After I came out in 1975, I escaped from my conservative Catholic upbringing in New Jersey and moved to the East Village to be a dyke. Continue reading →

Waiting for the Parade on 7th Avenue 2019 Photo: Mary McKenna Ridge

The Pride March Is Coming!

. Art of Our Century is thrilled to announce its reopening on Friday, June 26, with a group photo show, “Pride Marches On: Celebrating 50 Years.” The exhibit runs through July 19.

The gallery is located at 137 West 14th St. in Greenwich Village,
midway between Union Square and the Meatpacking District.
We are open Thursday thru Sunday, 12 noon to 6 pm, and by appointment.

Photographers in the exhibit are Barbara Alper, Fred W. McDarrah, Meryl Meisler, Suzanne Poli, Mary McKenna Ridge, Darleen Rubin, and Allan Tannenbaum. . Sixty photos, some dating to the first year of the March, will be exhibited, many never before publicly seen.

Opening and Gallery Guidelines
In order to minimize crowds, the opening reception will stretch over three days. It will take place Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 26, 27 and 28, from 12 noon to 6 pm each day.

NO ONE WILL BE ADMITTED TO THE GALLERY WITHOUT A MASK OR FACE COVERING!
The facilities are cleaned daily. No more than 10 individuals will be permitted in the gallery at any one one time. If people are waiting, guests will be asked to limit the length of their visits. Thanks in advance for your cooperation!
Wine, and hand sanitizer, will be available to gallery guests at all times.

For more information, please click http://ArtofOurCentury.com and follow us on Instagram at @artofourcentury and on Facebook.

The first organized Pride parade, then known as the Christopher Street Liberation Day March, took place on June 28, 1970, a year after the Stonewall uprising.

The March, from Christopher Street up to Central Park, took less than half the scheduled time, partly due to excitement, but also due to fear from the participants about openly walking through the city with gay-positive banners and signs.

This year, most events marking the Golden Jubilee, including the March scheduled for Sunday, June 28, have been postponed due to the global pandemic.

But Art of Our Century felt it important to not let the occasion pass without being recognized. In these turbulent times, it is important to look back and salute previous generations of those fighting for change.

With a wink toward Peggy Guggenheim’s iconic 1942-1947 gallery of a similar name, Art of Our Century showcases, as Guggenheim did, both young and unknown artists working in all mediums, mixed in with more established names.

The legendary gallerist Patti Astor – whose iconic Fun Gallery put Graffiti and the East Village art scene on the map in the 1980s – is a consultant to the young venture.

Madeleine Yayodele Nelson

Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Off the Grid Blog
Lannyl Stephens
June 8, 2020

It was a project like no other before. The first subsidized housing for artists in the United States, offering affordable housing and work space in New York City, Westbeth is a large scale adaptive reuse of an industrial building for both artistic and residential purposes. And it celebrates 50 years of life this year.

We are proud to highlight the remarkable history of Westbeth throughout this year on its golden anniversary. Today’s post is in memoriam of all the African American artists who lived and worked at this place of great diversity and creativity. We honor and salute them for the contributions they made to our society and hope that our post will encourage you to take a further look at their work and their lives.

Article includes:
Benny Andrews
George Barrow
Patti Bown
Carole Byard
Carol Cole
Moses Gunn
Hugh Hurd
Gilbert Moses
Madeleine Yayodele Nelson
Cordell Reagon
Freddie Waits
Dudley Williams

Read the entire article HERE

Edith Stephens, J Taylor Basker, and Salvador Peter Tomas. Photo: J Taylor Basker

Westview News
June 3, 2020
J Taylor Basker

On June 22, 1920, Salvador Pius Thomas, aka Tomas, was born in the county of Harrison in Mississippi. On June 22nd he will turn 100 years old. Peter, as we know him in the Westbeth artists community, is a delightful and talented gentleman with a wicked sense of humor that is still sharp. He is an African-American whose achievements have been awesome. He was an opera singer and actor, and has graced our hallways with dignity and pride. He always celebrated his birthday on Gay Pride Day so we could view the fireworks after his party in his close friend Edith Stephen’s river view apartment. Edith, 101 years young, describes Peter as full of joy and jokes, always looking to help his neighbors. After 9/11, when he witnessed the collapse of the towers downtown, he cooked meals for the 6th Precinct for months. His ascent in the professional classical music world was difficult as an African-American, but he persisted and developed a vast and impressive repertoire and reputation.

Read the entire article HERE

Shelley Seccombe Pier 50 in flames, c. 1971. Taken from a window in Westbeth facing Bethune Street.

Westbeth Photographer Shelley Seccombe Documents the Greenwich Village Waterfront Since 1970
When the Westbeth complex was converted to the first subsidized housing for artists in the United States fifty years ago, the great photographer Shelley Seccombe was one of the first tenants to move in. Over the course of her career, Seccombe has documented the people and landscape of the surrounding neighborhood, marking the events that have defined it and the changes that have reshaped it across five decades, since 1970. The photos she has generously shared with Village Preservation are just a small portion of her work, providing an invaluable portrait of Village history, waterfront history, Westbeth history, and so much more.

Seccombe’s focus on photography was in many ways inspired by her move to Westbeth. When she first arrived, the entrance to the building was on West Street, facing the waterfront. Coming in and out of this entrance defined her daily attention to, and documentation of, the since-demolished West Side Miller Elevated Highway and the piers just beyond it. Seccombe remembers:

“In 1970 I moved with my husband and daughter to the West Village. We were among the first tenants in Westbeth, a conversion of the Bell Labs building on the Hudson River for artists housing/studio space. My husband is a sculptor; at that time I was teaching music, the career path for which I had prepared. Photography was nowhere on my resume.”

-Louisa Winchell
June 2, 2020
The Greenwich village Society for Historic Preservation Blog

Read the entire article HERE