Berenice Abbott’s Lost City: Greenwich Village Yesterday and Today

Seventy years ago, famed photographer Berenice Abbott turned her lens on her own neighborhood, Greenwich Village, for what would end up being her final New York project: Greenwich Village: Today and Yesterday. The book, a mash-up of Abbott’s photos and somewhat peculiar text by Henry Lanier, provides a unique and fascinating glimpse into New York at a period of upheaval. The Bohemian and immigrant Village–which had been so vibrant before World War II–was quickly disappearing, but the new wave of Beatnik poets, folk singers, and the denizens of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel had yet to arrive.

Historian and journalist James Nevius will use Abbott’s photos and Lanier’s text to lead a “virtual” tour of 1930’s and 1940’s Greenwich Village, focusing on what Greenwich Village: Today and Yesterday can teach us about preservation, history, and the changing face of New York City.