Browse Exhibits (31 total)
A Brief History of Charles Lane
Char 
les Lane, one of the most narrow streets in New Y ork City, has a fascin ating history. From its earliest days as the northern boundary of Newgate Priso n, to its commercial development during the mid-nineteenth century, to it s fashionable loca tion in the West Village today, exploring the history of the street touches many comm on themes within t he bigger story of New York.
A Cluster of Characters: The Pleiades Club
The Pleiades Club was a social club in New York City from the late 19th century until the late 1930s focused on the arts. Despite its humble beginnings the Pleiades Club became quite popular and boasted both famous members and guests.
a jail in the village
The story of the Women's House of Detention can be seen as a metaphor for the transition of Greenwich Village's image from transgressive to gentrified. Since opening in 1932 it housed female prisoners in the heart of Greenwich Village- at the intersection of Greenwich Avenue, West Tenth Street, and Sixth Avenue- next to what is now the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library. This is the story of the jail.
A Thousand Miles From My Home: The Village and the Folk Revival
In the middle of the Great Depression, on the heels of the advent of commercial recording and radio, began a remarkable awakening of protest and traditional music in America. Predominantly rural in origin, the music and movement continues to defy categorization. It took up under its banner all that was deemed musically authentic and of, “the people,” including blues and jazz and “country” music, all new forms with ancient roots.
Many played a part in this revival—some scoured the crevices of city and country for songs and singers, others wrote and performed, and many others watched and listened, and sang along. For the participants, the music seemed to fill a void, linking each to the past and to one another.
This revival found a home and grew up in Greenwich Village, once a rural outpost of New York City, but by the turn of the century an epicenter of alternative lifestyles, progressive art and radical politics. Here is the story of that first revival, from the Great Depression to the onset of the Cold War, when the revival was deflected for a time, only to reawaken in the Village in the mid-1950s as a nationwide craze, and leave an indelible imprint on American music, culture and politics.
Looking closely, there is continuity, across time and across place. A history of the folk revival is in part a history of its evolution in Greenwich Village. It unearths basic questions: Why the Village, and why folk music? What is the Village, and what is folk music?
Astor Library
East Village: A Decade of Protest
This exhibit aims to illustrate the issues and movements that contributed to a turbulent decade of protest in New York's East Village late in the last century.
It also strives to publicize the Squatters' Rights Collections at NYU's Tamiment Library. The items in this exhibit are but a small sampling of the their textually rich and graphically striking primary source materials.
Edith Kramer: Immigrant, Artist, and Art Therapy Pioneer
Edith Kramer, an Austrian who immigrated to the United States. at the beginning on World War II, was one of the forerunners of art therapy. Working at numerous institutions in New York, she created the New York University Art Therapy Graduate program in the 1970s. While art therapy was one her passions, she was also an artist in her own right with a large collection of works in numerous mediums.
Eugenia Hughes: An Everyday Artist in Depression Era Greenwich Village
Eugenia Hughes was an artist living in Depress
ion era Greenwich Village, struggling to find work, a place to live and creative inspiration. A self-proclaimed"flapper" and "victim of the Prohibition and Flapper Era, the gay 20s", she came from a comfortable background and was used to living a somewhat glamorous lifestyle. That lifestyle changed when Eugenia moved to the Village during the Depression to live with her father, also an artist. She fell comfortably into a group of artists with shared experiences and similar goals, who supported each other financially and creatively. During her years in the Village, the main subject of Eugenia's works are depictions of the world around her; of the strife she and her friends were expereincing themselves. Eugenia was not an outsider documenting the Depression in the Village, but was affected by it herself, and inspired by what she saw around her. Eugenia's sketches and drawings shed light on to the often forgotten or lost story of an everyday artist in Greenwich Village.
From the Flames of the Triangle Fire
On March 25, 1911, a fire started in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and within thirty minutes it destroyed the top three floors of the Asch building and killed 146 people, mostly young immigrant girls. The tragedy made headlines across New York, with gruesome images of burnt bodies blown up in eerie detail on the front pages. The city was shocked and outraged at the seemingly preventable tragedy and the fire ushered in a new era of factory reform.
The impact the fire had on society has been long lasting, and in the past 100 years the fire has emerged as a symbol of the ongoing struggle for labor rights in the United States. Since it occurred, not in isolation, but as part of a larger historic labor narrative the fire is one piece in a dynamic story about protest, tragedy and remembrance. As we approach the Centennial we are constantly reminded of the relevance of this tragedy, even today, as workers both in America and abroad continue the fight for fair labor practices.
The factory: The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory was the largest shirtwaist factory in New York City. A shirtwaist was a woman’s blouse with a high collar and long sleeves and was considered to be the height of fashion at the turn of the 20th century. Max Blanck and Issac Harris, capitalized on the popularity of the shirtwaist and opened the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1900. Blanck and Harris were German Jewish immigrants who combined their talents for sewing and selling to become successful enough to start their own company; they made the shirtwaist the foundation of their business. By 1900 unrest at the Triangle Factory will explode into a full-scale strike pitting employee against employer.
Use the map to identify key places in the Triangle fire story.
From the President's Desk: New York University and the Anti-War Movement
The Vietnam War produced domestic unrest, especially on college campuses in America. This website is the history of the anti-war movement, focusing on the years 1967-1970, as seen through the papers of James Hester, president of New York University from 1962-1975. While this is not an encyclopedic look at the anti-war movement, it does provide a unique perspective on the events of the late 1960s.