Upcoming Programs

Information on all GVSHP’s upcoming programs and events is available online at http://www.gvshp.org/events.

 The Talented Miss Highsmith
A Lecture with Joan Schenkar
Thursday, March 4, 2010
6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
Hudson Park Branch Library
66 Leroy Street (off of 7th Avenue South)
Free; reservations required.
RSVP to rsvp@gvshp.org or 212-475-9585 ext. 35

Part One of GVSHP’s celebration of Women’s History Month. Patricia Highsmith, the Dark Lady of American Letters, couldn’t imagine life without a crime in it. Greenwich Village (where Highsmith spent her formative years as a writer) and midtown Manhattan (where she had a secret career as the most-employed female comic book scriptwriter ) played crucial roles in the development of her peerlessly disturbing fictions.

Joan Schenkar will speak about the importance of  Manhattan (and specifically the twisting, turning streets of Greenwich Village) to the mind of Patricia Highsmith — and about what happens when a solid object like the art of biography coincides with an elusively seductive subject like the talented Miss Highsmith.

Copies of The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith will be available for purchase.

New construction within the various designated historic districts in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo must go through a rigorous public hearing and review process. This affords the public the opportunity to speak to and hear from architects about their thoughts on appropriate design for their neighborhoods, with the Landmarks Preservation Commission charged with making the final call on “appropriateness.” However, when new construction takes place outside of designated historic districts, typically there is no public hearing or review process for the design, and little or no dialogue with the public about it. Though these buildings may have just as profound an aesthetic effect upon their surroundings, decisions about materials, design, and context are generally made solely by the architect and client, based upon practical considerations and their own perspective.

In this new series of Architects Talks, GVSHP invites the architects of several new buildings in our neighborhoods with interesting responses to their contexts and design challenges to engage in a post-facto talk about their design choices and processes. The first series focuses on 13th Street, where a series of new designs play with the traditional and the modern, relating to and standing out from their surroundings.

425 East 13th Street
with John Cetra
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
Tompkins Square Branch Library
331 East 10th Street (btw. Avenue A & Avenue B)
Free; reservations required.
RSVP to rsvp@gvshp.org or 212-475-9585 ext. 35

CetraRuddy’s new design combines warm, earth-toned terra cotta with large expanses of glass and metal. Surrounded by the East Village’s traditional tenements, how does this mid-rise apartment building relate to its context while declaring its newness?

Part Two of GVSHP’s celebration of Women’s History Month.

In March 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, which would go down in infamy as the largest workplace disaster in New York City history. But the fire would also inspire profound changes to the way factory workers were treated. Join Professor Hasia Diner in remembering this tragedy on the 99th Anniversity of the fire.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire still holds the dubious distinction of the having been the worst industrial accident in American history. In what ways did the fire change America? How did the fire leave a lasting legacy? This talk will describe both what happened on that day in 1911 and what happened subsequent to the tragedy.

Part Three of GVSHP’s celebration of Women’s History Month.

Jane Jacobs is most often portrayed as the woman who, through her brilliant grass-roots organizing during the 1950s and 60s, single-handedly saved her beloved Greenwich Village from being bulldozed by Robert Moses. But this characterization is a vast oversimplification.

In this lecture, Alice Sparberg Alexiou, author of the first biography of Jacobs, will discuss Jacobs’ complex legacy. Alexiou will focus on Jacobs’ ideas, and, most importantly, how brilliantly she conveyed them in writing, most notably in her most famous work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Her ideas eventually entered our collective consciousness, forever influencing the way we look at cities, neighborhoods, and individual buildings.