Andrea Coyle quoted in Washington Square News article

A hoard of outraged residents and members of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation gathered to protest the construction of a new building yesterday, chanting "Save the South Village! Save the South Village!"

Read full article: http://nyunews.com/news/2009/oct/22/village/

"Preservation society hopes to avoid South Village modernization"
by Anna Sanders

Image copyright, Brandon Knopp

We recommend: A Reading From "City of Belief" at Maryhouse

Join author Nicole d'Entremont for a reading and signing of her fantastic book, City of Belief, on November 6, 2009 at the Maryhouse on E.3rd Street. City of Belief explores Nicole's time on the Lower East Side (between 1964-1973) while working with the Catholic Worker organization.

Nov 6th, 7:30
@ the Maryhouse (free event)
55 East Third Street (b/t First and Second Ave)
(212) 777-9617
2nd Ave stop on the F or V train.

Billed as the 45th anniversary(actually it's the 44th anniversary) of the draft card burnings in Union Square on Nov. 6th 1965.

City of Belief on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/City-Belief-Nicole-dEntremont/dp/1442138505

We rocommend: TSP HALLOWEEN FREAKFEST

HALLOWEEN FREAKFEST! FREE PUNK AND VARIETY SHOW
Sunday Oct. 25th, 2-6pm
Tompkins Sq. Park
Come Wig Out in the Park!

A free Halloween themed show in New York City's Tompkins Square Park, featuring great music, creative costumes, a costume contest, a clothing swap, political speakers, helpful information and lots of surprises!!

Halloween Freakfest is part of a series of shows that celebrate the vitality of the counter cultural scene that has survived on the Lower East Side, despite the rampant gentrification, soaring rents and lost venues that have contributed to the cultural genocide sweeping New York City.

Presented by: SHADOW Press/PMS productions

Co-Emceed by OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL PMS (GLOB - Gorgeous Ladies of Boodwrestling) and DIANE O' DEBRA (subversive-comedic rap songs)

LONE VEIN: (Day of The Dead-inspired rock gloom-tunes www.lonevein.com)
SKUM CITY (amazing punk from our own gritty city www.myspace.com/skumcity)
CATHY CATHODIC (one woman avant-rap artist from Boston www.myspace.com/cathycathodic)
GHOULS NIGHT OUT: (all female MISFITS cover band featuring members of Kissy Kamikaze www.myspace.com/ghoulsnightoutnyc)
THE CHI-CIONES (craftastic Halloween-themed burlesque dancers/muses)
RACHEL CLEARY (political speaker)
ENDANGERED FECES (demented comedic punk from Queens - sounds like every toilet in Queens flushing simultaneously www.myspace.com/endandered feces)
RACHEL TRACHTENBURG AND SUPERCUTE (Teen Girl pop-rock band doing a set of political songs plus a few Halloween specialties www.myspace.com/supercute)
DETHRACE (a theatrical art rock experience...10 ft. tall fiberglass super-robots, playing 666 volts of metal! www.dethrace.net )
JUGGERNUT (Manly Freak Electro-Punk featuring 2 hot back up dancers in nutsack suits www.myspace.com/juggernutnyc)
GLOB - GORGEOUS LADIES OF BLOODWRESTLING (www.myspace.com/g_l_o_b) Live lady warriors, with ridiculous vendettas, wrestling in face blood to punk rock! w/special guests the Gorgeous LADS of Bloodwrestling!

Also featuring a CLOTHING SWAP.
Bring or take clean fall/winter clothes only.
Plus a COSTUME CONTEST.
Come in your Halloween best (or perhaps find some stuff in the swap!)

Photos from NY Historical Society presentation on 10/18/09

LESHP director Eric Ferrara gave a presentation on the history of vice and crime in New York City at the prestigious New-York Historical Society on Sunday, October 18, 2009. Here are a few images from the event: http://picasaweb.google.com/eastvillagehistoryproject/LectureAtNewYorkHistoricalSociety#

Great New Book Of Archival Lower East Side Photos

from the Knickerbocker Village Blog

Great new book I got at the Tenement Museum yesterday with old lower east side photos I've never seen before. Can't locate an online site to purchase. It's also available at the South Street Seaport Museum
Brian Merlis gave me permission to post this picture showing a favorite Knickerbocker Village sporting goods and stationery supply destination, Haber's at 29 Essex Street. This was in 1930

Article featuring Eric Ferrara at Bowery Mission anniversary event

"The Lower East Side, New York, has gone from aristocracy and sophistication to squalor and debauchery and back to aristocracy—but with one constant Christian presence for the past 130 years: the Bowery Mission..." (cont.)

