This area was home to several sites connected to significant developments in African American history, including civil rights leaders and organizations, musicians, and writers. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

The area south of Union Square contains a stunning array of residential and commercial architecture from the 19th through the early 20th century. There is a particularly rich array of late 19th and early 20th-century factory/loft/warehouse architecture, in every style from Italianate to Gothic and Romanesque Revival, Neo-classical, Queen Anne, Victorian, and Byzantine. Work by some of America’s greatest architects, including James Renwick Jr., Henry J. Hardenbergh, Emery Roth, Griffith Thomas, Napoleon LeBrun, Harvey Wiley Corbett, David, and John Jardine, George B. Post, Carrere and Hastings, John Kellum, and Charles Rentz, among others, can be found here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

An incredible array of sites in the area are connected to the great artists and art movements of the last century and a half. In the mid-20th century, this area was ground zero for the New York School of artists, who shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Since at least the 1890s and through the 20th century, this area was the center of the bookselling industry in New York, centered along Fourth Avenue as well as Broadway and University Place, and probably had the highest concentration of booksellers in the world. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

The area south of Union Square is one of New York’s main centers of cast iron architecture, from some of its earliest surviving fully cast-iron buildings to predominantly masonry buildings with distinctive and elaborate cast iron ground floors or ornament. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

An extraordinary confluence of organizations and people connected to African American, LGBTQ, Women's, and other civil rights struggles were located here, including some of the most significant in each of these movements. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Several sites with noteworthy histories connected to the Civil War were located here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Multiple innovators in the field of commerce were located here, once the center of commerce in New York, along with the headquarters of several prominent businesses. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Multiple innovators in the field of commerce were located here, once the center of commerce in New York, along with the headquarters of several prominent businesses. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Several important figures and innovators in the field of dance were located here, including the "Picasso of Dance." Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This area was home to many prominent innovators and leaders in the field of fashion. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

The area is home to a number of significant sites to the history of film, including a large number of current and former movie houses, film producers, and organizations which shaped the course of film history in the United States. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This area served as a home to many prominent German and German-American businesses which shaped New York in the 19th and 20th centuries. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

A look at some of the architecturally, historically, and culturally significant buildings once located in this area. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square.

Grove Press, called “the era’s most explosive and influential publishing house” and “the most innovative publisher of the postwar era,” produced incredibly important pieces of 20th century literature while working aggressively and effectively to transform American culture in relation to issues of censorship, sexuality, race, and class. Founded in 1947 on Grove Street in the West Village, Grove Press fully rose to prominence after it was purchased by Barney Rossett in 1951. Over the next decades, an astonishing five extant buildings in the area south of Union Square were home to the Press, its literary magazine the Evergreen Review, and the Press’ Evergreen Theater. A sixth building in the area, 61 Fourth Avenue, served as Rosset’s home from at least 1981 until Rosset’s passing in 2012. For a time, Grove Press’ offices were also located here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

The area around Broadway and University Place became home to some of the city’s most desirable hotels in the mid-19th century as this area began its transition from residential to semi-commercial district. This included the recently-demolished St. Denis Hotel at Broadway and 11th Street, and the Hotel Albert at University Place and 11th Street, now the Albert Apartments. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

A surprising number of innovative housing developments from the late 19th and early 20th centuries can be found here, including several ‘French Flats’ and model tenements. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This area contains a number of sites connected to significant people or developments in New York's Jewish history. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This area was a mecca for leftist and labor organizing, with many of the most significant figures and organizations of the 19th and 20th centuries located here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Several key individuals, organizations, and meeting spaces connected to LGBTQ history were located here, including the headquarters of the country's first national LGBTQ rights organization, and prominent writers, artists, musicians, and performers. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Several notable musicians and music venues found a home in this area, from jazz to punk, blues to folk. Listen to a playlist featuring a selection of songs by some of the amazing artists connected to this neighborhood. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

The "New York School," a groundbreaking group of writers and artists who collaborated across disciplines, was rooted in the neighborhood south of Union Square in the mid-20th century. This loosely defined but transformative collective is credited with shifting the center of the art world from Paris to New York.

Village Preservation has multiple oral histories with significant figures in the arts, literature, commerce, preservation, activism, and philanthropy which focus on, connect to, or mention sites in this area. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Some of New York's most prominent and impactful philanthropists, and philanthropic organizations, were located here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Among the many industries which this area played a significant role in shaping and transforming was photography. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the area south of and around Union Square was the center of piano manufacturing in New York, a huge industry in the city at the time. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

A vast array of people who made a mark in the field of politics had connections to this area, including many notable "firsts" to run for or win office. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Multiple sites in the neighborhood bear significant connections to popular films, television, music, and entertainment. Listen to a playlist featuring a selection of songs by some of the amazing artists connected to this area. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Several notable preservation battles have taken place in these blocks, in both the recent and more distant past, as great works of architecture or places of historic significance have faced the wrecking ball. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square.

Many of the most prominent publishers in America and the world were located here, producing some of the most significant works of literature of the last two hundred years. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

James Renwick (November 1, 1818 — June 23, 1895) was one of the most influential, accomplished, and skilled American architects of the 19th century. Largely self-taught, he lived and worked most of his life in this area, where his family had deep roots (they were relatives of the landowning Brevoorts). One of his first commissions, Grace Church, is considered among the first to introduce the Gothic Revival style to America, and is still considered one of the style’s greatest examples. While Renwick earned high profile commissions across the country — including St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. — nowhere is his work more represented than in this area south of Union Square, where he designed no fewer than six buildings within a block of the intersection of Broadway and 11th Street, and designed dozens more nearby, including the still-extant ‘Renwick Row’ and ‘Renwick Triangle.’ Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Many generations of the Roosevelt family lived here, had significant holdings here, and developed many of the existing buildings here. During this time, they achieved numerous notable accomplishments in the fields of politics, literature, diplomacy, and environmental protection. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

In spite of massive waves of commercial construction, tenement building, and later hotel and apartment building construction which swept through this neighborhood, the area retains dozens of rowhouses from its early stages of development, dating from the early 1830s to the early 1850s. They range from modest to grand, most in the Greek Revival or Italianate style. Reflecting the vast forces of change which swept through the area, none remained single family houses, taking on new lives housing commerce, unions, theaters, art galleries, and multiple tenants. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This tour focuses on one of the most significant recording studios of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, which was located here and produced a stunning array of notable recordings over nearly three decades. Listen to a playlist featuring a selection of songs by some of the amazing artists connected to RPM Studios and the south of Union Square neighborhood. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

On March 12, 1651, Peter Stuyvesant, Director General of the Dutch West India Company, purchased Bouwerie (Dutch for ‘farm’) #1 and part of Bouwerie #2 in what is today’s East Village and the area South of Union Square. While these landholdings only remained farmland for a fraction of their existence, the area between present-day 5th and 20th Streets, from Fourth Avenue to the East River, would nevertheless remain in the Stuyvesant family for many generations. Though the land eventually traded hands to new owners, the Stuyvesant family imprint can still be seen on the neighborhood today in a number of ways. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

This area was a center of theater and home to many experimental and innovative theaters, large and small, several of which still survive to this day. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

Many notable organizations, leaders, and events in the women's rights and women's suffrage movements were located or took place here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.

An extraordinary array of significant writers and authors lived or worked here, and great works of literature were produced here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of these and other historic buildings south of Union Square.