Benjamin Hazard Field (1814-1893) was a leading philanthropist in New York City during the 19th century. Field and his family moved into 86 University Place (originally numbered 56, then numbered 50 between 1851 and 1898) around 1843, shortly after the house was built. New York City directories show the family at this location until 1856.

Benjamin Hazard Field, 1875 Women’s and children’s causes were particular focus for both Field and his wife, Catherine M. Van Cortland de Peyster (1818-1880). In 1860 Field was among the founders and initial benefactors of the first women’s library in New York, located at New York University, an enterprise also supported by Horace Greely, Henry Ward Beecher, and Peter Cooper. He also served as a trustee for the Working Women’s Protective Union. Founded in 1863, the Union’s mission was to protect working women by providing legal protection from unscrupulous employers.

Audre Lorde, 1980 From 1951 to 1959, 86 University Place housed ‘The Bagatelle,’ a popular lesbian bar, on the ground floor.

Ann Bannon, 1955 Two noted lesbian/feminist writers, Audre Lorde and Ann Bannon, have spoken and written extensively about their time at the Bagatelle and how it shaped their experience in the lesbian world throughout the pre-Stonewall era. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The International Workers Order (IWO) was located at 80 Fifth Avenue for its entire lifetime, from 1930 until 1954. This progressive mutual-benefit fraternal organization was a pioneering force in the U.S. labor movement.

For a quarter of a century, the IWO fought relentlessly for racial equality, interracial solidarity, industrial unions, and social security programs that would protect working-class people. The IWO also opened and ran clinics in working-class neighborhoods - including East Harlem and Brownsville, Brooklyn - that were otherwise lacking in strong healthcare options.

International Workers Order emblem, 1930-1939 In 1936, the IWO included contraception in its benefits, becoming the first insurer to do so. The organization was a leader in the movement for prepaid medical care, and provided contraceptive services in addition to primary care for annual flat fees. Also remarkably, the IWO operated a birth control clinic, which was run by a woman doctor who had worked with Margaret Sanger. The IWO's Birth Control Center stayed open in the evenings to maintain its accessibility to working patients. It was a pioneering facility at a time when sharing birth control information was still criminalized, and was the only such clinic to use an insurance system. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

70 Fifth Avenue was home to the headquarters of many notable peace organizations, including the Woman’s Peace Party’s New York Office, headed by Crystal Eastman.

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom logo The Woman’s Peace Party had its roots in the August 1914 Woman’s Peace Parade which followed the beginning of World War I and which was intended to call attention to the horrors of the European conflagration. Following the parade, the Woman’s Peace Party of New York was established in November of 1914. This was followed by a January 1915 convention of feminists and peace activists from across the country held in Washington D.C., which resulted in the formation of the Woman’s Peace Party by Jane Addams, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Fanny Garrison Villard (the daughter of Henry Lloyd Garrison), of which the Woman’s Peace Party of New York became a regional chapter. The WPP published its periodical Four Lights from its 70 Fifth Avenue offices.

Crystal Eastman, c. 1914 The WPP eventually became the American chapter of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, which has chapters in 37 countries, and is the oldest women’s peace organization in the United States. The WPP is considered one of the first manifestations of the modern peace movement in America, which employed direct action tactics towards its mission, whereas prior peace organizations typically limited themselves to more genteel behind-the-scenes lobbying and attempts to influence public opinion in print and oratory.

70 Fifth Avenue was also the home to The Crisis magazine, the first African American magazine ever published. The Crisis had a notable commitment to gender equality, providing leadership roles to women and showcasing the works of many female writers and artists. Led by literary editor Jessie Redmon Fauset, “the midwife of the Harlem Renaissance,” The Crisis published works by emerging female writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. Executive Editor W.E.B. DuBois made his support for women’s rights explicit in his political writings as well; in 1911 in the pages of The Crisis he wrote that “Every argument for Negro suffrage is an argument for women's suffrage; every argument for women's suffrage is an argument for Negro suffrage.” At 70 Fifth Avenue, Elizabeth Ross Haynes’ Unsung Heroes (1921) was also published, a book about “the lives of seventeen men and women of the Negro race told in a way to inspire the children of our time” including Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Phillis Wheatley. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

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.

