A ceremony to honor acclaimed photographer Saul Leiter on 10th Street

Tomorrow (Wednesday) evening at 6, Village Preservation will unveil a plaque honoring acclaimed American photographer and painter Saul Leiter at 111 E. 10th St. between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, where he lived and worked from 1952 to his death in 2013.

Per Village Preservation:

We will hear about Leiter’s approach to street photography, much of which took place in the East Village, and about the painterly quality of his color work and the features that made him one of the key figures in the New York school of photography. 

This marks Village Preservation's 24th plaque unveiling ... including markers on the homes of notable figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Mingus.

Learn more about the Leiter ceremony and program here. The event is free, though Village Preservation asks folks to register in advance.

The beat goes on with new plaque honoring Ginsberg and Burroughs on 7th Street

Photos by Stacie Joy 

Last evening, Village Preservation unveiled a plaque outside the former residence of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at 206 E. Seventh St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, where the two lived in a third-floor apartment in the early 1950s. 

According to NYU's Grey Art Gallery, "Ginsberg took some of his best-known photographs of the Beats in this apartment, on the building's roof, and on the fire escape."

Speakers included downtown poet Bob Holman, Ginsberg memoirist and playwright Bob Rosenthal, and filmmaker and culture critic Regina Weinreich.

Here's Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman... 

... and the new plaque... 

Beat happening: A plaque unveiling at the former residence of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs

Tomorrow evening, Village Preservation is unveiling a plaque outside the former residence of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs on Seventh Street. 

The event takes place outside 204-206 E. Seventh St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, where the two lived in a third-floor apartment in the early 1950s. According to NYU's Grey Art Gallery, "Ginsberg took some of his best-known photographs of the Beats in this apartment, on the building's roof, and on the fire escape."

Per the Village Preservation invite: 

We will install a plaque to commemorate the Beat Generation at a building where Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs lived early in their careers. The two and occasional visitor Jack Kerouac formed the nucleus of this influential post-war countercultural movement. We will hear excerpts from their work and a discussion of the importance of the Beat Generation and of these authors' early work. 

The festivities begin at 5:30. Village Preservation asks attendees to register here in advance. 

Ginsberg lived in multiple apartments in the neighborhood from the 1950s to his death in 1997, including 170 E. Second St., 704 E. Fifth St., 408 E. 10th St., 437 E. 12th St. and 404 E. 14th St.

The return of Village Voices

Photos by Steven

The 2022 edition of Village Voices, an installation of 24 public art exhibits that honor downtown trailblazers and their legacies, is up now around the East Village, Greenwich Village and Noho. 

You can find several boxes on the fence along St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on Second Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street...featuring photographer-cinematographer Helen Levitt...

... abstract-impressionist painter Joan Mitchell ...

... and jazz great Charlie Parker...

Each box has a QR code that you can scan to hear more about the individuals. (As NY1 pointed out, Jesse Eisenberg and Edward Norton are among the narrators.) 

Once again, Village Preservation is behind this new work... you can read more about the exhibit, up through Oct. 30, right here. Find a map with all the locations via this link.

Village Voices, a new street exhibit, recognizes trailblazing neighborhood icons

Photos by Steven

Village Voices is a new street exhibition via Village Preservation honoring downtown trailblazers and their legacies ... and you can find four of the installations on the fence along St Mark's Church in-the-Bowery on Second Avenue between 10th Street and 11th Street. 

Featured artists here are Patti Smith, Charlie Parker, W.H. Auden and Joan Mitchell. Each name is linked to an audio overview of the artists as well as biographical information.

You can find a map with all the installations in the area right here.

Celebrating the work of Jillian Jonas, who captured 'a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance'

Village Preservation has added a new set of photos to its historic image archive: Jillian Jonas Collection — Downtown Drag+Performance in the 1990s. 

 Per the description:

Jillian Jonas was the house photographer at the legendary Boy Bar on St. Mark's Place in the early 1990s, where she captured thousands of images of drag performers who mixed gender-bending and illusion with downtown in-your-face attitude. This collection includes images not only from Boy Bar, but the Pyramid Club, Wigstock, the Gay Pride Festival, and dozens of other downtown nightlife and performance venues of the early-to-mid 1990s. 

Her pictures capture a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance, as well as an edgy slice of life when drag and blurred boundaries of gender were just beginning to make inroads into the broader public consciousness, largely through this vibrant local scene. 

You can check out the collection here.  

This new map will immerse you in the neighborhood's Greek Revival style

Village Preservation has unveiled an impressive new interactive map celebrating the many examples of Greek Revival architecture in Greenwich Village, the East Village, NoHo and beyond (look for guest appearances from Staten Island, Brooklyn Heights and Chelsea).

The launch coincides this week with the 200th anniversary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence, which helped inspire Greek Revival architecture in America, where the young democracy looked to the world's first democracy and its struggle for independence as a template for architectural expression. 

Local entries that showcase the Greek Revival style include Colonnade Row on Lafayette Street, St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery and what's now the East Village's Sixth Street Community Synagogue (originally the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Matthew, pictured above). 

"You'll find many other familiar landmarks, as well as some obscure ones and surprises, as well as great Greek Revival buildings of these neighborhoods which have been lost over the years, and some of the original Ancient Greek models that inspired them," said Village Preservation Executive Director Andrew Berman in an email. "It's a great way to mark the anniversary of an event that took place over 5,000 miles away which nevertheless had such a profound effect right here at home and can still see today."

