Greenwich Village: History and Historic Preservation
An Elementary School Program for Grades 1-6

GVSHP's elementary-school program is a standards-based learning experience that works within New York City's public and independent schools to teach children in grades 1-6 the history of Greenwich Village and the importance of historic preservation. Since its founding in 1991, the school program has reached thousands of students in all five boroughs.

Entitled Greenwich Village: History and Historic Preservation, the program offers three grade-appropriate sessions: an in-class historic photo presentation; a walking tour of a Greenwich Village neighborhood; and a culminating art project that reinforces the material learned in the first two sessions. The program encourages students to examine and understand the built environment, enhances their awareness of New York City and its unique communities, and engenders a lively interest in the study of history. Additionally, the entire program conforms to and supports the New York State learning standards for Social Studies, English Language Arts, and the Arts.

Teachers can choose between two distinct programs touching on local, city, state, and national history. Our original program, Greenwich Village Past & Present, centers on the Washington Square Park area, emphasizing the architecture of the neighborhood, how people lived in the past, and how a city and its neighborhoods change. Our newest program, Immigration in the South Village centers around Bleecker Street in the southern area of the Village and concentrates on the immigrant history of the neighborhood. This program explores how the experience of new Americans in the 19th and 20th centuries were reflected—and can be seen—in the streets of this historic neighborhood.

Greenwich Village: History and Historic Preservation has been designed to provide students with exciting interaction with the historic environment. Introducing young people to the concepts of preservation and building conservation inspires them to consider the importance of the physical city, instilling respect for public spaces that will carry them into adulthood.

The program begins when a GVSHP educator visits the classroom to give an introductory talk and photo presentation. The emphasis of this presentation is on architecture, how people lived in the past, and how a city and its neighborhoods change. This session will take place at your school, and will last approximately one hour. The instructor will need a slide projector or overhead projector and a screen or white background.

The students and the GVSHP educator go on a walking tour of Greenwich Village to observe many of the buildings seen and discussed in the introductory presentation. This session in the field is designed to encourage visual awareness and inspire interest in the history of buildings. Greenwich Village Past & Present will meet and conclude at the Washington Square Arch and Immigration in the South Village will meet at Winston Churchill Park. The tour will last approximately one hour.

The third session is an art-based culminating activity where students will integrate the architectural lessons they have learned to create a souvenir that will serve as a reminder to students of the discoveries and knowledge they came away with through their exploration of the neighborhood's design and history. This session will take place at your school, and will last approximately one hour. Teachers should provide crayons, colored pencils, scissors, and glue.

Registration Information

Students in the upper-elementary grades will focus on New York City and Greenwich Village History from pre-Colonial times through the 19th century. Lower-elementary students will examine and analyze historic photographs of Greenwich Village scenes in order to compare and contrast them with contemporary views of the same streetscapes, concentrating on the concept of change over time.

Starting in Washington Square Park, the multi-layered history of the area is reiterated as students are encouraged to imagine the park as farmland, burial ground, and village, and to consider the growth and change that neighborhoods undergo through the centuries. Students will participate in a scavenger hunt, searching for distinctive features in the Washington Square Arch, one of Greenwich Village's best-known landmarks.

Students will create a souvenir based on their memories of the symbols, pictures, and stories depicted on the Washington Square Arch.

 

Students in the upper-elementary grades will focus on the culture and lifestyle of new immigrants to New York and how they influenced the neighborhood. Lower-elementary grades will hear a story about a young Italian immigrant, who discovers the differences and similarities between her rural Italian village and the urban streets of Greenwich Village in the early 20th century.

Starting in Winston Churchill Park on 6th Avenue and Bleecker Street, students will observe tenement housing, immigrant churches, and turn-of-the-century market places. The reshaping of the neighborhood by a new population of working class immigrants will be revealed through its architecture as students are asked to observe, draw, and compare and contrast using activity sheets.

Students will create a colorful postcard booklet of the different building types they encounter in the South Village.

I am a participating teacher and would like to complete an evaluation of the program.