In our series Beyond the Village and Back, we take a look at some great landmarks outside of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, celebrate their special histories, and reveal their (sometimes hidden) connections to our neighborhoods. The headquarters of the fictional Lumon Industries, featured in the hit Apple TV show Severance, perfectly captures […]
See part one of our “Past Village Awardees” series here One of Village Preservation’s most beloved traditions is our Annual Meeting and Village Awards, in which we celebrate our achievements of the past year, and honor invaluable local leaders, institutions, businesses, places, and organizations in our neighborhoods. Fondly referred to as the “Oscars of the […]
I moved to the West Village, all the way west, tucked between the Meatpacking District and the Hudson River, in 1991 at the age of four. My family first lived on Barrow Street and then Bank Street, both between Washington and West Streets, and both within the West Village Houses complex. When you hear the […]
“I don’t go around looking for trouble, and yet these experiences often lead me out of sculpture to realms of danger — fantastic, literal, psychic danger.” — George Spaventa, ARTnews, September 1961 It is always exciting to find more strands of the expansive history in our neighborhoods; whether incidentally, or while following a direct lead. In this […]
Not that long ago, someone strolling down one of our neighborhood streets could have been forgiven for not looking up from their iPhone, except perhaps to avoid walking into oncoming traffic. All that started to change 11 years ago, when we launched our historic plaque program. These days, not looking increasingly means missing out on […]
Humans, anthropocentric as they are, project their emotive capacity onto the inanimate world. If you’re throwing away an old pair of shoes, and you stare at them long enough, they will stare back at you sadly. Those who can make art out of manipulating these transfigurations are almost like magicians. And for years, we were […]
Focus on your breath. It all begins there. Notice its natural rhythm and let that movement expand into a full-body contraction and release. This will form the basis of a stylized movement vocabulary that will allow you to explore the dynamic tension between the need to vent your passion and the desire for control. Now […]
Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006), Korean artist and avant-garde visionary, is well-known for his pioneering video artistry. Less known, however, is that Paik, dubbed the “Father of Video Art,” played a vital role in our neighborhoods’ rich artistic history. Working out of his studio in Westbeth along with his partner […]
On Thursday, December 8th, the audience of our program “Village Preservation at Westbeth Gallery’s Winter Show” had the opportunity to hear directly from artist and Westbeth resident Christina Maile. Christina is self described as trained as a landscape architect, her writing and visual work references colonialism, feminism and extinction and she is of Dayak and West Indian descent.
Everyone in the audience at the gallery very quickly became aware of the depth of knowledge Christina has to share about Westbeth Artists Housing. This program was a great introduction to the launch of Christina’s oral history with Village Preservation, which is available here on our website.
Martha Graham’s (1894-1991) remarkable career as a dancer and choreographer spanned more than 70 years. During her lifetime, she saw contemporary dance evolve from a new art form to a well-established one, in large part due to her many contributions. She was a pioneer, but also a visionary, creating her own movement language while demonstrating […]
Merce Cunningham, considered by many one of the most influential choreographers of the 20th century, was a multi-dimensional artist. He was a dance-maker, a fierce collaborator, an innovator, a film producer, and a teacher. During his 70 years of creative practice, Cunningham’s exploration forever changed the landscape of dance, music, and contemporary art. The avant-garde […]
Ralph Lee’s interest in puppetry and theater began as a young boy in his family’s home in Middlebury, Vermont. An early creative spark launched him on a career that ultimately took him to the role he’s most often recognized for, as the “father” of Greenwich Village’s annual Halloween Parade.
Artist and lithographer Laurie Ourlicht lived a fascinating yet mostly undiscovered life. Although her pieces live on in museum collections and private galleries, very little is known about the artist’s personal life. Born August 9th, 1953, in Upstate New York, she attended SUNY at Fredonia for undergrad and pursued an M.F.A. in Fine Arts from […]
Hugh Hurd was a longtime village resident who worked across the arts, labor, and civil rights movements to influence major shifts in how African Americans are treated in America.
Martha Graham never considered herself a genius. For her, the measure of a dancer was their passion, and by that metric, Graham was exceptional. In creating 181 ballets and a dance technique that bears her name, Martha Graham was as prolific as she was committed to energizing the spectator into “keener awareness of life through […]
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 […]
It’s Village Preservation’s 40th birthday this year. In honor of this auspicious occasion, we recently released a story map that details our efforts documenting, celebrating, and advocating for the preservation of our neighborhoods, all of which are made possible by our members and supporters. The map is divided by decade, and so today we showcase […]
Westbeth is the first subsidized housing for artists in the United States, offering affordable housing and work space in New York City.