Martha Graham, 1948 This great American modern dance innovator had her first dance studio at 66 Fifth Avenue beginning in the 1930s, remaining here through the at least the 1950s. Starting off as an all-female dance company, it was while located here that Graham first integrated men into her work and school. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, 1912 The first women’s suffrage parade in New York City took place along Fifth Avenue on May 4, 1912. One of the 10,000 marchers at the helm of the parade was Mabel Ping-Hua Lee (b. October 7, 1897). At 16 years old, Lee joined other Chinese American women riding on horseback along the march route, from Washington Square Park to 27th Street. Both The New York Tribune and The New York Times wrote articles about her activism prior to and during this landmark event.

NYC Suffrage Parade, May 4, 1912 In 1912, Lee enrolled at Barnard College, where she joined the Chinese Students’ Association and wrote feminist essays for The Chinese Students’ Monthly. In 1915, she gave a speech at the Women’s Political Union’s Suffrage Shop, in which she encouraged the Chinese American community to uplift the education and civic participation of women. Following her graduation from Barnard, Lee became the first Chinese American woman to receive a PhD in economics, from Columbia University. She published her research in the book The Economic History of China. When her father passed away in 1924, Lee assumed his role as the director of the First Chinese Baptist Church of New York City. Lee was also the founder of the Chinese Christian Center, a community center providing a health clinic, kindergarten, vocational training, and English classes. Though women gained voting access in 1917, and the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920, Chinese American immigrant women could not vote until 1943. The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese American immigrants from obtaining United States citizenship and therefore voting rights. It remains undetermined whether Lee ever became a U.S. citizen and voted here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

59 Fifth Avenue was home to several members of a family who were among the most important American patrons of the arts of the 19th century, and significant figures in the fields of science, philanthropy, business, and government: Jonathan Sturges; his son-in-law and daughter, William H. Osborn and Virginia Reed Sturges Osborn; and their children, Henry Fairfield Osborn and William Church Osborn. The Sturges and Osborns were extremely generous and prodigious patrons of the arts and cultural and charitable institutions in 19th century New York City. In addition to being a great patron of the arts, Virginia Osborn was also extremely involved in philanthropic services to benefit the infirmed and impoverished — endeavors she shared with her mother Mary Cady Sturges. She helped establish the Bellevue Training School for Nurses, opened in 1873, the first school in the United States to be organized according to Florence Nightingale's nursing principles. The school was part of Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in America (1736), which had the first maternity ward in the country and just the second ambulance service in America (1869). Virginia Reed Sturges Osborn also served on the board of the Society of Decorative Arts, which encouraged women to earn a living by creating needlework and ceramics. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This building housed the recording studios of the Columbia Phonograph Company (now Columbia Records) from 1926 until 1934.

Billie Holiday, 1947 During that time several female performers who broke new ground for women recorded here, including Billie Holiday (who made her very first recordings here).

Bessie Smith, 1936 Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters recorded here as well.