FULL STORY: WorldMag.com, written by Alisa Harris

More Recent Chinatown History

from the Villager
Preserving Chinatown’s doo-wop era
The web site of Lonnie's Coffee Shop

Almost 98 Years Ago Today In LES History

chinatown-1911

Sidewalk Plaques Near The Municipal Building

Foley Square Plaques
These are located near the spot where the Fourth Ward/Two Bridges Walking Tour begins

Mazie Phillips-Gordon: The Queen Of The Bowery, Part 5

The fifth in a series about Mazie from the Knickerbocker Village Blog


A follow up to story about Mazie told to me by Bruno in Tanahey Park last week
Bruno probably lived near where the X is the top map before he moved to Knickerbocker Village. It's a section I cropped from the Galt Hoy map (circa 1900) found on the library of congress site. In the bottom section you can see the Venice Theater where Mazie Phillips Gordon worked.

Mazie Phillips-Gordon: The Queen Of The Bowery, Part 4

The fourth in a series about Mazie from the Knickerbocker Village Blog
Mazie Hotel
Above are the pages in Joseph Mitchell's book that refer to Mazie

Mazie Phillips-Gordon: The Queen Of The Bowery, Part 3

The third in a series about Mazie from the Knickerbocker Village Blog
the pdf is from a nytimes article by Saul Austerlitz
Up in the New Old Hotel
We mentioned this book and its reference to former Knickerbocker resident Mazie Phillips (or Gordon) before Recently I found a picture of the Venice Theater where she worked. I met a current KVer, Bruno, in Tanahey Park recently who remembered Mazie and remembered how she would let him sneak in to see a movie when he was kid living on Baxter and Roosevelt. That was not too far away from the theater which was located at 209 Park Row. The hotel referred to in the article, the Fulton Ferry Hotel, was right where Sloppy Louie's was on Fulton and South Street.

Mazie Phillips-Gordon: The Queen Of The Bowery, Part 2

The second in a series about Mazie from the Knickerbocker Village Blog The following pages come from the introduction of an autobiography of one of our country's greatest living philosophers, Morton White. It's called "A Philosopher's Story." He mentions Mazie, as well as Jimmy Durante, Eddie Cantor, Socks Lanza and others. White lived at 76 Madison Street, near Catherine Street excerpts about the book and White from Amazon

A vivid tale of the author's journey from the Lower East Side of New York to some of the greatest centers of higher learning.
"Although a great many memoirs are being published these days, this autobiography by Morton White has special significance because professional philosophers seldom write their memoirs and, when they do, they rarely produce books as engaging as this one. . . . Indeed, White's autobiography should attract more attention among the educated public than any book written by an American philosopher in many years."-Peter H. Hare, SUNY
As historian of ideas and a philosopher, White is able to situate his life in the deeper and broader intellectual currents of his time, and therefore the story of his experiences at Columbia, Harvard, and the Institute for Advanced Study is a brilliantly conceived contribution to the history of American philosophy in the twentieth century. Readers concerned with the development of higher education will be fascinated by White's description of the struggles over religion at Harvard in the 1950s, while historians of urban life will be much interested in his vivid account of his boyhood on the Lower East Side of New York. ..
Morton White is Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Among his many well-known books are Social Thought in America (Viking, 1948), Foundations of Historical Knowledge (Harper & Row, 1965), Science and Sentiment in America (Oxford, 1972), and The Question of Free Will (Princeton, 1993).

mortonwhite2 - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: mortonwhite2

Mazie Phillips-Gordon: The Queen Of The Bowery, Part 1

First of a series about Mazie from the Knickerbocker Village Blog

I found the obituary of the legendary Mazie of KV. There's a chapter devoted to Mazie in Joseph Mitchell's, "Up In The Old Hotel"

maizie - Upload a doc

Read this doc on Scribd: maizie

Images from Tenement Museum book signing

Here are a few images from a recent book signing at the Tenement Museum on Monday, September 29, 2009. LESHP director presented a lecture on the history of the Sicilian Mafia to a standing-room only crowd at the museum's Tenement Talk series, and signed copies of his new book, "A Guide to Gangsters, Murderers and Weirdos of New York City's Lower East Side." Thanks to Erica Hawkins for the pictures.