We give local residents a voice and ensure their views are heard by policy makers, business owners and partner organizations. We conduct neighborhood surveys, encourage engagement and, inform and educate the community on important local issues.
Please take our 2025 community survey and share your thoughts about how we can help make the East Village a better place to live, work, and play! We’d love to hear from you and your friends!
During the height of the pandemic, the East Village Community Coalition became deeply involved in mutual aid efforts to address food insecurity. Stewarding community fridges and pantries, mobilizing neighbors and local businesses to share excess food, and coordinating volunteer-led food rescue operations across the neighborhood.
Building on this work, the EVCC has embraced food insecurity as a core initiative. We are expanding our efforts to ensure that surplus food is rescued and redistributed to those in our community who face food insecurity, or who may be unable to shop or cook for themselves.
Today, the EVCC facilitates monthly gatherings that bring together previously siloed local stakeholders working toward food justice. These meetings foster collaboration, share resources, and connect volunteers across a vibrant local network from faith-based organizations hosting pantries and soup kitchens to grassroots groups rescuing and redistributing food that would otherwise go to waste.
Through connection, collaboration, and action, the EVCC is building a stronger, more equitable East Village where no neighbor goes hungry and no good food is thrown away.
There are many ways to protect the future of our neighborhood, while enjoying it as much as possible today. Our walkable, tree-lined streets and community gardens are one of the reasons people love the East Village. Open Streets, better public transportation and expanded recycling and composting programs are a few things we champion in order to protect the East Village for generations to come.
See current sustainability issues impacting the East Village
Independent shops and services are an essential part of life in the East Village. From culturally symbolic restaurants to independent bookstores, kooky vintage shops to holistic pet stores, our merchants are the lifeblood of the neighborhood and are a reflection of historic roots of our community.
The EVCC continues to press for any and all measures to support the small businesses that keep our neighborhood vibrant, diverse and magnetic.
Explore our interactive directory of local independent shops and services.
Or, dig deeper into important issues on Retail Diversity.
Many of our neighborhood’s historic buildings have incredible stories to tell. We help preserve and protect our streetscape by working with local partners, city and state officials and policy makers, as well as residents and business leaders on zoning, landmark designation and the creation and expansion of Historic Districts.
Check out our Neighborhood Resources and stay tuned for more interactive ways to explore our Historic Districts and Landmarks!
Join legendary photographer and videographer Clayton Patterson, author Julian Voloj, as well as Maegan Dolan and Jesse Lambert (two of the book’s artists), for the release of Clayton, the first biography of this iconic artist intertwined with a rich history of the Lower East Side over the last forty-five years.
6:30-8:30pm Wed Jan 14 at City Lore, 56 E 1st Street, space is limited, so please RSVP on Eventbrite.
The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space is hosting a discussion panel about the Lower East Side anarchist bookstores of the 1990’s. Join guest panelists including merchants from bookstores past, present, and future to learn more about the history of these radical bookstores.
5:00-7:30pm Thu Jan 8 at MoRUS, 155 Avenue C
Here’s another chance to catch the new digital restoration of William H. Whyte’s, THE SOCIAL LIFE OF SMALL URBAN SPACES (1980)!
Through Jan 8, at Anthology Film Archives, 32 2nd Avenue. Check Ticket availability.
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