"The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan The building was also the home of W.W. Norton & Co., which while here published Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. Painting a gnawing portrait of middle-class women’s lives in the mid-twentieth century, this book helped spark a national conversation about the most basic aspects of the lives and futures of women in the United States. After authoring The Feminine Mystique, Friedan would go on to become the national voice of second-wave feminism, help found the National Organization for Women (and serve as its first president), and also become a founder of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws–NARAL. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Suffrage Parade, October 23, 1915 On October 23rd, 1915, what would be the largest women’s suffrage parade in history began at Washington Square Arch. The New York Times described it as “The latest, biggest and most enthusiastic of suffrage parades, and the one which, according to the leaders of the suffrage forces, will be the last ever needed to plead their cause in New York. They marched up Fifth Avenue from Washington Square to Fifth-Ninth Street yesterday afternoon, blazoned the whole city with the yellow of its banners, and brought out what seemed to be the larger part of the population of Manhattan to look at them." The New York Sun described it as “a three mile argument for equal rights — a dignified, splendid argument — and every vantage point along the gay colored way was covered with men and women who saw its force. Through the chill of a windy afternoon, though the sun shone on the mighty host, the great army of women passed, the white costumes of many glittering in the sunlight, defying the cold wind that the onlookers felt to their spines as they stood to see it all.” The New York Evening World observed that “Some whose names are to be found all through the Social Register marched side by side with working mothers with babies in their arms. A large proportion of the marchers were young girls who would not be old enough to vote were they enfranchised. They made up in beauty what they lacked in years and were cheered all along the crowded Fifth Avenue sidewalks.” The New York Times observed that about 10% of the approximately 30,000 marchers were men. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

In 1894, 10 East 14th Street housed the headquarters of the New York City Woman Suffrage League. This was a significant time in the women’s suffrage movement in New York, for it was then that the Constitutional Amendment Campaign was launched by its leaders to change the New York State Constitution to give women the right to vote. The New York State Woman Suffrage Association (founded in 1869 in Saratoga Springs) and the New York City Woman Suffrage League (founded in 1870 and originally named the New York City Woman Suffrage Society) were at the forefront of the woman’s suffrage movement in New York. Lillie Devereux Blake, while still leading the state organization, became the president of the city organization in 1886. New York held constitutional conventions every twenty years, and New York suffragists, under Blake’s leadership, saw them as an opportunity to secure women the vote with the hope that such an action would influence other states to follow suit (at this time, only Wyoming and Colorado allowed women to vote).

Lillie Devereux Blake In December of 1893, a Constitutional Amendment Campaign Committee was formed and shortly thereafter headquarters for the League were opened at 10 East 14th Street. This location was purposely selected as it was in the midst of a high-end shopping district, and the League was courting support from wealthy New York women both for their donations and their influence. A pre-convention rally was held on May 7, 1894 at Cooper Union led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other speakers included her daughter, Harriet Stanton Blatch, John Milton Cornell (owner of Cornell Iron Works) and Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor. It was announced at the end of this rally that the headquarters of the League at 10 East 14th Street would be open throughout the summer to lead the organizing effort for achieving women’s suffrage in New York State. Ultimately, the delegates of the convention did not support the case for women’s suffrage. Undaunted, however, the movement continued, and in 1917 the New York State Woman Suffrage Party was finally victorious. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in November 1874 in Cleveland, Ohio. After Frances Willard took over leadership in 1879, the WCTU became the largest and one of the most influential women’s groups in the country, expanding its platform from abstinence from alcohol and leading a ‘moderate’ and moral Christian lifestyle to campaign for labor laws, prison reform, and women’s suffrage. Concomitantly, the alcohol industry became a strong funder and supporter of the anti-women’s suffrage cause. The WCTU’s entry into the women’s suffrage effort around 1880 allowed many more traditional women and men, who might have felt alienated by the more radically feminist platform of many suffragists, to feel comfortable supporting the cause.

Frances Willard, 1890-1898 It was during the time period that the National WCTU was heavily involved in the women’s suffrage movement and other progressive social causes that it had its headquarters located at 16 East 14th Street (demolished). Prominent leaders of the WCTU including Willard, Caroline Brown (C.B.) Buell and Frances J. Barnes worked out of the 14th Street office on the women’s suffrage and other campaigns. Willard developed the slogan “Do Everything” for the WCTU, encouraging members to engage in a broad array of social reforms through lobbying, petitioning, preaching, publishing, and education. During her lifetime, Willard succeeded in raising the age of consent in many states, as well as passing labor reforms including the eight-hour work day. Her vision also encompassed prison reform, scientific temperance instruction, Christian socialism, and the global expansion of women’s rights. Today the WCTU is the oldest voluntary, non-sectarian woman’s organization in continuous existence in the world. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Anaïs Nin, one of the 20th century’s most revolutionary female writers, established her own press here in the 1940s. According to the diary of Anaïs Nin, she and her lover Gonzalo More moved their printing company, Gemor Press, into the building in 1944.

