350 West Street, east side, adjoining the south corner of Clarkson Street, opposite Pier 40, North River. This is a frame house with stucco facing. It is shortly to be demolished, being a part of the site of the new St. John's Park Freight Terminal. June 3, 1930.

Butterick Building ca. 1939 The Butterick company's success in producing both patterns and fashion magazines resulted in another big venture: the construction in 1903 of the Butterick Building at the corner of MacDougal (now Sixth Avenue) and Spring Streets. They commissioned the firm of Horgan & Slattery to design their new headquarters. The 15-story Beaux Arts style building became the jewel in the crown of the Butterick empire at the beginning of the 20th century. It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but a 15-story building in Manhattan would have been quite a commanding presence in 1903 (it’s no coincidence that the shock of such “skyscrapers” ultimately led to the passing of the city’s first zoning law in 1916). The Fuller Company, engineers of the iconic 22-story Flatiron Building going up at the same time, also built the Butterick Building. Standing at the head of Spring Street, the Butterick Building remains today a visual gateway to the Hudson Square neighborhood. Recently, when the City proposed to rezone Hudson Square to encourage new high-rise residential development, GVSHP asked that height limits for new construction be limited to 210 feet, about the height of the Butterick Building. The City ultimately opted for the more excessive 290 feet. Sparing no expense, when built, the interiors of the Butterick Building were designed by Tiffany. The building, marketed as “The Home of the Delineator Family,” operated 86 printing presses that produced Butterick’s 32 periodicals, which made it one of the largest magazine publishing companies in the country. With such a large floor area, the building accommodated a large range of activities, from seamstresses making sample garments to workers printing and shipping sewing pattern envelopes. But just what was The Delineator? The Butterick Publishing Company’s cultural and social significance was not limited to its home sewing patterns; it also created one of the most successful publications the country had ever seen: The Delineator. First created to help advertise Butterick sewing patterns in 1873, The Delineator ultimately became a champion of “the new woman” in the post-Civil War era. Finding herself balancing roles in and outside the home for the first time in history, the middle-class woman was the prime subscriber of Butterick’s magazine. With printing moving to the Butterick Building, the readership went from 30,000 in 1876 to 480,000 by the turn of the century, and by 1920 it climbed to over one million. It lasted until 1937. Butterick was located in this building until October 2001 when they were purchased by the McCall Pattern Company and were moved uptown to Penn Plaza, according to a former employee who now works for McCall’s. Even though they’re now gone, we’re glad to see this monument to women’s history still standing tall at its prominent spot on Sixth Avenue and Spring Street.

Hudson Park Library, Seventh Avenue South facade, 1937. In late 1910s the nearby park, which gave the branch its name, Hudson Park, was largely demolished in the construction of Seventh Avenue South. An addition was built for an entrance on the new street, in a slightly different style. The new facade had Common or American Bond brick work instead of the Flemish Bond of the original structure and double-height limestone enframements on the windows. Both of these factors give the Seventh Avenue South facade a more rigid and geometric look. The library, following this addition, seems to hug the seven-story brick apartment building at the southwest corner of Leroy Street and 7th Avenue (not visible at right).

Doherty's Hotel, 342 West Street, at the foot of West Houston Street opposite Pier 39; October 25, 1927. This westernmost portion of Houston Street (at left) was known as Hammersley Street until at least 1858, when the two streets were connected. The vacant lots either side of the hotel were formerly occupied by the Church of the Holy Comforter (West Houston Street, at left) and the Seamen's Church Institute at 341-340 West Street (at right, with diner car). Photographer P.L. Sperr notes "the hotel itself will have to go in 1930" (it's unclear if Sperr's note was contemporaneous). The hotel was purchased by the New York Central Railroad in 1930, and was soon razed. Today, the site is part of 550 Washington Street, better known as the St. John's Freight Terminal. The massive warehouse served as the southern terminus of New York's Central's West Side freight line (the High Line).

