Women spearheaded New York City’s postwar historic preservation movement, taking on proposed urban renewal plans of widespread demolition and private real estate developers’ interests. Explore how three women—Shirley Hayes, Margot Gayle, and Joan Maynard— galvanized communities to save historic buildings and places. Each subverted gendered expectations that limited them to the domestic realm and instead led campaigns to protect the historic cityscape.

Photographs, ephemera documenting grassroots organizing, and architectural and archeological fragments reconstruct these campaigns to protect neglected and overlooked landscapes. Spanning sites from Greenwich Village to Crown Heights, this installation shows how women preservationists protected historic places.

Curated by La-Kisha Emmanuel, Mellon predoctoral awardee in women’s history and public history, and Jessica Fletcher, Mellon predoctoral awardee in women’s history and public history.