Anaïs Nin, 1970s Nin (1903-1977) was an essayist and memoirist; she also self-published and very often re-published her text when it went out of print. Today she is regarded as one of the leading female writers of the 20th century and a source of inspiration for women challenging conventionally defined gender roles. Nin and More first established their press at 144 MacDougal Street in 1942. The first book that they published was a new edition of Nin’s most recent work, Winter of Artifice. According to Nin’s diary, special care and thought went into all aspects of the printing process, including the selection of the type face, the quality of the paper and the accompanying engravings. The books themselves were special artifacts in their own rights, and an extension of the author’s writings and creative process.

"The Winter of Artifice" by Anaïs Nin, 1939 edition This edition of Winter of Artifice sold out within one month, without the benefit of marketing. The press would publish works by other authors as well, including Max Ernst and Hugh Chisolm. The next book of Nin’s they published had been printed in Europe prior to the Spanish Civil War, Under a Glass Bell, which received strong reviews, including by Edmund Wilson of the New Yorker. Nin agreed to rename the business Gemor Press (although ‘Gemor Press’ was already imprinted on the first edition they published of Under a Glass Bell). They borrowed money from a bank, bought a bigger press, and moved to 17 East 13th Street at a considerably higher rent. But the location appealed to More due to its more visible location with a storefront to showcase their work. At the time this location was also close to many other press operations and printing houses just to the west, and to a booksellers row along Fourth Avenue.

"Under a Glass Bell" by Anaïs Nin, 1944 edition In September of 1945, Gemor Press released Nin’s new book, This Hunger, with which Nin was very involved with the printing. At a thousand copies, this was Nin’s largest edition to date. This publication got Nin noticed by other publishers. Most wanted her to change her style and the approach of her writing to be more mainstream, something which Nin resisted. At the suggestion her new friend Gore Vidal, she signed a contract with Dutton publishers, earning an advance of $1,000 without having to compromise her writing style at all. Shortly after the publication in November of 1946 of her first book with Dutton, Ladders to Fire, Gemor Press left 17 East 13th Street due to (as Nin wrote in her diary) “Gonzalo’s irresponsibility.”

"House of Incest" by Anaïs Nin, 1947 edition The large press was sold to pay debts and More brought the smaller press home. He would continue to print small print jobs including two works of Nin’s: A Child Born Out of the Fog and a new edition of the 1936 House of Incest, both in 1947. This period (1942-47) in which Nin and her press were located at 17 East 13th Street was significant both for connecting Nin to an American audience and to a large publisher, and for expanding her role and autonomy in her publication and in developing her creative process. Becoming associated with Dutton gave her the recognition of her work that she sought and the time to concentrate on her writing. Although she no longer participated in the typesetting after this time, she continued to self-publish limited edition paperbacks of her books that were out-of-print. She established the Anais Nin Press to distribute these works which did so until the late 1950s when she partnered with Swallow Press to publish her works.

Vincent Livelli, 2016 Lifelong Villager and music and dance director Vincent Livelli discusses his friendship with Anaïs Nin in his oral history. Listen to Vincent Livelli’s Oral History here. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This building served as the home and first medical office of Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in America. Blackwell established the first hospital and the first medical school run by and for women, and implemented revolutionary innovations in health care, especially for the poor and children, which are still used today.

