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Tag: LGBT History

Stonewall National Monument: Marking Nearly 60 Years of Pride and Resilience

It is the first National Monument designated to mark LGBTQIA+ history. President Obama designated the Stonewall National Monument on June 24, 2016, becoming official on June 27, 2016. The road to designation was a long one. In the 1990s Village Preservation, then known as Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP), along with the now-defunct […]

LGBTQ+ History in the Image Archive: Utilizing the New Tag Feature

A new and exciting feature of Village Preservation’s sizable Historic Image Archive is the ability to filter images by category, or “tag.” We have painstakingly tagged every single one of our nearly 5,000 historic photographs (an ever growing number), so that users can easily view images organized by their interests. As an example, the “LGBTQ+” […]

Whitman in the Village: The Poet’s Third Space

Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo sit at the heart of New York’s LGBTQ+ history and culture, which as some might be surprised to hear, stretches back to the earliest days of New York. Perhaps most prominently, well over a century before the Stonewall Inn, Julius’ Bar, The Pyramid Club, and many other important […]

Jonathan Ned Katz Oral History: LGBTQ Historian, Painter and Pioneer

Village Preservation shares our oral history collection with the public, highlighting some of the people and stories that make Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo such unique and vibrant neighborhoods. Each includes the experiences and insights of leaders or long-time participants in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life. In August 2023, Village Preservation conducted […]

Alvin Baltrop: Photographs of a Dystopian Past

Greenwich Village’s Hudson River piers have always held a certain clandestine fascination for some segment of the public. After an automobile crash caused the elevated West Side Highway to collapse in December of 1973, Piers 18 – 52 fell into a derelict state, creating a dystopian yet incredibly private space for LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers to […]

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, […]

Go West! – The Leather & Denim Scene in the Weehawken Street Historic District

The Weehawken Street Historic District (designated May 2, 2006) consists of a small area on three blocks around West, Christopher, and 10th Streets. Although primarily known for its relation to New York City’s maritime industry from the 1830s to 1920s, the tiny district was also the center of New York’s Queer Leather and Denim (L&D) […]

The Documents of History: Mattachine Society of New York’s Archival Papers of 1951-1976 at the New York Public Library

As Village Preservation prepares to unveil a plaque commemorating the “Sip-In” at Julius’ Bar on April 21, 1966, one might wonder about the Mattachine Society of New York, which organized this historic event as part of their broader participation in the 1945-1969 Homophile Movement in New York City and beyond. We know the leaders of […]

Stormé DeLarverie: Village Guardian

A self-proclaimed “gay superhero,” Stormé Delarverie (≅ December 24, 1920 – May 24, 2014, Pronouns: she/her in public, he/him in performance) was a drag king, bouncer, and neighborhood activist who outspokenly protected LGBTQ+ communities in our neighborhoods and Lower Manhattan. Pronounced “Stormy De-Lah-vee-yay,” she made a name for herself as the (alleged) spark that started […]

Local Lesbian Bookstores: Founders of a Feminist Future

Historically, our neighborhoods have hosted many independent and unconventional bookstores. These small institutions have helped define the character of our neighborhoods as a literary capital of the Western world. With apartments as small as ours, these bookstores took on the role of collective public living rooms, acting as places of community gathering and organization. But, […]

2021 Village Preservation Public Programs Round-Up

As we close the chapter on yet another wild and successful of year of public programs at Village Preservation, we wanted to take the time to reflect and highlight some of 2021’s best moments. Despite the twists and turns of this year’s ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic, we’ve hosted 80 different educational lectures, book talks, and walking […]

Greer Lankton: An Artist’s Life in the Village of the Dolls

Greer Lankton (she/her, April 21, 1958 – November 18, 1996) was an East Village-based multidisciplinary artist who worked in illustration, photography, and sculpture. She’s mostly known for creating lifelike paper-mache dolls of celebrities, and she explored themes around celebrity iconography, beauty standards, and the white feminine ideal. While not all of her dolls were of […]

Candy Darling: A Superstar in Her Own Right

Candy Darling (She/Her, November 24, 1944 — March 21, 1974) was a transgender icon and muse for well-known artists and musicians like Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground. Darling was an influential Downtown character throughout the 1960s, often interacting with its creative scene through Seymour Levy’s “Salon” on Bleecker Street. She was one of Andy […]

Sylvia Rivera: A Controversial But Powerful and Enduring Activist for LGBTQ+ Rights

Sylvia Rivera (July 2, 1951 – February 19, 2002, She/Her) was a trailblazing advocate for the rights of transgender individuals and LGBTQ+ communities. A vocal opponent of racism and transphobia within the 1970-80s Gay Liberation Movement, Rivera was controversial (to say the least) during her time. While delivering her infamous speech, “Y’all Better Quiet Down!” […]

Downtown Drag + Performance in the 1990s — the Jillian Jonas Collection

The Village Preservation Image Archive highlights the history of the people and built environment of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, as well as New York City in general. It has been assembled over the years through generous donations, and consists of thousands of photos in several dozen different collections. Our most recent addition […]

