Meet The Guardians
Each of the Guardians has found their home in 12 different locations across the neighborhood— each with a story to tell about the people and places that have, and continue to, represent the ethos of guardianship. Will you find them all?
1. Large Swan
This block of East 4th Street is home to the city’s first community land trust and a unique cultural district.
Cooper Square Committee was organized by residents to stop the city from razing tenement buildings on the block as part of a ‘slum clearance’ program. Fourth Arts Block (FAB) was founded by a dozen community arts groups who, after decades fixing up vacant city properties, were threatened with losing them to the auction block. Strong community organizing resulted, against the odds, in securing permanent affordable housing and nonprofit cultural space on the block.
Today, 4th Street is a diverse and inclusive community of residents, small businesses, art spaces, and nonprofits.
East 4th Street
2. Rising Phoenix
East 3rd Street is home to wild project, a theater offering adventurous performances of all kinds, together with a cluster of beloved shops and spaces. Jane’s Exchange opened over 30 years ago by Eva Dorsey, a single mother who wanted to serve families in the East Village community and all over. The children’s consignment shop is a model of ecological and economic sustainability, a space of literal exchange. Other spots within walking distance like Book Club Bar, Virginia’s, and 3rd & B'zaar provide space for the artistic and creative community to gather and exchange ideas.
Wild Project
3. 3 Headed Swan
Since 1977, Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) has been building the power of low-income residents to address the impacts of displacement and gentrification in the Lower East Side.
Tenant, labor, and community organizers have deep roots in the LES and their work has made a profound difference in the lives of residents - from the 1904 rent strike, the first mass rent strike in NYC, to today.
Good Old Lower East Side
4. Headdress
Our neighborhood has a long history of offering amazing food by immigrant chefs and entrepreneurs. At Caravan of Dreams, Angel Moreno envisioned creating a space that nourished both body and soul.
This same sense of mission informs many of our small businesses and community spaces -- and makes them critically important spaces to the health of the neighborhood.
Caravan of Dreams
5. Dancing in Paradise
La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden
Founded in 1976 by residents and activists who created a garden from a rubble filled vacant lot, La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden (La Plaza) was a central player in the community garden movement in Loisaida. Today, La Plaza honors Armando Perez, a founder of CHARAS, and is active in the effort to restore the empty school building on 9th Street back to community use.
Community activism has a long history here and is often combined with the kind of creativity and environmental care to be found in all the community gardens of the LES.
6. Eagle
The Center for Wellbeing and Happiness / Lower Eastside Girls Club
The Center for Wellbeing & Happiness, launched by the Lower Eastside Girls Club in 2022, is a dynamic wellness hub for all genders and generations, centered on community care and informed by healing justice. The Center states that ‘self care becomes community care’ a perspective that makes clear the need to care for all members of the community or the community itself cannot be healthy.
Our ‘Guardian’ figure is a tribute to the Center and to all those who welcome ‘the other’ – seeing their wellbeing tied to our own.
7. Dove
St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery has 350 years of history! It’s New York’s oldest site of continuous religious practice, and the church itself is the second-oldest church building in Manhattan.
For decades, St. Mark’s has welcomed artists – resident companies include the Poetry Project and Danspace - and is committed to advancing racial and social justice, welcoming all into its space. It is this openness and inclusiveness that makes St. Mark’s and other neighborhood spiritual centers important guardians of community wellbeing.
St Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery
8. Swimming Swan
Veniero’s, a celebrated local landmark established in 1894, is both a place for classic Italian pastry and a welcome reminder of our community’s immigrant past. In a neighborhood that has experienced so much change and displacement, places like Veniero’s which have managed to stay and prosper, become important containers of history and culture.
Spaces of cultural importance can range from cafes to small businesses, from art spaces to worship spaces, from theaters to gardens. Each one that manages to survive times of intense change plays an important role in sustaining a neighborhood’s character and sense of community identity.
Veniero’s
9. Guardian
Veselka has been a central gathering space for the Ukrainian community and local residents since 1954. This three-generation family-owned business proudly carries on the tradition of providing exceptional Ukrainian soul food and service to the neighborhood.
Veselka also sits at the entrance to an extraordinary stretch of East 9th Street, home to many creative small businesses, all of which sustain neighborhood character and connection.
Veselka
10. Dancing Dragon
Umbrella House is a former squat, a vacant city-owned building transformed through sweat equity and determination over many years into a Housing Development Fund Corporation (HFDC) providing cooperative and affordable housing for residents.
This community has a history of generating inventive and sometimes radical actions to meet pressing social needs for housing, green space, fair labor practices, immigrant rights, and racial equity. Activism and creativity continue to be potent forces shaping the character of Loisaida.
Umbrella House
11. Angel
Village View is a seven-building Mitchell-Lama residential cooperative. Since 1955, the Mitchell-Lama program has established over 100,000 rental and limited-equity homes for middle-income New Yorkers. Today, Village View is home to residents of all ages, including many elders. In fact, so many longtime residents have aged in place at Village View that it is officially designated as a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (NORC).