Westbeth photographer Shelley Seccombe has been documenting the Greenwich Village waterfront since 1970.
Each year, Village Preservation honors the invaluable people, businesses, and organizations that make a special contribution to our neighborhoods at our Annual Meeting and Village Awards. On June 17th, 2020 we will be celebrating nine outstanding awardees at our— RSVP here to participate virtually. George Cominskie is a beloved longtime West Village and Westbeth community activist, […]
Villager, dancer, and choreographer Merce Cunningham is an artist whose work continues to live vibrantly in 2019, which marks Cunningham’s centennial. The Merce Cunningham Centennial is celebrating a century of artistic expression through events, presentations, and discussions about Merce, dance, and his influence on culture. This Village Preservation Oral History participant will continue to be […]
If Beale Street Could Talk is the newest release from award-winning filmmaker Barry Jenkins. The film is Jenkins’s adaptation of a novella by James Baldwin of the same name. The story, based in 1970s New York City, is about mother-and-wife-to-be Tish, who vividly recalls the passion, respect and trust that have connected her and her […]
On Monday, October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy a.k.a. “Superstorm Sandy” made landfall in New York. It was one of the most devastating natural disasters to ever hit New York. It inflicted $19 billion in damages and killed 43 people in New York City. Many neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and Queens were flooded by the 14-foot storm […]
Among the many delights included in this weekend’s Open House New York will be three iconic Greenwich Village buildings–a Gothic Revival church with many architectural firsts, a library that was originally a courthouse which heard the “Trial of the Century,” and a groundbreaking artists’ housing complex that was formerly home to Bell Telephone Labs and the site […]
The award-winning guitarist, composer, and producer Nile Rodgers was born on September 19, 1952. Rodgers co-founded the influential disco group Chic; produced music for artists as diverse as David Bowie, Sister Sledge, Daft Punk, Madonna, Diana Ross, and Disclosure; and played a pivotal role in the flowering and success of rap and hip hop. Less […]
Theater for The New City (TNC) was founded in 1970 and has served its community with a wide variety of programming for nearly fifty years. TNC has premiered nearly one thousand new American plays and won more than forty OBIE Awards. Co-Founder Crystal Field has led the incredible institution since its founding. And on June 6th, […]
Ralph Lee directed the first Village Halloween Parade in 1974 in conjunction with the Theater for the New City. This mile-long theatrical production of masked performers, giant puppets, musicians, and other flamboyant characters took on a life of its own. 45 years later, the parade has become an annual extravaganza with a reported 60,000 participants […]
GVSHP has been conducting and sharing oral histories since the mid-1990s. As we look back on two powerhouse oral histories, we’re considering the importance of such documents as “the first kind of history,” as “part of the struggle of memory against forgetting.”
Village Preservation shares our oral history collection with the public, highlighting some of the people and stories that make Greenwich Village and the East Village such unique and vibrant neighborhoods. Each of these histories includes the experiences and insights of long-time residents, usually active in the arts, culture, preservation, business, or civic life. Merce Cunningham […]
1968 was a big year for New York City and the world – music, arts, staggering political and social change. And, in the midst of it all, a tan block-square collection of connected buildings known as the Bell Telephone Laboratories was transformed into the Westbeth Center for the Arts. A key component of that transformation […]
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 […]
We had a promising hearing last Tuesday at the Landmarks Preservation Commission on our proposed landmark designation of 827-831 Broadway, with a vote planned for this coming Tuesday, October 31st. We’re hoping for an outcome that will be more treat than trick (if you want to do more than hope, send a letter here); for good […]
American architect Richard Meier was born on this day in 1934. Over the course of his nearly sixty-year career Meier has designed countless buildings all over the world and received numerous prizes including the Pritzker Prize in Architecture in 1984, the AIA Gold Medal in 1997 and the Architizer Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013. Arguably best […]
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. Some stores in the Village and East […]
Seen a movie lately? If so, you have the West Village’s Bell Laboratories (now known as Westbeth) to thank for all the dialogue, music and sound effects that you heard. On this date in 1926, the revolutionary technology responsible for what were then known as “talkies” — or the addition of soundtracks to motion pictures […]
Peter Ruta, born February 7th, 1918, recently passed away on November 16th, 2016, at his home in Westbeth with wife and family. He was 98 years old. Peter’s life and work were a great inspiration to many, as he overcame incredible adversity to become a world-renowned painter. He was born in Germany, raised in Italy, and […]
For over 85 years, the 195 foot tall smokestacks of the Superior Inks building were a local landmark and beacon for the Far West Village. They were also a vital link to the Greenwich Village waterfront’s maritime/industrial heritage, as in the mid-2000’s they were part of the last operating factory on the Greenwich Village waterfront. Unfortunately, […]
