In 2021 and 2022, Village Preservation developed an innovative outdoor public art exhibition that was displayed throughout Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. VILLAGE VOICES featured photographs, artifacts, and soundscape recordings to celebrate and honor the artistic, social, political, and cultural movements that have grown in our neighborhoods, and the people who gave them […]
One of the delights of working in the field of historic preservation is getting to regularly dig into old image archives, where unique, wonderful, and fleeting glimpses into the past await, captured from the perspectives of individuals who lived and worked in these neighborhoods. Riccardo Spina, whose family first arrived in Greenwich Village from Italy […]
This special two-part series explores Ai Weiwei’s experiences in two different East Villages — one in New York and the other in Beijing — both of which were hubs of artistic experimentation and influence. In the first installment, we explored Ai Weiwei’s formative years in New York, discussing his friendship with Allen Ginsberg and his […]
This special two-part series explores Ai Weiwei’s experiences in two different East Villages — one in New York and the other in Beijing — both of which were hubs of artistic experimentation and influence. In the first installment, we will delve into Ai Weiwei’s formative years in New York, where he developed both his career […]
Village Preservation began offering an East Village Rock Tour in July, and it has been met with great enthusiasm and large groups gathering to learn more about the history of Rock ‘n Roll in the East Village.
Today we’re celebrating the accomplishments of some historic lenspeople who made their mark in the neighborhood South of Union Square. Photography was one of the many creative industries shaped and transformed by this district (one that has yet to be recognized and protected by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but you can help preserve the area […]
If you have blank walls and find yourself in the mood for exploration and unexpected discoveries, our Business of the Month, Pageant Print Shop at 69 East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue, should be your destination.
Do you love old photos like we do? It’s fascinating to see the changing and remaining face of our neighborhoods over the years and decades. Village Preservation is fortunate to serve as custodian of an immense and rich photo archive you can explore here. And sometimes we see some intriguing online resources and archives that […]
Westbeth photographer Shelley Seccombe has been documenting the Greenwich Village waterfront since 1970.
We’ve been spending 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, remembering some of those once-common activities, and just exploring the history of […]
Sure, our phones might seem to be more curse than blessing sometimes, eating up our time and attention more than we’d like to admit. But of course they have also brought about unbelievable the-future-is-now ways of connecting us all. Google Arts & Culture virtually brings you face to face with some of the most astounding […]
Looking through our past programs, it’s amazing to remember the vast array of topics we’ve explored with our lecturers and guests. Presenters have educated us about the amazing architecture, colorful characters, and transformative social movements central to our neighborhoods. And, thankfully, we’ve filmed the majority of them, to enjoy again and again! Today we’re looking […]
Villager and photographer Rose Hartman has, since the 1970s, been known for her candid portraits of the world’s celebrities and non-celebrities as they pass through New York City. Ms. Hartman, who’s lived on Charles Street in the West Village, is a former high school teacher who took the leap into photography in her thirties. Hartman’s photography […]
With the colder air, the shorter days, and the mania of holiday planning that come with late November, it seems right to start spending more time in the warm, comfortable indoors. And looking through our Historic Image Archive, while our neighborhood’s building facades and street life take center stage, it’s also nice to note the […]
Diane Arbus was born on March 14, 1923, and died by her own hand a mere forty-eight years later on July 26, 1971. The acclaimed and celebrated photographer’s body of mid-20th century work focused largely on people marginalized by “mainstream” society. Arbus’s first Greenwich Village address was a rear carriage house at 131 1/2 Charles Street where […]
There’s no overstating it – we at Village Preservation love our members and friends sharing old mementos and images of our neighborhood. Personal or family pictures taken of one’s surroundings or familiar spots often now become, years later, important historical documents. Case in point: we’ve just added to our ever-growing Historic Image Archive a mini-collection of […]
Carole Teller’s rich collection of photographs of our neighborhoods over the last half century, which she generously donated to GVSHP, have created quite the buzz on the web of late, with coverage in Lonely Planet, the U.K Daily Mail, NBC, Time Out NY, Gothamist, Curbed, World Journal, and Untapped Cities, among many others. But who […]
You may know that every Thursday, social media (Instagram especially) is abuzz with #tbt. The hashtag stands for Throwback Thursday and it’s a chance for everyone to post fun, funny, or interesting old photos. We love to participate in #tbt because it’s a great chance to highlight historic images of our city, and today we’re […]
Earlier this year, we were gifted with a truly extraordinary set of photographs from a photographer and longtime East Villager. There’s still some work to be done before we can present you the entire bunch (stay tuned for more on that soon!) but until then, I thought I’d share an image that really caught my […]
Your input is needed! Today we feature our latest Business of the Month — help us to select the next. Tell us which independent store you love in Greenwich Village, the East Village or NoHo: click here to nominate your favorite. Want to help support small businesses? Share this post with friends. Books, books, and more […]
GVSHP is excited to share our oral history collection with the public, and hope they will shed more light on what makes Greenwich Village and the East Village such unique and vibrant areas. Each of these histories highlights the experiences and insights of long-time residents, usually active in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life of […]
As 2015 comes to a close and 2016 approaches, here is a look back at GVSHP’s public programs for 2015. In all, we produced or co-sponsored 60 programs that drew almost 5,000 attendees. Our programs consisted of slideshows, lectures, book talks, panel discussions, interviews, museum visits, walking tours, and other formats. We chose different venues […]
That’s the name of Tim McDarrah’s new walking tours. The tours are based on the photographs his late father, Village Voice photojournalist Fred W. McDarrah, took of people and places in the Village starting in the mid-1950s. I joined Tim and a group of 8 others recently for an amazing 90-minute journey through the neighborhood […]
Today we launch a new occasional series, “The Village Seen,” to display the work of the many talented visual artists in our neighborhoods. Longtime East Village resident Dan Efram is a producer, manager and curator in various media, whose sensibilities as a photographer caught our attention. As you can see in full on his Instagram […]
Can you identify the image in the photo above? On Monday evening, November 17th, we’ll present a program with photographer Janko Puls and his new book “Point of View New York City: A Visual Game of the City You Think You Know.” Here is what people are saying about this book: “A thoughtful and unique […]
From November 1975 to September 1976, artist Roy Colmer photographed more than 3,000 Manhattan doorways to create an art project called Doors, NYC. The New York Public Library, which houses the collection, notes that the project “was as much an exploration of the serial possibilities of photography as of its ability to capture a place. […]
Greenwich Village, like the rest of New York City, has seen many changes over the years. What was once a marshy area of sandy hills before Europeans arrived became the location of farms and estates, and ultimately the destination for people of means escaping epidemics in Lower Manhattan.
Here we are in the midst of the holiday season. The city was blanketed with snow this weekend and shoppers are frantically working through their holiday gift-giving lists. For today’s Building Broadway post, I’d like to share a wonderful gift that was left to all of us almost 100 years ago: Arthur Hosking’s photographs of […]
We hope you have weathered the hurricane as best as possible. Our office is still closed due to power outages that have affected most buildings south of 31st Street, but we thought we’d share some of our visual resources we have for you on the site: photos and maps. This seems to be a theme […]
With Fashion Week ending yesterday, we thought we’d wrap up our week with a look at some fashions of yesteryear in which the Village played a supporting role. The urban landscape of our neighborhoods has long been a favorite for photographers both as a subject in its own right and as a character-filled backdrop.
As I was considering a topic for last week’s Presidents’ Day post, I came across a great find from our nation’s past that took place right here in present-day NoHo. To my delight, the anniversary of this historic event was right around the corner, today in fact! Yes, on February 27, 1860, relatively unknown presidential […]
