My Favorite Things: Women’s History Month Edition
When March finally rolls around, I feel the need for celebration! Not only does it mean that we have weathered the January/February doldrums, but also because March is Women’s History Month! We have several exciting programs in store for the month long celebration.
On Monday, March 26th, we will host and evening of Women Poets of the Village Candlelight Reading at the Cherry Lane Theater. In 1924, a group of theater artists and the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay commissioned the conversion of a West Village box factory into the Cherry Lane Playhouse, home to some of the most groundbreaking moments of theater. We will gather by candlelight to celebrate the trailblazing women poets of the village including Millay, Emma Lazarus, Audre Lorde, Marianne Moore, Sonia Sanchez, Lola Ridge, Grace Paley, and many others.
Since the 1930s and well before, lesbian culture has flourished in Greenwich Village. On Thursday, March 29th, The Jefferson Market Library will be the meeting place for a discussion with Lisa E. Davis, Alana Integlia, and Wanda Acosta entitled “How Gay Girls Owned the Village from the 30s to the 90s and How They Want (Some of) It Back.” Alongside the discussion, Ms. Acosta will show excerpts of her film “Sundays at the Cafe Tabac,” a documentary of Village lesbian culture in the wake of the AIDS crisis on the 1990s.
On March 8th, our neighborhood can expect thousands of women and men who will come together to march in observance of International Women’s Day beginning at 4 p.m. with a rally at Washington Square Park. Several special guest speakers are scheduled to appear, including journalist Sarah Jaffe and the author of “Necessary Trouble”, Jeanette Vizguerra, named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, human rights attorney Chaumtoli Huq and Farah Tanis, transnational feminist and co-founder and Executive Director of Black Women’s Blueprint. At 5:30 p.m., the march will commence and stops will include the Stonewall Inn and the African Burial Ground.
We hope you will read about some of our favorite women of the Village from Off the Grid:
Spring
By Edna St. Vincent Millay
Want more women’s history? Read our Executive Director Andrew Berman’s piece in 6sqft: Fifteen Trailblazing Women of the Village Who Changed History.