Ninety two years ago today, dance archivist David Vaughan was born in London, England. Vaughan was the archivist for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1976 until it disbanded in 2012. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was located in Westbeth in the West Village since 1971. In addition to being the archivist, Vaughan is also […]
On October 25, 2011, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) voted unanimously to landmark Westbeth, following through on a promise made seven years earlier to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and other community groups working to extend landmark protections in the Far West Village. In 2009, GVSHP’s nomination of Westbeth was accepted […]
On Wednesday, September 9, a bill will be introduced to the City Council that, if approved, will deal a devastating blow to the cause of historic preservation. The bill, Intro 775, would impose strict, unfair deadlines and rigid timeframes to the landmarks application process, potentially enabling the demolition of historically or culturally significant properties. This […]
On August 7th, 1967, the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the newly-constituted National Endowment for the Arts announced plans for a project that would help transform Greenwich Village, New York, housing for artists, industrial buildings, and older industrial cities across the world. The project was the conversion of the disused former Bell Telephone Labs on the […]
Modern dance pioneer Martha Graham was born on this day, May 11, in 1894. In the 1930’s, Martha Graham’s dance studio was located at 66 5th Avenue. This part of the Village was a hotbed of social activism, and Graham’s choreography, especially in pieces such as Panorama and Chronicle, was influenced by this. You can […]
March 14th is a date when several people with important connections to the Village will celebrate, or would have celebrated, their birthdays.
There are some people who can make great changes, come up with unique and far-reaching ideas, or create institutions that attain legendary status, yet keep a low profile themselves. By now everyone associates Halloween in Greenwich Village with the annual Village Halloween Parade, an event that draws 2 million people to the 6th Avenue corridor […]
This October, GVSHP is presenting a course that explores historic preservation by examining changing styles of housing, changing housing laws, and urban renewal in the twentieth century. While the course was developed specifically for practicing real estate brokers, I was reminded while sitting in on a recent lecture how much these issues are relevant (and […]
Congratulations to our friends at The High Line! The third and final section of the park will open to the public this Sunday, September 21st. GVSHP has a special kinship with The High Line. I mean that is what historic preservation is all about! GVSHP was one of the earliest endorsers of the plan to […]
The recent piece on PBS’ MetroFocus series about GVSHP’s book, Greenwich Village Stories (watch here) reminds me what a perfect end-of-summer read the book is (the book can be purchased here). Where else can you find sixty-six reminiscences about the Village and East Village from some of the great musicians, politicians, performers, artists, writers, actors, […]
I think I’m infatuated with Greenwich Village’s Hudson River waterfront. I can’t seem to get enough of it. Last month our good friend Dr. Robin Nagle spoke about the history of the Hudson River waterfront and its historic and current role in New York City sanitation. In June, one of our Village Award winners was […]
In 2014 Village Preservation presented a program at the Community Room at Westbeth with author Prof. William W. Buzbee and his book, “Fighting Westway: Environmental Law, Citizen Activism, and the Regulatory War that Transformed New York City.”
April 18 and 19 mark two incredibly important Far West Village preservation anniversaries — each from 2004. At that time, GVSHP and allied community groups were engaged in a heated battle to try to prevent the wholesale destruction of the Greenwich Village waterfront and Meatpacking District, both of which had recently become “hot neighborhoods” where […]
On Tuesday evening, Village Preservation presented a program with architect, preservationist, and author Françoise Bollack about her new book, Old Buildings, New Forms: New Directions in Architectural Transformations, published by the Monicelli Press. It was a wonderful presentation, with images from her book of places all over the world where old buildings were saved instead […]
This week, our friends at the Jefferson Market Branch Library will host workshops for a new project they are undertaking called Your Village, Your Stories. The library’s foray into recording and archiving the stories of the neighborhood had us thinking about GVSHP’s own collection of oral histories, which include narratives by early preservation activists and […]
We here at Off the Grid have often explored the history of the artists’ residence Westbeth, as well as mining the depths of the artistic talent located in the venerable housing complex. So we thought we’d spend some time looking at one of the many unique artistic groups who make the place home: Penny Jones […]
The Village does Halloween like no other NYC community, featuring parades, festivals, and plenty of children’s activities, but what would you expect from the neighborhood that devised the original Halloween parade? So we thought we’d round up Halloween-related happenings taking place in the ‘hood.
