Village Org Pushes For Landmark Status For Women's History Sites

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — In honor of Women's History Month, a Village organization is calling for sites throughout the Lower Manhattan neighborhood to receive landmark designations for their "tremendous significance to women's history".

The Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation sent a letter with the recommended sites to Mayor Bill de Blasio on Feb. 25.

Here is the complete list of over 20 Greenwich Village locations the community organization recommended for landmark designation because of their ties to the Women's Rights Movement.

• 10 East 14th Street: "Beginning in 1894, this was the headquarters of the New York City Woman Suffrage League, which helped lead the campaign for a Constitutional Amendment Campaign to change the New York State Constitution to give women the right to vote. Leading suffragists including Lillie Devereux Blake, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Stanton Blatch, among many others, were involved with the League and its campaigns."
• 17 East 13th Street: "Home of trailblazing feminist writer Anais Nin and her Gemor Press, from which she hand-printed and produced some her most important works."
• 80 Fifth Avenue: "Among the many layers of historic and architectural significance of this building, it housed the International Worker’s Order (IWO), a fraternal society, which became the first insurer to include contraception in its benefits package. A forerunner in the movement for prepaid medical care, the IWO offered its members primary care and contraceptive services for annual flat fees. Founded at a time when the legal status of contraception was precarious, the IWO's Birth Control Center was the only such clinic to operate on an insurance system."
• 64-66 Fifth Avenue: "Housed Martha Graham’s first dance studio. Martha Graham has been called “the Picasso of dance” and “a prime revolutionary in the arts of this century and the American dancer and choreographer whose name became synonymous with modern dance” by The New York Times. This great American modern dance innovator had her first dance studio here beginning in the 1930s, remaining here through at least the 1950s. The studio started off as an all-female dance company, and it was while located here that Graham first integrated men into her work and school. The Martha Graham Dance Company, founded in 1926, is known for being the oldest American dance company."
• 55 Fifth Avenue
• 80 University Place
• 86 University Place
• 88 East 10th Street
• 814 Broadway
• 51 Fifth Avenue
• The Hotel Albert, 23 East 10th Street
• 70 Fifth Avenue (calendared but not heard)
• 45 University Place
• 61 Fourth Avenue
• 40-56 University Place
• 30 East 14th Street
• 48 Third Avenue/95 East 10th Street
• 34 East 10th Street
• 6 East 12th Street
• 38-58 East 10th Street
• 12 East 12th Street

You can find out the details for all the Village locations on the Greenwich Village Society For Historic Preservation's website.