Elizabeth Blackwell After receiving a medical degree from Geneva College in 1849, Blackwell was denied opportunities to practice medicine because of her gender. In 1851, she moved to New York City and rented a floor here, which was at the time numbered 44 University Place. Tired of being refused work opportunities, Blackwell began using the building as her own medical office, as well as her home. Despite insults and objections from her landlady and neighbors, Blackwell began providing medical services to patients, most of whom were women and members of the local Quaker community. Elizabeth Blackwell’s legacy of inspiring and empowering women to enter the medical field began during this early phase of her career that unfolded at this site. Her New York Infirmary for Women and Children was located just a few blocks away at 58 Bleecker Street (extant, at Crosby Street), and her Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary was located nearby at 128 Second Avenue (demolished, near St. Marks Place). Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Social Reform Club at 45 University Place boasted a membership featuring the city’s most renowned reform leaders, and attempted to confront the most pressing issues facing working people locally and internationally. The Social Reform Club was formally organized in 1894 to cultivate consciousness about, and organize around the improvement of, industrial and social conditions. As a critical part of this mission, it sought to unite working people with their allies. Poet and reformer Ernest Howard Crosby helped found the Club after a meeting with political economist and journalist Henry George in late 1894. Its first president was Charles Spahr, who worked as the author and editor of Outlook magazine. Dr. Anne M. Filiaci writes that the Social Reform Club leadership also included lawyer Edmund Kelly, former New York State Assemblymember Ernest Crosby, and Ethical Culture Society-founder Felix Adler. Labor union leader Samuel Gompers, Progressive leader Josephine Shaw Lowell, and author William Dean Howells were also part of the club’s advisory board.

Samuel Gompers, 1902 According to Samuel Gompers’ published papers, the group required that half of the members be wage earners, and the Club’s 1898 annual report — cited by the editors of Gompers’ papers — revealed that over one third of the club’s 310 members were in fact wage earners. In addition to hosting classes, lectures, and conferences, documented widely in newspapers of the time, the Club coordinated non-partisan support of legislation. Dr. Filiaci similarly emphasizes the Club’s attempt to strike a balance between exploring political ideologies and developing practical solutions. Originally, the group met regularly at rooms on Bond Street, before moving to a now-demolished building at 28 East 4th Street. Around the turn of the century, the Social Reform Club was located at 45 University Place.

Lillian Wald, 1905-1945 The Social Reform Club is mentioned in a number of biographies of New York City’s most prominent reformers, especially women, illuminating how much of an influence it had on shaping the politics and networks of these individuals. Lillian Wald; labor leader Leonora O’Reilly; philanthropist and activist Louise Perkins; Greenwich House founder Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch; civil rights activist Mary White Ovington; socialist, suffragist, and settlement house worker Florence Ledyard Cross Kitchelt; and writer and women’s movement leader Charlotte Perkins Gilman were all associated with the Club. The Club’s membership also included labor activist and educator Edward King, attorney and activist Edward Warren Ordway, journalist Jacob Riis, economist E.R.A. Seligman, journalist and editor Albert Shaw, and public parks and settlement activist Charles Stover. Without a doubt, the Social Reform Club played a profoundly significant role in the lives of the city’s most renowned and influential reformers, and in shaping the movements in which they were involved. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The Police Athletic League Building at 34 1/2 East 12th Street between University Place and Broadway was built in 1855 for the New York City Board of Education and designated an individual New York City landmark in 1998. The building first served as Grammar School 47, an all-girls school. The landmark designation report notes that it “was one of the first New York City schools built exclusively for the education of girls at a time when the city was trying to expand learning opportunities for young women.” Grammar School 47 was renamed the 12th Street Advance School for Girls in 1856, and in 1897 the name was changed to Girls High School. A new school opened in the building in 1902, Girls’ Technical High School, which was renamed Washington Irving High School in 1906 and moved out of 34 1/2 East 12th Street into its current building on Irving Place in 1913.