203 Prince Street ca. 1978 The land on which 203 Prince Street stands (and the rest of the block) had formerly been part of Richmond Hill, the estate of former Vice-President Aaron Burr (who, by coincidence was arrested and charged with treason on February 19, 1807; he was later acquitted, but the charge and his killing of Alexander Hamilton so tarnished his reputation in America that he fled the country, eventually selling his property such as this). By 1833, leather inspector John P. Haff owned the property and several additional lots on the block. According to Daytonian in Manhattan, while Haff’s official profession was inspector of sole leather, he was also an authority on agricultural techniques and a speculative builder both in New York and New Jersey. In 1833 Haff began building three handsome Federal-style residences on Prince Street where well-to-do merchants had begun settling. Among these was No. 203, a Flemish bond brick home two stories tall with a dormered attic. The Haff family leased the property until ca. 1865, when it was sold. At this time, the neighborhood around No. 203 Prince had dramatically changed. No longer an enclave of the wealthy merchant class, the Eighth Ward had a growing population of poor immigrants. In 1877 the Episcopal Church of Saint Ambrose at Thompson and Prince Streets opened a mission house in 203 Prince Street, headed by the Rev. D. G. Gunn and managed by Mrs. Mary Laidlaw. Its purpose, according to The Churchman on October 13 of that year, was “to give assistance to the worthy poor, to visit the sick and needy, to relieve the distressed, to feed the hungry, and to give employment to those out of work.” Originally 2½ stories tall, the house had a full third floor added in 1888, when the original attic floor was removed. The architect carefully lined up the windows with those below and designed nearly-identical sills and lintels. Note the change in the brick pattern above the second-floor windows, from Flemish bond — alternating long and short sides of brick — to running bond — all bricks with long side exposed. Flemish bond brickwork is characteristic of federal architecture while running bond is more common to late 19th-century construction.

55 Thompson Street, ca. 2006. The Tunnel Garage was built in 1922 during the early automobile age, ushering in the engineering marvel of its time, the Holland Tunnel. GVSHP sought landmark designation for the building, but the City refused, and it was demolished in 2006

84 King Street, December 7, 1927. Built in the 1920s and replacing five old houses, no. 84 (at right) was constructed as a two-story parking garage. It functioned in that capacity for a number of decades. The address, though, is best known as the Paradise Garage, a night club opened between 1977 and 1987, whose patrons were predominantly African American gay men. The state-of-the-art sound system installed in the club was considered the best in New York at the time. The club was the base for DJ Larry Levan, a cult favorite who style and musical productions are considered the precursor of modern house music. The club was not open to the general public and they served no food or alcohol, meaning it was not limited to bar hours and often stayed open all night and into the next day. The club closed in September 1987, a few months before its owner, Michael Brody, died of complications from HIV/AIDS. Today the building is occupied by a Verizon Communications facility, though the club is still remembered and mourned by those who attended its infamous parties.

Thanksgiving Ragamuffins, 1933. A little girl applying lipstick, at 367 Hudson Street, west side, between King and West Houston Streets. November 30, 1933.

The city's real estate has left us with some precarious addresses. Browse some of Manhattan's 1/2 Houses.

The city might feel like its been on fire this last record-breaking summer, but there have been times in the past when it has been. In the 1970s the Bronx was burning and Lower East Side was also suffering from fires and abandoned buildings. Before that, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire became one of the worst workplace tragedies to ever occur. In the late 19th century, the booming population of the city brought with it a great need for fire protection. During that time, some beautiful firehouses were built and served a crucial function for the city, both before and after the creation of the Fire Department of New York (FDNY). Here, we’re going to tour some of these beautiful historic buildings in Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo.

2-6 Minetta Street, November 21, 1935. Located above a small historic lower Manhattan waterway called Minetta Brook, Minetta Street has a long and diverse history. The stream was moved underground in the 1820s because it was impeding the development of the area. The crooked Minetta Street was originally a path along the brook, created by the “partially-freed” African American population that had settled nearby in the mid 17th century. In the late 19th and early 20th century the street was known for its seedy occupants, including prostitutes and saloons that catered to Irish gangsters. After a concerted effort by local police to clean up the area, by the 1920s, Minetta Street and Lane were the more quiet and quaint blocks they remain today.

205 Bleecker Street as viewed from Hancock Street, a now de-mapped road in Greenwich Village. The street disappeared not long after this photograph was taken, swallowed up by the creation of Sixth Avenue South.

