HISTORY
Virtual Map For Bid to Save Downtown Landmarks
Village Preservation, advocates warn buildings could get swallowed up by development
BY MATT TRACY
Historic preservationists
in Manhattan have
launched a virtual map
as part of a full court
press to save important landmarks
south of Union Square — including
LGBTQ sites and crucial locations
in the history of the Civil Rights
Movement and women’s rights —
as the area comes under the prying
eyes of big developers.
Village Preservation, long
known as the Greenwich Village
Society for Historic Preservation
and dedicated to maintaining the
architectural and cultural heritage
of Greenwich Village, the East
Village, and NoHo, unveiled the
interactive online tool earlier this
month, allowing users to take a
virtual tour of the neighborhood
and click on different locations to
learn more about the historical
signifi cance of the buildings. The
undertaking is similar to other virtual
hubs that have been created
in the area, such as the “Stonewall
Forever” living monument.
The area highlighted in the virtual
map covers six blocks from
Ninth Street to 14th Street between
Third Avenue and Fifth Avenue and
encompasses key spots including
the former headquarters of what
is now known as the National LGBTQ
Task Force at 80 Fifth Avenue
at 14th Street, which housed the
organization — fi rst known as the
National Gay Task Force and later
the National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force — for more than a decade,
from 1973 to 1985. During that
period, the organization fought to
end the federal government’s ban
on gay and lesbian workers and
successfully pressed the Amerian
Psychiatric Association to remove
homosexuality as a mental illness,
among other initiatives.
The building also served an important
purpose earlier in the 20th
century when it headquartered the
International Workers Order from
1930 to 1954 at a time when the
organization fought against Jim
Crow as well as discrimination
against Jewish folks and immigrants,
Bille Holiday (top) and Bessie Smith recorded at 55 Fifth Avenue.
Village Preservation created this interactive map of historic sites in Manhattan that the community
fears could be taken over by big developers.
while also supporting racial
integration in sports, according
to Village Preservation.
“It’s really important to understand
where we came from in
terms of both the discrimination
we faced as well as the obstacles
we overcame and who were the
key people and organizations and
events that made that possible —
a stunning array of which is located
in this area south of Union
Square,” Andrew Berman, Village
Preservation’s out gay executive
director, said during an interview
with Gay City News.
The building at 55 Fifth Avenue
at 12th Street is also a vulnerable
VILLAGE PRESERVATION
VILLAGE PRESERVATION
space advocates hope to landmark
due to its ties to intersectional history.
The offi ce building was the
site during the 1920s and ‘30s of
the Columbia Phonograph Recording
studios, which hosted some
of the earliest integrated music
recordings and welcomed Bessie
Smith, a bisexual Black blues
singer who recorded there, along
with Billie Holiday, according to
Village Preservation.
Another one of the buildings Village
Preservation wants to save is
at 70 Fifth Avenue at 13th Street,
where the NAACP was headquartered
from 1914 until 1925 and
where the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), fi rst known as the
National Civil Liberties Bureau,
also called home. It was in this
building that the NAACP kicked
off efforts to stop lynching and unfurled
the famous fl ag that read “A
Man Was Lynched Yesterday.” That
building was where The Crisis, a
magazine for Black readers, was
launched.
Among other locations that have
yet to be landmarked in that area
include 814 Broadway, just below
East 12th Street, once home to
the Women’s Central Association
of Relief, which provided supplies,
clothing, and formal training for
female nurses and was led by abolitionist
Elizabeth Blackwell, and
10 East 14th Street, which in 1894
served as the headquarters of the
New York City Woman Suffrage
League during its bid to push for
gender equity at the polls.
Another vulnerable building,
this one located at 49 East 10th
Street, played host to the Artists
and Writers Dinner Club in 1934.
Dinners were made available to
struggling artists at that building,
which also was the home of abstract
expressionist Jackson Pollack,
who would often place his art
on display for sale near Washington
Square Park, Village Preservation
notes.
Berman said it took approximately
three years to create the
virtual neighborhood rendering.
The idea emerged in response to
what Berman said has been a push
by the de Blasio administration to
redevelop the area.
“Instead of taking these gorgeous
adaptable old buildings and
putting new uses into them, we’re
just seeing them destroyed,” Berman
added. “That’s why we’re being
spurred to act right now.”
Ultimately, Berman and others
at Village Preservation hope the
tool can illustrate the rich history
of the area in such a way that can
help make the case to landmark
the buildings and protect them
for good. He pointed to the 2018
approval of construction of a tech
➤ CIVIL RIGHTS LANDMARKS, continued on p.19
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