In early July, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (GVSHP) uncovered a plan by a developer to demolish a rare surviving 1824 house in the proposed South Village Historic District. GVSHP immediately brought the threat to the attention of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and asked them to move ahead with designation of the proposed district, or at least of this immediately endangered site, as soon as possible.
Their initial response? They refused to act, saying the house did not rise to the level of an individual landmark and that designation of the remainder of the proposed South Village Historic District, as they have promised to consider for years, was currently “not a priority.”
We have lost many historic sites in the South Village while waiting for the LPC to act, including the Provincetown Playhouse and Apartments, the Circle in the Square Theater, the Sullivan Street Playhouse, the Tunnel Garage, and the 1861 house at 178 Bleecker Street, right in the heart of the South Village.
However, just after the LPC stated that it would not move ahead to protect either 186 Spring Street or the remainder of the proposed South Village Historic District, GVSHP made a startling discovery. As we continued to perform research to document the history of this building before it was too late, we uncovered the incredibly pivotal but nearly-forgotten role 186 Spring Street and its occupants played in post-Stonewall-era gay activism and in the earliest days of the fight against AIDS.
GVSHP’s research showed that in the early 1970s this nearly 200 year old house became a ‘gay commune’ in which some of the most important and influential activist figures of the time resided. This included Jim Owles, who co-founded the Gay Activists Alliance and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), was the first openly-gay candidate for office in New York City, and lobbied for the very first gay anti-discrimination ordinances in New York City and State. It also included Bruce Voeller, who co-founded and was the first director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was the plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court case establishing gay and lesbian parental rights, got what had been called “Gay Related Immune Deficiency Disorder (GRIDD)” renamed the more accurate and less stigmatizing “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS)”, and conducted the first published study demonstrating that condom usage could prevent the spread of AIDS. Both of these men did much of this groundbreaking work while living at 186 Spring Street.
In light of this latest information GVSHP has provided regarding 186 Spring Street, the LPC has said that they will reconsider whether or not to protect the house. However, this is no guarantee of action and the developer may move ahead with demolition at any moment.
186 Spring Street is by no means an isolated location within the South Village that served a critical role in the history of the gay community. As it was for African-Americans in the mid-19th century, Italian-Americans from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, and a range of artists, writers, musicians, and radical thinkers from the late 19th century onward, the South Village also served a key center and an incubator for the gay and lesbian community starting in the late 19th century.
The extraordinary significance of 186 Spring Street and the South Village generally to LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trangender) history is only one of many reasons why the Landmarks Preservation Commission should move ahead immediately to consider designation of this area, as it promised to do several years ago. The New York State Historic Preservation Office, in determining the area eligible for listing on the State and National Registers of Historic Places, said that the South Village contained “a rich array of buildings of architectural, historical, and cultural significance… Beginning in the early decades of the twentieth century and continuing beyond the post-World War ll era, the South Village has been the setting of important counter-cultural movements, institutions, and trends including the bohemian-era, jazz clubs, gay bars, off-Broadway theater, Beat culture, and the folk music revival.” The Preservation League of New York State, in declaring the South Village one of the seven most historically significant endangered locations in New York State, said the South Village contained “a wealth of architecturally and historically significant buildings and sites constructed between the 1820s and 1930s… associated with the immigrant experience, bohemian and artistic achievements (especially in music) and counter-cultural movements.”
Over strong local objections, the City has moved full steam ahead with consideration of NYU’s rezonings by NYU and Trinity Realty in areas directly adjacent to the proposed South Village Historic District which will only increase development pressure on the area. Meanwhile, they have ignored the overwhelming local support for landmark designation.
If you’d like to help, go to http://www.gvshp.org/svltr to send a letter to the City urging they move ahead with protecting 186 Spring Street and the South Village.
