The Women’s House of Detention, which once stood where we can now enjoy the beautiful Jefferson Market Garden, was more than just a prison. Opened in 1932, the Art Deco-style building was a prominent, though controversial, landmark in the area for nearly four decades. It was the only women’s prison in Manhattan, housing inmates ranging […]
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 […]
The Women’s House of Detention, an eleven-story prison in the center of Greenwich Village, closed on June 13th, 1971.
Village Preservation is always working hard to document, celebrate, and protect the historic character of our neighborhoods, including the great buildings that make Greenwich Village, NoHo and East Village such wonderful places to live, work and shop. Of course, we’re not always able to save every historic building from demolition, and some disappeared long before […]
Ghosts Are lurking about the Village, that’s for sure! It’s up to you to decide if you want to explore the haunted places… OR NOT! You choose… We have previously reported about some of the haunted places in the Village, but we have EVEN MORE to report to you today!!! Do not be afraid… The […]
The Greenwich Village Historic District literally oozes with charm; so much so, it’s virtually impossible to come up with a top-10 list. But with no insult to sites not included, here is one run at the 10 most charming sites you’ll find in this extraordinarily quaint historic quarter–from good-old classics like the famous stretch of brick […]
Each year GVSHP writes almost 250 blog posts, with our staff (the authors) competing to write the best, most popular posts. Today, we look back on our five most popular posts of 2018, as chosen by our readers:
Valerie Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) is nothing if not divisive. She was a mysterious Villager known for being a radical lesbian feminist separatist, for writing the wild, controversial SCUM Manifesto, for shooting Andy Warhol and two others at Warhol’s Factory in Union Square and defending herself at her trial. It’s clear that what is known […]
Greenwich Village is well known as the home to libertines in the 1920s and feminists in the 1960s and ’70s. But going back to at least the 19th century, the neighborhoods now known as Greenwich Village, the East Village, and Noho were home to pioneering women who defied convention and changed the course of history, […]
To walk by the verdant, lush garden behind the graceful Jefferson Market Library today, one can scarcely imagine that it was once the site of an eleven-story prison, the notorious Women’s House of Detention. Found on our Civil Rights and Social Justice map, this former imposing edifice served as a prison from its opening on […]
Where is a journalist like Hunter S. Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) when you really need him (or her)? The wild and wooly world we live in is a mixed up brew of politics with a side shot of pop culture; just the firewater that that Thompson could guzzle and spit out in […]
On July 14, 1789, the Storming of the Bastille was the galvanizing event that kicked off the French Revolution. The Bastille was a fortress-prison that held both political prisoners and a cache of weapons. By storming the oppressive structure, the revolutionaries were not only able to obtain armaments to further their cause, but provide a symbol […]
“Miss West, are you trying to show contempt for this court?” “On the contrary, your Honor,” Mae sweetly responded. “I was doin’ my best to conceal it.” Known for her easy, breezy banter, laden with double entendre, Mae West was a force to be reckoned with. In the mid-1920’s, West’s much-lauded vaudeville career was on […]
The following is an updated re-posting originally authored by Dana Schulz. It was on this date in 1951 that the infamous Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage. The Jewish-American Communists, along with Soviet spy Morton Sobell, were accused of selling nuclear secrets to Russia. Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, worked at Los Alamos National […]
Beside the Jefferson Market Library and behind the wrought iron fence between 6th and Greenwich Avenues and 10th Street lies the Jefferson Market Garden. You probably pass by it all the time, and maybe you’ve been inside, but the story of this stretch of green space next to the library is quite fascinating.
Acclaimed author and journalist Tom Wolfe is known for his use of New Journalism (employing fiction-writing techniques such as sustained dialogue, well-developed characters, and vivid scenes) and for his best-selling books including The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) and The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987). After earning his Ph.D. in American Studies in 1957 and […]
On April 8, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. This act granted the President the authority to establish programs such as the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration, later renamed the Work Projects Administration) to combat the Great Depression. There are many great examples of the W.P.A.’s efforts throughout the Village and East Village.
Much of the Village Voice from the 1950s to the mid-2000s is available to view online via a Google digitization project. The huge trove of scanned newspapers helps reveal the changes that have occurred over fifty years to the architecture of the neighborhood, to music and culture, to local businesses, to politics, to the concerns […]
If one has the occasion to think about incarceration in the Village, many long-time residents would likely recall the Women’s House of Detention, an imposing building that loomed over Jefferson Market Courthouse from 1932 to 1974. However, about one-hundred years before the Women’s House of Detention came into being, the Village was home to New […]
On Monday evening I attended the Jefferson Market Garden Friends’ Annual Garden Party. If you are already familiar with the Jefferson Market Garden (a 1991 Village Award winner), there’s no need for me to tell you what a wonderful place this is. If you are not, then allow me to tell you a story about […]
It was on this date in 1951 that the infamous espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg began. The Jewish-American Communists, along with Soviet spy Morton Sobell, were accused of selling nuclear secrets to Russia. Ethel’s brother, David Greenglass, worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory and allegedly supplied Julius with information regarding the atomic bomb. […]