If the “art deco masterpiece” that is 570 Lexington Avenue no longer stood on the southwest corner of Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, perhaps affordable housing could be constructed in its place. But this “suave fantasy of polished marble and modern metals,” built in 1931 for the Radio Victor Corporation and since known as the […]
You don’t have to live in the Village to celebrate the birthday of John Lennon, who was born on October 9th, 1940. But Villagers, and those who love the Village, have a special reason to celebrate the birth of one of the greatest and most transcendent popular musicians of the late 20th century.
As seen in: Don’t Believe REBNY’s Hype; Landmarking Can Help Affordability Read the full article in The Villager or Gotham Gazette BY ANDREW BERMAN | In July, the Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) went on a media blitz, touting their latest report blasting landmark preservation in New York City. […]
March is Women’s History Month; the month-long celebration highlights the accomplishments of women in various fields throughout our history. With so much to choose from in New York City alone, the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) has put together a slideshow of designated landmarks with 19th and 20th century connections to women in the field of […]
Bettye Lane, a photojournalist who lived at Westbeth, died last Wednesday at the age of 82. She has been called the official photographer of the women’s movement and was one of the few photographers who captured the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Greenwich Village. She has worked for Time and Life magazines and her work has […]
As most everyone knows, we’re kind of map and statistics geeks here at Off The Grid. Thus it’s no surprise that a handy little tool put together by WNYC in the wake of the Republican National Convention, mapping the levels of Republican voter registration throughout New York City, caught our attention. The interactive map (below) […]
A recent visit to the highly-anticipated Keith Haring exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, Keith Haring: 1978-1982 did not disappoint. The show looks at the early years of Haring’s career before his breakthrough exhibition at Tony Shafrazi’s SoHo space in 1982. According to a New York Magazine review, during these years Haring was “merely one of […]
On February 16, 1990, we lost one of the most memorable and enduring figures of the 1980’s Downtown arts scene, Keith Haring (born May 4, 1958). Haring came to New York in 1978 to study at the School of Visual Art, and quickly became a noted up and coming artist. Haring utilized whatever canvas was […]
61 Washington Square South, before it was demolished in 1948, was known as the House of Genius, part of the so-called genius row named for the artists and writers who made the red brick houses between West Broadway (now LaGuardia Place) and Thompson Street home for the latter half of the twentieth century. Number 61 […]
Rising like an ark over Christopher Street, the Archive Building’s construction and multiple uses over a New York century reflect the changing character of the Far West Village waterfront and the city as a whole. Join us as we trace the unique history of this colossus of the West Village.
Earlier this week, we were thrilled to announce that Westbeth – the country’s first subsidized housing complex for artists and the first large-scale adaptive re-use of an industrial building for residential purposes – was designated an individual NYC landmark. Originally built as the Bell Telephone Labs, the complex was a birthplace of numerous modern technological […]
The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) just voted unanimously to landmark Westbeth, following through on a promise made seven years ago to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) and other community groups working to extend landmark protections in the Far West Village.
This weekend, tour guide Lawrence Frommer and Fourth Arts Block executive director Tamara Greenfield led a tour of East 4th Street between the Bowery and 2nd Avenue for GVSHP. (Want to hear in advance about GVSHP’s free lecture and tour series? Sign up for our monthly event emails.) The tour provided an overview of Fourth […]
The term adaptive reuse is used by architects and preservationists to describe the process of adapting old structures for purposes other than those initially intended. Villagers are familiar with the Jefferson Market Library’s former history as a courthouse, the Public Theater on Lafayette Street whose building began its life as the Astor Library, or Westbeth, […]
The sight of striking Verizon workers near GVSHP’s offices (as well as all over New York) reminds us of the long and storied history of the Village and East Village in the labor movement. In fact, their central role in American labor struggles is reflected in some of our neighborhood’s most important landmarks.
We here at GVSHP spend a great deal of time pouring over archival records and buildings department files to document the history of our neighborhoods — when buildings went up, when they came down, how they once looked, how they changed, etc. (click HERE to learn more). However, a less dusty (and frankly more fun) […]
As early as 1963, Jane Jacobs urged that a fledgling NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) protect and designate the Greenwich Village waterfront and the Far West Village neighborhood in which she lived. However, in 1969, when the LPC did finally designate the Greenwich Village Historic District, it left out the entire Greenwich Village waterfront and […]