Our Lady of Pompeii Church ca. 1928 On March 7th, 1898, Our Lady of Pompeii Church was incorporated as a separate parish. This South Village icon has been serving the neighborhood since 1926, but Our Lady of Pompeii has been a part of the Village since 1892. The Our Lady of Pompeii church that stands today was designed by architect Matthew W. Del Gaudio and constructed between 1926 and 1928. But the parish had several prior homes. In 1890, it began in a building located at 113 Waverly Place, as part of the Saint Raphael Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, under the leadership of Father Pietro Bandini. Father Bandini named his chapel there “Our Lady of Pompeii.” He worked to help the many Italian immigrants adjust to their new lives in America. By 1895, the Society moved to 214 Sullivan Street, but fire forced them out and they moved to an existing church at 210 Bleecker Street. This church was originally built in 1836 for the Unitarian Universalists, but was sold to the African American Roman Catholic congregation of Saint Benedict the Moor in 1883. There had been a significant African-American population in the area around Minetta Street, but as the century was coming to a close, they began moving further uptown, and Our Lady of Pompeii parish acquired the property and moved in on May 8, 1898 under the leadership of Father Antonio Demo (the square adjacent to the church now bears his name).

75-1/2 Bedford Street, July 1948. With a facade of only nine and a half feet wide, 75 1/2 Bedford Street is the narrowest house in New York City. The interior space is even cozier, at its widest, 8 feet 7 inches, and at its narrowest, only 2 feet. Some sources suggest it was constructed in 1873 on what was a former carriage entranceway, while others believe the narrow home dates to earlier in the century. In the late 19th century the building was home to a cobbler's shop and candy factory. In 1923 the building was leased (with its surrounding neighbors) by a group of artists and actors, who established the Cherry Lane Theatre around the corner. Poet and playwright Edna St. Vincent Millay and her husband moved into the building in 1923 and only stayed a year. During their tenure, the building, which was constructed in a typical Italianate style with a cornice at the top, was renovated. Architect Ferdinand Savignano installed a skylight and made the top floor a studio for Millay. The original cornice was removed, and a small Dutch stepped gable was added (possibly as a reflection of the Dutch heritage of Millay's husband). According to numerous accounts, the house also was the residence (however briefly) to cartoonist William Steig, his sister-in-law anthropologist Margaret Mead, and actors John Barrymore and Cary Grant. The building was purchased in 1952 by a Greenwich Village local (saving it from redevelopment) and sold and renovated a number of times since the mid-1990s. It was sold in 2013 for $3.25 million.

Built in 1911, the large building at 421 Hudson Street was originally the printing facility for Schweinler Press. Ten stories tall and occupying the fill blockfront, this building printed McClure's Magazine, The Ladies World, and Harper's Weekly. The press produced more than six million magazines monthly by 1913. In the 1910s the printing firm became the target of a highly contested court case which challenged new labor laws that forbade female workers from toiling in "factories and mercantile establishments" between 10 P.M. and 6 A.M. In its first few years women had been hired for night work here. A New York State Court of Appeals ruling in 1915 upheld the ban of nighttime workers in "People v. Charles Schweinler Press." In the 1970s the printing facility was converted into rental loft residences, a common transformation at the time in this neighborhood. In the late 1980s, a condo conversion was completed on 80% of the units. In 2013 the building was renovated completely and 60 condo units were put on the market.

506 Canal Street ARCHITECT: Unknown DATE: 1826 STYLE: Federal This house is part of a rare surviving cluster of early nineteenth-century structures in lower Manhattan on a block partially created on landfill located close to the Hudson River waterfront. It retains distinctive characteristics of the Federal style, including the Flemish bond brickwork, brownstone window sills, and the peaked roof. The most unusual feature is the three-bay cast-iron storefront with semi-elliptical arches, which appears to date from the original construction of the building and is the only known storefront of its kind to survive in New York City.

