After four years of campaigning, city agrees to consider designating endangered black history site in Greenwich Village

50 West 13th, built in 1846, was the longtime home of suffragist and civil rights leader Sarah Smith Garnet, black civil rights leader Jacob Day, and the 13th Street Repertory Theater.

The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission has just taken the first official step toward designating a landmark at 50 West 13th Street, a disappearing 1846 Greenwich Village house that Village Preservation is fighting to protect saved thanks to this designation since 2020. The building is up for a “calendar” vote on June 18, which, if approved, would mean a public hearing and vote on landmark designation must take place by a year. Nearly all of these scheduled calendar votes are approved, and properties on the calendar are generally approved for marking. This announcement therefore gives us great hope that the endangered historic site will soon be marked and protected. The timeline would put in place some initial safeguards to protect the building, while monument designation would protect it in perpetuity.

Village Preservation proposed and fought for historic designation of the historic house since the death of longtime co-owner Edith O’Hara in 2020, which left doubt over the iconic structure’s fate. Village Preservation’s research and documentation, submitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission (NYC LPC) as part of the campaign, showed not only the building’s extreme importance to New York’s theatrical history, as the home of long-standing establishment of one of New York’s oldest and largest. -Off-Broadway theaters, but with the history of civil rights and women’s suffrage. According to our research, famous suffragette, educator and civil rights leader Sarah Smith Tompkins Garnet lived here for at least eight years, from 1866 to 1874, during a critical period in her life. From 1858 to 1884, Jacob Day, a prominent 19th-century black businessman, lived and ran his business here and owned the house, when Greenwich Village was the center of African life. American in New York and home to its largest black population. Day was a leading advocate for abolition and equal voting rights for black New Yorkers, as well as a leading supporter of institutions like the Abyssinian Baptist Church, then located in Greenwich Village. One of the city’s most successful black businessmen and prominent citizens, he was suspected of supporting the activities of the Underground Railroad, including at this location.

In addition to the voluminous research submitted to the NYC LPC, Village Preservation has generated thousands of letters of support for historic landmark designation from New Yorkers and those interested in preserving black history, women and theater across the country, as well as elected officials, including council member Erik. Bottcher (whose municipal district included the site until this year) and Gale Brewer in her previous capacity as borough president. Village Preservation started the campaign because with the death of Edith O’Hara, an agreement to preserve the building by the majority owners was no longer in effect. Since his death, the theater has been closed and the building has become increasingly abandoned. Village Preservation has worked closely with the O’Hara family and others connected to the operation of the 13th Street Repertory Theater. Designating a monument is essential to preventing its destruction.

For more information about 50 West 13th Street and the campaign to save it, click here.

No. 50 West 13th Street is one of more than 1,250 buildings in Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo for which Village Preservation has successfully advocated for landmark designation. The organization has made special efforts to document and seek to preserve sites related to civil rights, social justice, immigrant and art history. These include landmark designation of the Stonewall Inn (the first officially recognized LGBTQ historic site in New York and the nation) as well as Julius’ Bar, the Pyramid Club and other LGBTQ historic landmarks; 70 Fifth Avenue, longtime headquarters of the NAACP; the homes and studios of artists Frank Stella and Willem de Kooning (each saved from the wrecking ball); and the city’s first historic districts based on immigrant history. Village Preservation is also actively campaigning to obtain historic designation for the NYC Woman’s Suffrage League headquarters at 10 East 14th Street; the vanishing Our Lady of Guadalupe Church at 229 West 14th Street, the first-ever Spanish-speaking church in New York; the endangered New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, one of the first medical institutions dedicated to helping people with hearing and vision impairments, located on 13th Street and Second Avenue; and the former home of revered black literary figure Steve Cannon and his organization “Gathering of the Tribes” at 285-287 East 3rd Street.

Village Preservation was founded in 1980 and its mission is to document, celebrate and preserve the distinctive architectural and cultural heritage of Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo. More here.