Founding

     When 14 blocks, between Hudson Street and the Hudson River, were designated as a slum to be replaced with new towers in a pricey “urban renewal” scheme, Jane Jacobs, then living on Hudson Street and writing about architectural issues, joined with neighbors, as the Committee to Save the West Village, to defeat the designation and, through brilliant tactics, succeeded. They immediately re-formed themselves as the West Village Committee, in 1962, to propose infill housing on the site of a disused rail line in that area (the lower part of the High Line), without displacing any residents, commercial or private. They commissioned the architect Perkins + Will to draw up plans for West Village Houses—low-rise walkup apartment buildings with shared and individual gardens—which still exist as affordable housing, running from Bank Street south to Morton Street between Washington and West streets. No one was evicted in this process, and older buildings were retained. The housing is often referred to as “the Jane Jacobs houses” because of the role she played. (She first worked as an activist with fellow Villagers starting in 1955, to prevent the routing of traffic through Washington Square.)

Character of the West Village

     In those days the West Village was an area of warehouses, factories, rowhouses, and tenements, close to the working waterfront. The residential population west of Hudson was largely Puerto Rican by the early ‘60s, in Jacobs’s account of the WVC founding. Bohemians and artists began moving into the low-rent apartments or renovating the old merchants’ houses. There were hotels primarily for seamen, longshoreman’s bars, and many piers, which informally, by the ‘70s, became the local places of outdoor recreation.

St. Vincent’s triangle and Jane Street Garden

     Because there was so little park area in the neighborhood—the lowest proportion in the city—the WVC began gardening as well as advocating for public open space and the neighborhood preservation that was already its established purpose. Bill Bowser and Pamela Burdan began a much celebrated garden opposite the former St. Vincent’s Hospital, until the hospital plant and garage displaced it. (Burdan is memorialized by a viewing garden at Sheridan Square.) It was one of the first community gardens, and a major one. In 1987, the WVC became the keeper of the garden begun in 1973 by the Jane Street Block Association on a burnt-out site on the corner with Hudson Street, the Jane Street Garden; it is still administered and maintained on this city-owned land by the WVC, under the auspices of the city Parks Department’s GreenThumb program.

Greening

     The WVC has been responsible for many tree guards and the planting of tree pits in the area in recent years. In pre-renovation Abingdon Square., volunteers from the WVC did upkeep, paying for tree-trimming, bench-slat replacement, and fence repair, conducting cleanups and sponsoring a community planting area. A number of the small triangle gardens at intersections began as WVC projects.

Preservation, Farmers Market, and Waterfront

     The WVC has joined with other groups to preserve and extend the Greenwich Village historic district, which does not extend to the waterfront and includes only individual buildings or blocks to the west. The WVC has prevented or mitigated new high-rise construction and fought to keep the waterfront free of encroachment by commercial and residential uses or public-authority administration. Its members have spoken out at countless public hearings, picketed City Hall, and worked with city and state officials to further the interests of this community and the wider city. One of the first Greenmarkets was sponsored by the WVC, on Gansevoort Street.

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     The West Village Committee was incorporated as a 501c-3 nonprofit in 1977.

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     In 1992, its newsletter was winner of the Village Award from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

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