85 Sullivan Street ca. 1937 83 and 85 Sullivan Street are two of the district’s individually landmarked properties, both of which obtained landmark designation in 1973. The buildings were originally built in 1819, rebuilt in 1825, and modified 50 years later. As we previoulsy noted: “83 & 85 Sullivan Street were built as part of the very first stage of urban settlement of this part of town, even before the particularly virulent yellow fever and cholera epidemics of 1822 famously sent New Yorkers permanently packing from their downtown homes to the more salubrious, rural climes of Greenwich Village to the north of the City.” As the 1973 designation reports describe, the area on which these properties are located was originally part of the Bayard Farm. The first Nicholas Bayard was Peter Stuyvesant’s brother-in-law. A later Nicholas Bayard conveyed the property to Daniel Ludlow and Brockholst Livinsgton in 1789. They, in turn, sold it to Aaron Burr in 1791, who acquired a portion of the Bayard Farm contiguous to his estate “Richmond Hill”, which stood west of Sixth Avenue. Burr subdivided his property, and when he sold these lots to Anthony Bowrosan in 1802, they were on what Burr called Locust Street. Bowrosan, who operated a tavern and garden at Richmond Hill, sold the lots in 1807 to carpenters. The 83 Sullivan lot was sold to carpenter David Mulford, who first built the rear house on this lot in 1810, with 83 Sullivan being erected as a 2.5 story federal style home in 1819. 85 Sullivan was sold to carpenter Drake Crane, who first built the rear house on this lot in 1810, with 85 Sullivan being erected as a 2.5 story federal style home in 1819. Both original homes were destroyed in a fire, and rebuilt in 1825. Both homes were renovated to add a full third story, 83 Sullivan in 1880 and 85 Sullivan in 1874. The properties have remained basically the same since then. They both still have their original Federal style doorways and leaded transoms, noted by the designation reports as “unusually fine”, “Elegant and understated, they typify the architecture of good breeding”, and are among the earliest surviving Federal Style doorways in the city. The low stoops with wrought-iron railings, Flemish brickwork, and multi-paned wooden sash windows are also original.

My Archive Spring 2019 "This photo was taken in 1981. The gentleman on the right end is my grandfather, Paolo Anfosso, with his retired neighborhood cronies. They gathered most days in Minetta Triangle or Fr. Demo Square. He and my grandmother, Yolanda, were fixtures in what was then the very Italian Greenwich Village. They lived at 259 Bleecker Street above Zito's Bakery for over 70 years. Paolo was a chef in Jersey City who spoke mostly Italian. Yolanda was a kindergarten teacher first at the Children's Aid Society then, St. Anthony's on Sullivan St. The 3rd gentleman from the right was his good friend also named Paul. The story goes, someone saw them all gathered one day and stopped to ask if they would have their picture taken. To us, this has become a family classic moment in time." —Jean Gross

Longo Sanitary Bakery, ca. 1935.

Spring Street facade of 150 Varick Street, through the plots at 14-37 Dominick Street, ca. 1935.

Spring Street Presbyterian Church ca. 1927 Now the site of a hotel, the Spring Street Presbyterian Church was founded in 1809 and the original building was completed in 1811. It was known for its strong abolitionist stance. The church had a multiracial Sunday school and admitted African-Americans to full communion. Their stance was met with backlash, however, and was burned down twice by the 1830s. In June of 1836, a new brick structure was opened on the site. The Presbytery closed the church in 1963 and in 1966 the building was destroyed by a fire. The site was excavated in 2006 in the process of being cleared for the new Trump SoHo condo hotel, and the church’s former cemetery was uncovered.

Since its very beginnings, Greenwich Village has been a breeding ground for artistic free expression. Nowhere is this more evident than its historic theaters.

Wm. Grotecloss photography studio, No. 227 Bleecker Street, circa 1860. This frame building stood at the corner of Bleecker and Carmine Streets, approximately at the location of present-day Father Demo Square.

Longo Sanitary Bakery, 1937. This Bleecker Street bakery dates to 1905 when an Italian baker purchased the building at no. 201 for $5,000. The ground floor shop was opened by 1907 selling baked goods and items that the Italian immigrants were accustomed to buying, including espresso beans, dried mushrooms, and spices. According to the grandson of the original owner, the large bread baking ovens were also used by neighbors to cook items that did not fit in their smaller home appliances. The current owner's father learned the business of coffee after the long hours required for baking became too much. He purchased Porto Rico Coffee Importers and moved it from no. 195 to this storefront. Today the coffee store remains and is still owned and run by the Longo family.