Lydia Fowler Wadleigh, 1907 An early faculty member at Grammar School 47 was Lydia F. Wadleigh, a strong advocate and practitioner of early and higher education for women. Within a year, she founded the 12th Street Advanced School for Girls within the Grammar School building. By 1870, Wadleigh took on the role of “Lady Superintendent” of the city’s Daily Female Normal School, which would soon become New York Normal College, and eventually develop into today’s Hunter College (Hunter was originally a women’s college until it became co-educational in 1964). Though Wadleigh died in 1888, when the Board of Education created the first official high school for girls in 1897, they located it at the East 12th Street building. The girls’ high school was later moved to a new building on West 115th Street (which was designed by noted architect C.B.J. Snyder and is itself a New York City landmark) and named in Wadleigh’s honor. The school remains here today as the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

Charlotte Curtis, the first woman to work as associate editor of The New York Times and the first woman whose name appeared on the newspaper’s masthead, lived at 40 East 10th Street for about 25 years. Curtis was born in Chicago, raised in Columbus, Ohio, and graduated from Vassar College in 1950. She then returned to Ohio and served as a reporter and society editor for the Columbus Citizen (later the Columbus Citizen-Journal). In 1961, she moved to New York City and started working for The New York Times as the home furnishings reporter. In Woman of the Times: Journalism, Feminism, & Career of Charlotte Curtis, Marilyn S. Greenwald writes that when Curtis started working for the Times, she “rented a tiny penthouse apartment on 40 East Tenth Street in Greenwich Village, which she bought several years later for $25,000.” Greenwald continues: “Although it was too small for entertaining, a terrace ran its length, allowing \[Curtis] to indulge in gardening, which would become one of her favorite hobbies. And she was amused at the history of her new home—it had once been a servants’ quarters. The tiny apartment would be her New York home for nearly twenty-five years.” While at the Times Curtis worked as a women’s news editor, family style editor, op-ed editor, associate editor, and weekly columnist. Her higher positions offered her unprecedented influence as a woman, and allowed her to report on controversial political issues including the feminist movement. According to her biography, she is remembered as an advocate for “the underdog” — both in her relationships with other journalists and in the stories she wrote. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

The St. Denis Hotel, located at 799 Broadway/80 East 12th Street until 2019, was once one of the most elegant and desirable hotels in the country.

Susan B. Anthony, 1881 Notably, suffragist Susan B. Anthony gave a speech before the local women’s Suffrage Association here.

Sarah Bernhardt in "Hamlet," 1885 Another one of the St. Denis Hotel’s most prominent guests was the trailblazing actress Sarah Bernhardt, one of the first women known to have performed the title role in Hamlet. Bernhardt served as the manager of the Théâtre de la Renaissance beginning in 1893. From 1899 until her death in 1923, she managed the former Théâtre des Nations, which she renamed the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt. In the twentieth century, the St. Denis Hotel was converted into a modern store and office building, and by 1968, Room 412 of the hotel became the home of the New York Radical Women, an early second-wave feminist group. Inspired by the contemporary civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, but frustrated by the marginalization of women within those movements, the organization sought to elevate the then-novel idea of women’s liberation. One of the group’s first actions was a women’s anti-Vietnam War march in Washington D.C. on January 15, 1968, called the Jeannette Rankin Brigade. However, the New York Radical Women is best known for its protest of the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City later that year, on September 7th, 1968.

