The History of Greenwich House

Greenwich House first opened its doors on Thanksgiving Day in 1902 with the mission to improve the living conditions among the predominately immigrant population in Greenwich Village, at that time New York's most congested neighborhood. Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch, Jacob Riis, Carl Schurz, Felix Adler and other social reformers came together to help immigrants adjust to a new world and improve the quality of life in the community.

The settlement's early efforts resulted in the publication of the country's first tenants manual; establishment of the Greenwich Village Improvement Society, the city's first neighborhood association; founding of United Neighborhood Houses, the extant umbrella group for settlement houses; and, the 1916 zoning of the Village as a residential district.

Since the beginning, Greenwich House has been a pioneer social service agency and committed to the arts as a dynamic stimulus for cultural enrichment and individual growth. The reputation of Greenwich House's arts curricula has been shaped by its mission and the past and present participation of people such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs. Gertrude Payne Whitney, Daniel Chester French, John Sloan, James Fraser, Guy Pene du Bois,Jackson Pollock, Kirk Douglas, Marion Rous, Leonard Warren, Julius Rudell, Ossip Gabrilowitch, Henry Cowell, Edgar Varese, and Peter Voulkos.

It was the day-to-day work however that established the settlement as a pioneer social service agency. In 1921 the House inaugurated a nursery school, in 1942 an after-school program, and in 1962, a drug free outpatient counseling center, all of which were firsts in settlement history.

The concern for an individual's dignity and family unity led to Director Mary Simkhovitch's work in the field of housing. During her term as the first Vice-Chairman of New York City's Housing Authority, she co-authored with New York Senator Robert Wagner the national housing act of 1937, which established the federal government's responsibility in providing low-income housing.

For the past half a century, Greenwich House has strived to contemporize the vision of Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch by being responsive to new and growing complexities of urban life. The House has offered continuity to its neighbors by sustaining the programs which have proven to be of persistent need and value. In the last decade, Greenwich House implemented new programs to meet the urgencies in health, education, and child care. With the support of private and public sources, initiatives such as the Children's Safety Project for abused youngsters and their families, the Primary Care Initiative, the AIDS Mental Health Project, Arts-In-Education located in public elementary schools, the Alcoholism Treatment Program, the Halfway House for Recovering Alcoholics and the Parole Treatment Program have helped more people, in more ways and in more neighborhoods.