Men playing bocce in James J. Walker Park near Hudson and Leroy Streets, ca. 1950. The park is named for the colorful and corrupt Mayor Jimmy Walker, who held office between 1926-1932. The park was still known as St. John's Cemetery when Walker's family moved into a townhouse on Leroy Street (also known as St. Luke's Place). In 1895, the land was acquired by the city and converted for recreation. After Walker's death in 1946, the park was re-named in his honor. Across Hudson Street, behind the bocce players, is the Printing House, a 1911 structure build for the Schweinler Press. At the time, the Hudson Square neighborhood was a hub of the city's printing trade. Today, those businesses have been replaced by contemporary media and publishing companies. The Printing House was converted to condos in the early 2000s and is today creatively marketed as..."The Printing House."

39-41 Commerce Street, ca. 1933. An interesting example of the Second Empire style can be found at 39 and 41 Commerce Street in the Greenwich Village Historic District. These two houses were built in 1831-32 in the Federal style for Peter Huyler, a milkman. Later, in the early 1870s, architect D.T. Atwood added the mansard roof for owner George Huyler. The slate at the roof, as well as the hipped roof dormers, are still intact.

Paradise Garage was a semi-underground club focused solely on music and dance. Unlike many other clubs at the time, it was membership only – not open to the general public. Moreover, it did not discriminate among its membership based on race, class, or sexual identity. Sole proprietor Michael Brody, with financial backing from former boyfriend Mel Cheren, opened the club in 1977 as the 84 King Street Garage with a series of “construction” parties as the renovations continued for a year. DJ Larry Levan (born Lawrence Philpot) worked with Richard Long of Richard Long & Associates to develop, design, and assemble the award-winning sound system that was considered the best in New York. It officially opened as the Paradise Garage on January 28, 1978. Only open on weekends, patrons entered the club through a first-floor garage door entrance and walked up a long ramp to the second floor. The 10,000-square-foot space was divided into a 5,000-square-foot dance floor, which could accommodate 2,000 people, and a 2,000-square-foot lounge. The club served no alcohol – or food – allowing it to stay open after bar hours, often until noon the next morning. Levan chose records that sustained all-night dance marathons and changed the sound of dance music. Songs he played soon showed up on the radio and were featured at New York’s Vinylmania Records. His musical influence spread to dance clubs across the United States and Europe, and is recognized as a precursor to house music. The building was demolished in 2018.

Located in the heart of the South Village and the South Village Historic District is the oldest continuing South Village Italian organization, Tiro a Segno, today located at 77 MacDougal Street. It has been at this location since 1924 and has served the Italian American community since its founding on August 14, 1888. Tiro a Segno calls itself “the oldest Italian heritage organization in the United States” and today it continues its mission, devoted to the dissemination of knowledge of Italian culture. 77 MacDougal almost looks like an Italian embassy with the Italian flag and American flag prominently displayed in front. In fact, it is three c. 1850 row houses that were originally built in the Gothic Revival style. Until about 1940, they had full-height cast-iron balconies on their front facades, as seen in the c. 1940 tax photo below. In 1924, Tiro A Segno moved to its permanent home at 77 MacDougal Street with a shooting range and bocce court in the basement. Today it is more typical to find visitors enjoying fine wine or cuisine than engaging in target practice. Some reports claim that Giuseppe Garibaldi, who unified Italy, was a member, although that is unlikely since he died in 1882. However, members have included Lee Iacocca, the tenor Enrico Caruso, and Fiorello H. LaGuardia, one of New York City’s most revered Mayors and the first Italian-American to hold that position.