“Notes from the First Year,” by the New York Radical Women, 1968 Following a call from the New York Radical Women on August 22nd, hundreds of women showed up in Union Square to travel to the Atlantic City protest on buses. Marching along the city’s boardwalk, the group planned to “protest the image of Miss America, an image that oppresses women in every area in which it purports to represent us.” On the day of the pageant, the protestors set up a “freedom trash can” where people could throw out physical objects representing women’s oppression, proposed a boycott of companies that sponsored or whose products were used by the pageant, and refused to participate in interviews with male reporters. In the New York Radical Women’s manifesto explaining why it was protesting, the group pointed to the racism of the Miss America contest, in which a woman of color had never participated - let alone won. It further denounced that an indigenous woman had never been named Miss America, and that the event relied on corporate sponsorship, supported the military-industrial complex, and promoted a limited, degrading image of womanhood. Although the protest did not necessarily alter the Miss America pageant, many historians consider the event the initiation of feminism’s broader second wave, which brought women’s liberation into national, mainstream consciousness. The New York Radical Women was in operation from 1967 to 1969, at which point it had grown from about a dozen members to several hundred. At this point the group split into smaller factions, including Redstockings, The Feminists, and Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell (W.I.T.C.H.).

In late 2018, after plans were announced to demolish the historic building to make way for another tech-related development, Village Preservation staged a protest outside the building attended by hundreds of local residents. Nevertheless the city refused to act, and in 2019 the building was demolished, with the new office tower replacing it. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of extant historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This building housed the Women's Central Association of Relief (WCAR) during the Civil War. Elizabeth Blackwell, an ardent abolitionist and the first female physician in the United States, established the WCAR. Dr. Blackwell realized the Union army needed a system for distributing supplies and organized four thousand women into the organization. The WCAR grew into chapters around the county, and this body systematically collected and distributed life-saving supplies such as bandages, blankets, food, clothing and medical supplies.

Elizabeth Blackwell Blackwell also partnered with several prominent male physicians in New York City to offer a one-month training course for 100 women who wanted to be nurses for the army. This was the first formal training for women nurses in the country. Once they completed their training, they were sent to Dorothea Dix for placement at a hospital.

United States Sanitary Division Seal By July 1861, the WCAR prompted the government to form a national version—the United States Sanitary Commission, which was the precursor to the American Red Cross. And it all started because Dr. Blackwell decided to mobilize the women of the country to help the Union. From just May 1, 1861 to Nov. 1, 1863, WCAR donated nearly a half million items of clothing and nearly 300,000 items of bedding to the war effort, which was valued at nearly $600,000. They continued to raise money and relief items for the remainder of the war. Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

“One of the most notable sculptors of the twentieth century” according to the National Women’s History Museum, the celebrated artist, educator, and self-described “people’s sculptor” Selma Hortense Burke lived and worked at 88 East 10th Street from 1944 until at least 1949, according to New York City directories. While here, Burke completed “The Four Freedoms,” a 2 ½ by 3 ½ foot relief plaque commemorating President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which was used as a model for his image on the U.S. dime coin. Among her many accomplishments, Burke is celebrated for achieving success as a Black woman sculptor at a time when few female or Black artists, and even fewer Black female artists, were able to achieve any success or recognition in the United States.

Selma Hortense Burke with her portrait bust of Booker T. Washington, 1930s In 1943, Burke won a competition to create a profile portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and was commissioned to produce a relief plaque of the President. Burke then had two sittings to sketch the President in person, and completed the plaque while living at 88 East 10th Street. In March 1945, as Burke remained at 88 East 10th Street, Eleanor Roosevelt visited her studio to approve the final design.

Selma Hortense Burke with her relief plaque of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt The plaque was dedicated following Roosevelt’s death, on September 24, 1945 at the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington, D.C. “The Four Freedoms” was unveiled by Frederick Weaver, Frederick Douglass’ grandson, and President Harry S. Truman spoke at the event. While U.S. Mint Chief Engraver John Sinnock is credited with Roosevelt’s image on the U.S. dime coin, Burke’s relief plaque is widely accepted as the model and original version. Throughout her life, Burke herself insisted that her design was plagiarized on the dime coin. Significantly, Burke also established the Selma Burke School of Sculpture while living here in 1946, as recorded in an article published that year in Headlines and Pictures (Chicago, Illinois). At this time, the school was located at 67 West 3rd Street (demolished).

