary run by women for women. Born on February 3, 1821, in Bristol England, Blackwell and her family moved to the United States in 1832. Following the […]
Despite all the challenges of the year, Village Preservation proudly hosted 76 programs (most of which were virtual), reaching over 9,000 people in 2020. How does one choose favorites? It’s nearly impossible, especially given that each program represents, at minimum, someone’s research, passion, skill, life’s work, book, or all of the above. So, in wrap-up […]
Folk music icon Woody Guthrie was a little man with beady eyes – as described by his second wife Marjorie, though she had imagined him to be taller, strapping, and more like a proper cowboy than he was. Perhaps it was because of his Dust Bowl Ballads, his first album, chronicling his travels from Dust […]
On April 6th, 1968, The Who rocked the Fillmore East as part of a two-night residency. On April 20th, they will release a double CD and triple LP of that seminal two-night stint, in honor of its fiftieth anniversary. The Who have played around the world for decades, but among their many performances they chose to […]
Through his writing, televised debates, and public speaking across the globe, author and activist James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 — December 1, 1987) was a vital voice for the civil rights movement. He was part of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, as well as the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. From 1958 to 1961 […]
On Sunday, June 23, 2013 outside the Church of the Village at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 13th Street, GVSHP helped to unveil a plaque to commemorate the first meeting of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). The organization, which now has 350 chapters in all 50 states, had its humble […]
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 […]
On this day in 1894 the revolutionary dancer and choreographer Martha Graham was born. She is largely responsible for modern dance as the art form we know today. Graham was an essential part of the early- to mid-century Village arts scene. In 2015 we unveiled one of our historic plaques in honor of her, with The New School, at 66 […]
On this date in 2013, GVSHP and Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) unveiled our plaque to memorialize and celebrate Jeanne Manford at the Church of the Village at 13th Street and 7th Avenue. Jeanne had died a few weeks earlier at the age of 92, but forty one years earlier in 1972 she […]
On March 8, 1968, the Fillmore East opened at 105 Second Avenue. The first night’s lineup of Big Brother & Holding Company, Tim Buckley, and Albert King was the start of a three year run of music legends that included The Who, The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Blood Sweat & Tears, The Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, the Allman […]
This week, James Baldwin, one-time resident of Greenwich Village, returns to his old neighborhood — on the silver screen at least. Film Forum is showing the new documentary I Am Not Your Negro, based on Baldwin’s unfinished text Remember This House, and directed by Raoul Peck. Narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, the film explores the […]
Yesterday we were honored to unveil the latest in our Historic Plaque Program at 526 LaGuardia Place, where sculptor Chaim Gross lived and worked. You may have passed by it many times and not be aware of the magic inside. Working predominantly in wood, stone, and eventually bronze, the work of Chaim Gross conveyed a […]
In 1973, Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon; the album hit U.S. shelves on March 1st and UK on March 16th. Dark Side of the Moon was the band’s eighth studio album, their most commercially successful album, and one of the best-selling albums ever worldwide. Conflict, greed, the passage of time, and mental illness […]
What is it about James Baldwin? This writer, long recognized as an important voice in American literature, has been gone for over a quarter-century, yet seems to be speaking incessantly in the country’s ear. He was born in Harlem in 1924, and died in the south of France in 1987, and achieved the kind of […]
There’s an appealing 1951 painting by Stuart Davis owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art, though it’s not currently on view in the new building. Vibrant and memorable, the work is titled “Owh! In San Paõ.” The Whitney explains the unusual name: “…Davis had planned to exhibit it at the 1951 Biennial in São […]
This year’s Gay Pride Month certainly got off to an auspicious start with the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission finally agreeing to consider the Stonewall Inn for individual landmark designation — a proposal GVSHP has been spearheading for the last year and a half — which would make it New York City’s first LGBT […]
One year ago today outside the Church of the Village at the corner of Seventh Avenue and West 13th Street, GVSHP helped to unveil a plaque to commemorate the first meeting of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). The organization, which now has 350 chapters in all 50 states, had its humble beginnings […]
You’re invited to a plaque unveiling and festivities honoring Frank O’Hara on Tuesday, June 10 at 6 p.m. outside 441 East Ninth Street. I am mainly preoccupied with the world as I experience it, and at times when I would rather be dead the thought that I could never write another poem has so far […]
We at GVSHP want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and best wishes for the new year. We’ll be posting intermittently for the next week or so until we pick up a normal schedule again at the beginning of 2014. It’s been a momentous year of course. What better way to end the year […]
Yesterday the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), and The Church of the Village unveiled a bronze historic marker now permanently affixed to the facade of this landmark church memorializing the first meeting of what came to be PFLAG, led by Jeanne Manford, at the church […]
GVSHP is proud to be working with PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and the Church of the Village at 13th Street and 7th Avenue to memorialize and celebrate Jeanne Manford. Jeanne died earlier this year at 92, but forty years ago this March she held the first meeting of what would […]
This Tuesday, Jeanne Manford died at the age of 92. Sometimes referred to as the “Mother of the Straight Ally Movement,” Jeanne’s may not be a household name in all quarters, but her legacy and impact upon our broader culture is enormous. And it has strong roots in Greenwich Village, and its early embrace of […]
“On Saturdays when I did not have to lecture, we used to visit the saloon of Justus Schwab, the most famous radical center in New York. Schwab was the traditional Teuton in appearance, over six feet tall, broad-chested, and strait as a tree. On his wide shoulders and strong neck rested a magnificent head, framed […]