Cherry Lane Theater. Designated as part of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Cherry Lane has the distinction of being New York City’s oldest, continuously running Off-Broadway theatre. The building itself was originally constructed in 1836 to house a brewery for one Alexander McLachlan and later served as a tobacco warehouse and box factory. Tucked away from the bustle of the city along tree-lined Commerce Street between Barrow and Bedford Streets, the three-story brick theatre features 6-over-1 wood windows and an arched double-door entryway covered by an awning. In 1924, the Provincetown Players, which included the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, founded the Cherry Lane Theatre here, which opened on May 24 of that year. They hired scenic designer, Cleon Throckmorton, to convert the building to a 200-seat auditorium and a small stage, to which renowned entertainer George M. Cohan amusingly remarked, “Might as well act in a telephone booth!” Small as it was, the theatre hosted three plays in its inaugural season: Saturday Night, The Man Who Ate Popomack, and The Way of the World. Over the years, the theatre became known for its avant-garde offerings. An eclectic array of theatre companies have operated there, including the New Playwrights (who moved there in 1927 in only their second season), the Savoy Opera, The Living Theatre, and the Theatre of the Absurd. The Cherry Lane has long given aspiring playwrights opportunities to share their work with a wide audience. Given the Village’s worldwide reputation as a haven for artists in the 20th century, the Cherry Lane is an integral part of that history. Even still, the theatre was threatened with demolition some 17 years before historic district designation when plans were made to erect an apartment house on the site in 1952; luckily for the theatre, a group of residents lead by a Kenneth Carroad gained ownership of the building. It appears that Carroad was also responsible for saving a number of theatres outside the city. For close to a century, the Cherry Lane has served as an Off-Broadway theatre and has seen the likes of Gene Hackman, Barbra Streisand, Kevin Bacon and Bea Arthur perform on its stage. In 1996, stage actress Angelina Fiordellisi saw potential in the historic landmark and raised funds to purchase and renovate the Cherry Lane. She also bought space in a neighboring brownstone and opened a 60-seat black box theatre now known as the Cherry Lane Studio.

357 West Street. The same view, but ten years later May 7th, I940.

The 1898 consolidation of all five boroughs as one unified City of New York brought the population from 2 million to 3.4 million people and intensified the need for more water. In 1905, the City established a Board of Water Supply to plan and build a new system of reservoirs and tunnels that would ensure access to clean water for the growing population. The next year, the Board started planning the Catskill Aqueduct and installed a laboratory at 147 Varick Street to test equipment and building materials, and to analyze water and soil samples. The Board also hired a photographer to document this monumental project, and put the photo lab here to print and store thousands of images.

186 Spring Street ca. 1933 In the era immediately following the Stonewall riots, 186 Spring Street (which was recently demolished) was home to a number of important figures of the Gay Rights movement, serving for a time as a "gay commune" of sorts. Bruce Voeller, who lived in the building, co-led the first delegation of gay rights leaders to ever meet with the White House, helped end the federal government's ban on employing gay people, helped get homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses, got the very first piece of federal gay rights legislation introduced, and won the first Supreme Court case establishing rights for gay parents. Another resident, Jim Owles, was the first openly gay person to run for public office in New York. Owles, along with Voeller and Arnie Kantrowitz, founded several of the country's first and largest LGBT organizations.

Intersection of Sullivan and Broome Streets, and the newly-extended Sixth Avenue, 1932. The three-story house closest to the corner (at center) is No. 57 Sullivan Street, wood-frame rowhouse built in 1817 for mason David G. Bogert. The house was originally two-and-a-half stories, in the Federal style, with dormer windows above a simple cornice. In 1858, current owners added a third story and extended the facade’s Flemish bond brickwork to a new wooden cornice. In 1932, the demolition of an adjacent building exposed the house’s wooden frame (as captured in Charles Von Urban’s photo. The house was restored after 1995 and designated a New York City Landmark in 2009 — some 39 years after its original proposal.

289 Hudson Street, 1974. The Half Note Club was one of the premier places to hear jazz in the 1960s, and at least a half-dozen records were “live from the Half Note.” John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Cannonball Adderly, Billie Holiday, and Judy Garland all performed here before it became a topless bar in 1974. It’s now a deli.

233 Bleecker Street; ca. 1975.

Post here.