U.S. Dime Coin, 2017 In 1979, President Jimmy Carter awarded Burke the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement award. She also received an Essence Magazine award, and a number of honorary doctorates.   Click here to send a letter supporting landmark designation of this and other historic buildings south of Union Square. . . .

This ten-story Neo-Renaissance-style loft building was constructed in 1896 by architect Albert Wagner. The structure was commissioned by Joseph and Lyman Bloomingdale, Bloomingdale’s Department Store founders, to serve as the corporate offices. The building also housed the offices of civil engineering consulting firm Purdy & Henderson at the turn of the century. The firm was responsible for such notable buildings as the Flatiron Building and 40 Wall Street. However, not widely acknowledged for her role in the many works completed by Purdy & Henderson is the lesser-known trailblazing female engineer who worked here for the firm at the turn of the century.

Marion S. Parker was the first woman to graduate with a B.S in Civil Engineering from the School of Architecture and Engineering at the University of Michigan. In 1897, when she was just 20 years old, Parker was said to be the only practicing female civil engineer on the East Coast. Parker was hired immediately out of college by Purdy & Henderson and given the same salary as a man in her position. She worked on such notable landmarks as the old Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Flatiron Building, and the Broad Exchange Building. In 1905, The New York Press wrote that “It may at first sound like an extraordinary statement to say that the solidarity of the largest office building in this city and in the world depends upon the mechanical ability of a young woman, yet that is a fact.” Parker was responsible for everything “from the foundation to the roof” for The Broad Exchange Building. She is also credited with the structural design behind the original Whitehall building. And though at the height of her career newspapers marveled at her abilities, she has not been widely acknowledged in the time since for her groundbreaking work as an engineer or a woman in this male-dominated field, though she was in fact the beginning of a wave of women who followed her into this field. Nora Staton Blatch Barney, the first woman to graduate from Cornell with a degree in civil engineering, shortly followed in Parker's footsteps in 1905.

Helen Levitt (August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009), one of the most influential street photographers of the 20th century, lived at 4-6 East 12th Street for over 40 years. Nos. 4 and 6 East 12th Street are a pair of largely intact 4-story and basement ca. 1846 Greek Revival houses located just east of Fifth Avenue that have since been split into multi-unit housing.

New York City’s doorways, storefronts, and cascading fire escapes were the grand backdrop to Levitt’s photos. She rambled about the city’s streets with little more than the handheld camera and a wondrous, reverent eye. She immersed herself in her surroundings, cultivating deep respect and adoration for the working-class people and mischievous children that were both her subjects and her neighbors. Her depiction of street life blended the poetic and the political.

Born in 1913 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Helen Levitt became intrigued with the transitory chalk drawings that were part of the New York children’s street culture of the time while she was teaching art classes to children in the mid-1930s. She purchased a Leica camera (with a right-angle viewfinder) and began to photograph these chalk drawings, as well as the children who made them. In 1940, her works were included in the inaugural exhibition of The Museum of Modern Art’s photography department, where her 1939 image of children trick-or-treating received especially high praise.

At only 30, she mounted her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943, a rare feat for a female photographer at the time in what was a decidedly male-dominated field. In fact, Levitt has been called by critics "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time,” a distinction likely at least in part attributable to her gender. Her photography rose to greater academic prominence only after the surge of feminist art historical research "rediscovering" female artists in the 1970s. Levitt later received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was a National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellow. Some art historians have written that Levitt's depiction of children outside of the standard domestic sphere is a particularly feminist vantage point. Helen Levitt was a trailblazer for female photographers and women in the arts. Renowned figures such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, and James Agee were among her cohort of admiring contemporaries and friends, but Levitt stood out from the crowd with her warm and discerning photographs. Depicting the urban whimsy of ordinary street life in the city, Levitt captured wondrous, seemingly impossible moments of the dance of life in the street and the unrestrained bonds of community. Levitt lived in New York City and remained active as a photographer for nearly 70 years.