|
Having trouble viewing this email? Click here
 
 
May 21 2015
Village Awards & Annual Meeting
The
35th GVSHP Annual Meeting and 25th Village Awards
Wednesday,
June 17, 2015
6:30 – 8:00 P.M.
Co-hosted
by The New School
The
Village Awards recognize the people, places, and organizations which
make a significant contribution to the quality of life in Greenwich
Village, the East Village, and NoHo.
Congratulations
to the 2015 Village Award Recipients:
Barbara Schaum, Bonnie Slotnick
Cookbooks, David Rothenberg, The Renee & Chaim Gross Foundation,
201 East 12th Street Renovation, and the Regina Kellerman Award
Winners: James & Karla Murray
At
the Annual Meeting GVSHP members will vote on five returning Trustees
and two new Trustees to the Board of Directors.
Returning Trustees: Mary Ann Arisman, Tom Birchard, Arthur Levin,
Judith Stonehill, and Linda Yowell
New Trustees: Tom Cooper and Trevor Stewart
A review of the Society’s activities and accomplishments over the
last year will be provided.
Wednesday,
June 17, 2015
6:30 –
8:00 P.M.
Free;
reservations required
The Auditorium
at The New School, 66 West 12th Street
[This venue is
wheelchair accessible.]
To
register, please call (212) 475-9585 ext. 35 or email.
|
Business of the Month: Greenwich Locksmiths
The
sliver of a shop at 56 Seventh Avenue South became familiar to many New
Yorkers for its tiny, triangular shape, and then a few years ago for
adding an artistic façade made of thousands of
keys. Customers of Greenwich
Locksmiths, founded by Philip Mortillaro in
1980, also know it for the high quality of its keys, locks, security
systems and customer service. Add the friendliness of Mortillaro
and his son and business partner, Philip Mortillaro,
Jr., and you know why
Greenwich Locksmiths is our Business of the
Month for May.
 “I just like being me,”
said Phil Sr., who has lived in the Village for decades. “If I
gonorth of 14th Street, nobody knows me. If I
go south of Canal Street, nobody knows me. If I stay in this zone,
everybody knows me. And I have an identity: I’m a
locksmith.” The GVSHP supporter who nominated Greenwich
Locksmiths wrote to us: “The artwork in front is incredibly cool,
and always puts a smile on my face when I walk by it.” Read
more about this month’s business of the month here, and past
businesses of the month here.
With
GVSHP's "Business of the Month" program, each month a local,
independent business is featured on GVSHP's website and blog Off the Grid, and shared via
social media and our e-bulletins, to showcase one of our neighborhoods'
great and unique commercial treasures. The program underscores what makes
each business so valued and distinctive. We hope it will increase support
and patronage, aiding our local small businesses' health and viability.
 We're asking
you, the public, to nominate your favorite businesses for consideration
for our "Business of the Month." To nominate a business just
fill in a very brief form here.
Local businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods, and many find
themselves in an increasingly tough environment of rising rents and
proliferating chain stores. GVSHP is committed to highlighting the
businesses that help keep our neighborhoods unique and special, and
provide a service, atmosphere, or specialty that can't be found anywhere
else.
Another important way to support mom-and-pops is by backing the Small
Business Jobs Survival Act, a bill in City Council that deserves
consideration. Click here
to urge City Council to hold a hearing.
Protecting Stonewall and Other LGBT Historic
Sites
GVSHP has been working with a coalition of
preservation groups, elected officials, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender (LGBT) advocacy organizations to get the New York City
Landmarks Preservation Commission to formally recognize and protect the Stonewall
Inn and other sites of significance to the LGBT civil rights movement. We
recently wrote to the
LPC Chair asking
her again to take action on this issue, after having previously
urged her and her predecessor to do so.
New York City, and
particularly the Village, contain several locations which are internationally
recognized as defining sites of the LGBT rights movement, including
the Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street. Resistance and riots in response to routine police
harassment which took place at and near the Stonewall Inn over three
nights in late June, 1969, are considered the beginning of the modern
LGBT rights movement, and are memorialized with LGBT Pride events
throughout the world. For this reason, the State of New York and
the federal government have both (in response
to an application co-authored by GVSHP) recognized the Stonewall Inn for its historic
significance. President Obama has linked the significance of the
Stonewall Riots to the great civil rights march in Selma and the
pioneering women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls.
But amazingly, New York City’s Landmarks
Preservation Commission has never officially recognized Stonewall’s LGBT significance as part of a
landmark designation of the site. Because only New York City
landmark designation (as opposed to State or Federal recognition) can
protect a building from alteration or demolition, it is critical that
action be taken by the NYC LPC to officially recognize Stonewall and
other LGBT history sites with landmark designation.
HOW TO HELP:
·
Write to
Mayor de Blasio and the Chair of the NYC Landmarks Preservation
Commission calling for recognition and protection of Stonewall and other
critical LGBT history sites > >
Find out more about the Village’s LGBT
history here.
|
