On Thanksgiving Day, 1902, Greenwich House opened its doors at 26 Jones Street. Founded by Mary K. Simkhovitch, this settlement house would soon become a pillar of social and cultural enrichment in Greenwich Village. Greenwich House offered its service to thousands of immigrants in the following years. Today we’re reflecting on the history of the house and […]
On February 2, 1860, a terrible fire broke out in a tenement at 142 Elm Street (today Lafayette Street, just north of Howard Street in SoHo). The building was occupied by 24 families, according to The New York Times account at the time, and the fire started in a bakery in the basement. Ten women […]
Our area boasts some of the most historic and attractive architecture in the city, if we do say so ourselves. All too often, however, these buildings lose beautiful historic details, through lack of maintenance or intentional removal. The most common such alteration to the look of buildings is probably the removal of cornices, the protruding […]
GVSHP launched our blog Off the Grid on February 25, 2011, to share news, research, viewpoints, and historic information about our neighborhoods and beyond. Since then, we have written over 2,000 blog posts (wow!). In honor of our 8th Anniversary, we wanted to look back at our most popular blog post of each year:
April 12, 1901 marks the date when the New York State Legislature passed the Tenement House Act of 1901, more commonly known as the “New Law” or “New Tenement Law.” This significant moment in New York City housing history resulted from intense pressure by housing reform groups, leading to Governor Theodore Roosevelt appointing a commission to […]