You can access the map and more history at this link.

Making the case to landmark this unique church on 4th Street

Village Preservation is making a case to landmark the San Isidoro y San Leandro Western Orthodox Church of Hispanic Mozarabic Rite at 345 E. Fourth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D.

Tonight, officials from Village Preservation will request support for the reconsideration of landmark designation for the church before Community Board 3's Landmarks Committee.

In response to information submitted by Village Preservation, the building was determined eligible for listing on the State and National Register of Historic Places in 2017. The group then submitted a request to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to consider landmarking the church. The LPC declined.

This fall, Village Preservation provided an extensive history of the church, which was built in 1891-92, on its blog Off the Grid. Here are excerpts...

This remarkably intact Gothic Revival church’s form, design, details, and history reflect the kaleidoscope of immigrants and ethnic groups which called the Lower East Side home and shaped New York over the last century and a quarter — making it not just architecturally significant but an embodiment of New York City’s and the East Village’s immigrant history.

and...

This structure was originally built in 1891-92 and designed by Edward Wenz for the Church of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, serving the surrounding Slovak and Hungarian immigrant community. The church was the first national Slovak parish for the Slovak and Hungarian Catholics of New York and Brooklyn. Later the building was bought by the Russian Greek Orthodox National Association and became the Carpathian Russian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas.

It served the emerging Russian immigrant community in the early and mid-twentieth century, as evidenced by the royal seal of the Russian Czars located on the church’s front gates. After 1975, the church housed San Isidoro y San Leandro Western Orthodox Catholic Church of Hispanic Mozarabic Rite, a highly unusual Western Orthodox Catholic Church – seemingly one of the very few in America, and one of the few or perhaps only to practice the Mozarabic Rite.

And...

Churches and synagogues such as these, located on single lot sites filling the space of what was once a single home, were once found throughout the East Village and Lower East Side. They were reflective of the incredibly modest resources but bold ambitions of the immigrant communities they served. Increasingly few such structures survive today. The East Village remains woefully under-landmarked and therefore valuable historic resources such as these churches and synagogues are vulnerable to insensitive alteration and demolition.

The three-story building arrived on the sales market in the fall of 2017 with a $6 million price tag. Per the listing at the time: "A new development (of 9,232 SF) could be residential single family/multi-family or Community Facility." There were air rights too.

LoopNet shows that the listing was deactivated in April 2018.

According to public records, Patricio Cubillos Murillo (there are several variations of this name) is the building's owner, with a deed dating to September 1975. The document on file with the city shows that this building changed hands for $6,000 that year. I do not know when the church last held any type of mass here.

Here are two photos of the interior that I took in 2011 during one of the weekend rummage sales held in the space...





... and here's an interior shot via the Cushman & Wakefield marketing materials from 2017...



Tonight's Landmarks Committee meeting is at 6:30 in the JASA/Green Residence, 200 E. Fifth St. at the Bowery.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Unique 4th Street church on the market for development

Survey: There's a lower rate of retail vacancies in landmarked areas of the East Village

[Click to go big]

The percentage of retail vacancies in landmarked areas of the East Village were less than half the rate in non-landmarked areas – 7% vs. 15%, according to a survey released late last week by Village Preservation (GVSHP).

Here's more from the survey:

This was consistent throughout the neighborhood – non-landmarked streets had consistently higher retail vacancy rates than landmarked ones, sometimes as high as 31%. By contrast, the East Village’s three landmarked districts encompassing about 400 buildings had 242 retail spaces with 17 vacancies and a fairly consistent retail vacancy rate of about 7%. The East Village overall has about 2,200 buildings with 1649 retail spaces and 250 vacancies, or a 15% retail vacancy rate.

The findings of this new apples-to-apples survey undercuts claims by the Real Estate Board of New York in a study it released last year indicating that landmarking led to higher rates of retail vacancies. That study was based upon inaccurate data and assumptions, using a very limited comparison of one street in Hell’s Kitchen vs. a few cherry-picked streets in the West Village.

This survey, by contrast, is the first neighborhood-wide survey of retail vacancies in New York City looking at comparable landmarked and non-landmarked areas.

"While no study like this is conclusive, it certainly shows that historic districts and landmarked areas not only can but do thrive, even in this tough climate for retail in New York City," GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman said in a statement.

The survey was conducted by the East Village Community Coalition, the Cooper Square Committee and GVSHP.

Introducing Village Preservation

On Friday, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, founded in 1980 and headquartered in the East Village, introduced a new look.

Moving forward, they'll be known as Village Preservation.

Here's more via their Board President Art Levin:

To continue effectively serving our growing scope and mission, and to continue attracting new supporters to help protect the architectural and cultural character of our unique neighborhoods, we are empowering two vital words in our current name to carry our work forward.

Village Preservation is inclusive, forward-looking, and — importantly — much easier to pronounce and remember. This moniker has been designed as part of a new look which embraces our traditional name while at the same time allowing us to more effectively activate our mission.

Please join the Board and staff of GVSHP in embracing this dynamic evolution, built on the shoulders of what we have already established, with eyes looking toward preserving the wonders of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo, for all its inhabitants and visitors for years to come.

In case you haven't spent every waking hour on the site seen this yet ... earlier this year, Village Preservation (GVSHP at the time!) debuted a new online tool that allows you to explore the history of every building in the neighborhood. Find East Village Building Blocks at this link.