Just on the edge of Village Preservation’s neighborhoods, this historic firehouse is especially unique because of its size. When it was being built in 1904, the New York Times said it would become “one of the largest fire engine houses in the city.” Designed by architect Edward P. Casey, the iconic large rusticated limestone base supports a beautiful brick facade and elegant windows. In 1987 the city decided the location was no longer needed as an active firehouse. When considering what to do with the building, the Department decided that, because of its size, it would be a perfect home for their museum, then located at 100 Duane Street, which was growing too large for its space. And so they relocated the New York City Fire Museum to Spring Street and opened on July 6th of that year.

70 Barrow Street ca. 1933 One of the oldest firehouses in New York, this structure was built in 1852, before there even was an organized Fire Department of New York. In 1865, the city created the Metropolitan Fire Department (MFD) which managed all of the city’s fire responses. Before that, firehouses were operated by volunteers who formed groups and petitioned the city to build them a firehouse and provide them with the materials. Most firehouse members were blue-collar workers, volunteering any extra time they had. At 70 Barrow street, a volunteer group called Empire Hose Company No. 40 had around 30 members until it was disbanded after the act of 1865. The original firehouse doorway has been bricked over partially, but its classic look is still legible. Our friend Tom Miller at the Daytonian in Manhattan blog noted “The carved, faceted keystones at street level and the third floor were an added touch of sophistication to the handsome four-story structure. Unusually tall windows, deft brickwork, and a deeply-overhanging cornice set the firehouse apart from the norm”

2,4,6 Minetta Street These three houses on Minetta Street dated to 1800, when ”the Minettas” — Street, Lane, and Place — were home to free African Americans. By 1900, the tiny houses had become rag pickers’ warehouses. They were renovated as private homes in the 1920s, when the Village attracted artists, writers, and professionals in search of an American Montmartre. Only months after Abbott photographed Minetta Street, the houses were demolished to make way for a five-story apartment building fronting on Sixth Avenue. Abbott’s composition was typically direct and artful. The stepped shadow falling across the facade of no. 4 echoes the stoop below, while the shadow of a bulbous chimney across the street breaks up the rectilinear pattern of light and dark.

Isaacs-Hendricks House, 77 Bedford Street, ca. 1975. 77 Bedford Street is one of Manhattan's oldest surviving homes. Located in the Greenwich Village Historic District, the building was originally a free standing Federal style frame farmhouse with a yard. A Greek Revival brick facade was added to its exterior in 1836 and later, in 1928, the roof was raised to add additional living space. The first homeowner, Joshua Isaacs, was a Jewish-American merchant. He purchased the house in 1794, but soon-after lost the property to creditors. The subsequent homeowner, Harmon Hendricks, was also a merchant. Considered the wealthiest American Jew of the early 19th century, Hendricks famously supplied Robert Fulton with the materials that powered the historic 1807 Clermont steamboat. Other notable customers of Hendricks included the US Navy and Paul Revere, who later became a friend. Hendricks was also the husband of Frances Isaacs, the first owner's oldest child. Alongside his brother-in-law, he opened one of the first copper rolling mills in the United States.

39-41 Commerce Street, February 2, 1937. The L-shaped Commerce Street, which runs between 7th Avenue South and Barrow Street, has a number of, likely apocryphal, stories about its name origins. Some say that it was called Commerce after an early 19th Century smallpox breakout prompted business from downtown to move to this area of the Village. Another suggests that it was named as part of a series of streets named after French revolutionary virtues, including Art, Science, and Reason. This theory though has been thoroughly debunked by Don Rogerson, author of Manhattan Street Names Past and Present. Commerce was truncated in the 1910s when Seventh Avenue South was extended to Varick Street and nos. 1-8 were demolished for the construction of the new Avenue. Nos. 39 and 41, seen here, were constructed in 1832 by Peter Huyler of New Jersey. The original homes were two-and-a-half stories high, with dormers in a peaked roof (the mansards were added by Peter's heirs in 1873). A unique feature of the homes is the shared garden space between them (a large enough space to have been occupied by an additional home). While the entrances to the homes were once on the Commerce Street facades, by 1932 they had been moved into the garden-facing walls . By the time this photograph was taken in 1937 the homes had been long sold away from the Huyler family and had been divided into four apartments in each home.