New Historic Image Collection Explores Downtown Drag + Performance Scene of the 1990s

As we approach LGBTQ+ Pride Weekend, Village Preservation is proud to share with you a wonderful new collection in our historic image archive of donated images from Jillian Jonas chronicling the fiery and flamboyant downtown drag performance scene of the 1990s. Jonas, who was the house photographer at the legendary Boy Bar on St. Mark’s Place, also captured […]

LGBTQ Pride+History Month with Village Preservation

LGBTQ+ Pride and History Month may be in June, but at Village Preservation, we’re working to document, celebrate, and protect the incredibly rich LGBTQ+ history of our neighborhoods, which played such a unique role in this community’s civil rights struggle, 12 months a year (but maybe a little extra in June!).  Want to celebrate, educate, […]

Why Isn’t this Landmarked?: 86 University Place, “Mittelstaedt House”

Part of our blog series Why Isn’t This Landmarked?, where we look at buildings in our area we’re fighting to protect that are worthy of landmark designation, but somehow aren’t landmarked. I’ve walked by 86 University Place between 11th and 12th Streets, aka “Mittelstaedt House,” countless times.  Based upon the unusually elaborate cornice alone, I have […]

The long road to landmark: How NYC’s Stonewall Inn became a symbol of civil rights

Millions converge in New York City each year in late June to celebrate events which took place in and outside of a Greenwich Village bar in 1969. The Stonewall Riots are not only be memorialized here in New York City, but those events have come to take on international significance. There are celebrations and marches in countries across the globe, […]

East Village Building Blocks Tour: the LGBTQ East Village

While the neighboring West Village may have the more well-known sites, the East Village contains a rich assortment of places connected to LGBTQ history, including the homes of noted artists, writers, musicians, and activists. It also holds a vast array of performance venues and gathering spaces that attracted and helped launch the careers of many […]

    GVHD50 and Stonewall50 – LGBTQ Sites of the Greenwich Village Historic District

    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. Rounding up each person, place, and moment in the Greenwich Village Historic District’s LGBTQ history would take longer than it does to line up […]

    Great Writers and the Greenwich Village Historic District

    This is one in a series of posts marking the 50th anniversary of the designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District.  Check out our year-long activities and celebrations at gvshp.org/GVHD50.  The Greenwich Village Historic District has been home, over the years, to countless writers, authors, poets and other literati. Known as an area for artists, the writers […]

      Viewers Choice: Top 5 Village Preservation Program Videos of 2018

      Each year, Village Preservation hosts more than sixty public programs. They cover our neighborhoods from the western edge of Greenwich Village to the easternmost reaches of the East Village.  Topics cover a diverse range of areas including rock and roll, restoring artists’ studios, terracotta mosaics in the subways, street photography, women’s poetry, and so much […]

      “An Intimate and Unconventional Space:” Caffe Cino

      Caffe Cino at 31 Cornelia Street was a community, a haven, the birthplace of countless theatrical careers and movements, and the origin of off-off-Broadway theater. In November 2017, Caffe Cino was added to the National Register of Historic Places, which is a great symbolic honor for the Caffe, which opened in 1958 and closed its […]

        Beyond the Village and Back: “Becoming Visible” and The Legacy of Stonewall at the NYPL

        Our Beyond the Village and Back series takes a look at great landmarks in New York City outside of our neighborhoods, finding the sometimes hidden connection to the Village.  Today we take a slightly unorthodox approach of looking back at a groundbreaking exhibit which took place on June 18th, 1994 at one of our city’s most […]

        How LGBT activism led to NYC’s most notorious bank robbery: The real story behind ‘Dog Day Afternoon’

        The most notorious bank robbery in New York City history took place on August 22, 1972, during the decidedly dog days of that long hot summer. Immortalized in the film “Dog Day Afternoon,” it was an unlikely anti-hero tale with a backstory that began in Greenwich Village, interwoven with the social and political currents running […]

        LGBT History in All Corners: NoHo

        June is Pride Month, an especially exciting time in our neighborhoods.  LGBT history is closely tied with the Village and environs, and this month we’re highlighting the LGBT history of the West Village, East Village, South Village, and NoHo.  Many of these sites can be found on our GVSHP Civil Rights and Social Justice Map, and we […]

        Black History Month in the Village: African-American & LGBT Historic Sites

        February is Black History Month.  We here at GVSHP are celebrating it by highlighting different sites of significance to the African-American community within our neighborhoods.  We’re focusing on sites found on our new Civil Rights & Social Justice Map, discussing their connections to African-American History and the Civil Rights Movement.

        GVSHPride: Roundup of LGBTQ Resources and Information

        Happy Pride Week! Each June during the week leading up to the Gay Pride March, NYC celebrates Pride Week.  Throughout the week, different groups and organizations will host events, throw parties, and do general outreach and advocacy to promote the history and visibility of the LGBTQ community.  Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has always worked […]