This one got a very liberal application of lipstick. The location is 381 Hudson Street, in the same block. Notice the NRA Blue Eagle in the window; these had just come in that fall. November 30, 1933.

Call it whatever you’d like: antique, vintage, or historic. If one thing is for certain, the Village is really, really old. Old by New York City standards, and even old by American standards. But which building is the oldest of the old? On this walk, we'll guide you through the Village and show you some of the contenders.

Horse-drawn steam engine apparatus, outside the Engine Co. 24 firehouse at 78 Morton Street, 1911. No. 78 Morton Street served as the firehouse for Engine 24 from 1865 to 1975. Built in 1864 as the ‘Howard Engine Company No. 34,” known affectionately as “Red Rover,” this engine company was first organized in 1807 as a volunteer fire-fighting company. It was eventually absorbed by the FDNY and became Engine No. 24. In 1975 in the middle of the city’s financial crisis it was decommissioned, and lay empty for many years. Much of the facade’s ornament was stripped away, but ealier this decade the elaborate detailing over and around the building’s windows were restored. The building now contains a residence.

No. 420 West Broadway (left), ca. 1980. The loft building at 420 West Broadway dates to the 1870s, when it was built for the prominent developer Amos R. Eno by architect Robert Mook. The building was extended to Thompson Street during the 1880s. Until 1970, the building's tenants represented a variety of manufacturing industries, including glass and paper products. After 1970, the building became a locus of the burgeoning downtown art scene, and home to several prominent gallerists. In 2001, the remaining gallerists were displaced, as the building was redeveloped for residential use. Today, marketing materials refer to it as the "Soho Gallery Building."

Fleming Smith Warehouse ARCHITECT: Stephen Decatur Hatch DATE: 1891-92 STYLE: Neo-Flemish, Romanesque Revival Among its important qualities, the Fleming Smith Warehouse is an architecturally distinguished commercial structure, that it was designed by Stephen Decatur Hatch, a notable New York City architect. The building displays handsome neo-Flemish and Romanesque Revival features such as the striking gabled roof and round-arched windows. The building’s picturesque silhouette complements its architectural character.

The former residence of Mayor James Walker, St. Luke’s Place, 1939. One of fifteen relatively uniform Italianate townhouses on St. Luke’s Place, No. 6 was built between 1851-54. James John “Jimmy” Walker was born in 1881 and grew up on St. Luke’s Place. Walker rose quickly through the ranks of the state’s Democratic machine, serving as a New York Assemblyman and State Senator before serving as Mayor from 1926-32. The townhouse on St. Luke’s became the Mayoral residence, as indicated by the twin lanterns framing its stoop (a tradition dating to the city’s Dutch days). Walker, who had a deserved reputation for drinking and carousing, was not up to the task of public office in a post-crash environment. His political career ended in disgrace when an investigation by then-governor Franklin D. Roosevelt uncovered evidence of corruption and Walker was forced to resign. He quickly skipped town, traveling Europe with his girlfriend, the showgirl Betty Compton. Today, the playground across from Mayor Walker’s residence is named in his honor.

No. 205 Prince Street, ca. 1977. The corner house is one of two buildings said to have been constructed by Aaron Burr in 1834. Now owned by the artist Anna Thornhill and her husband Simon Nuchtern, the building today remains a residence and includes a studio for Simon's film and subtitling company, Katrina Productions. According to Thornhill, the cellar may have housed a Prohibition-era brewery. After Nuchtern and Thornhill purchased the house in the mid-70s, they hired architects James Swan and Thomas Pritchard to sketch plans for extensive renovations, including an ambitious and as-yet unrealized feature described in a 1976 New York Times feature: a roof made entirely of glass. Edmund Vincent Gillon's late 1970s photo was taken from Father Fagan Square, a small triangular plaza named after a Brazilian-born priest who died rescuing his fellow clergymen from a 1938 fire at the St. Anthony's rectory on Thompson Street.

Sullivan Street, March 20, 1927. The Raffetto Bros. pasta store is visible in the ground floor of No. 176. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia was born across the street (out of frame) at No. 177.

68 Bedford Street, 1963.

Fugazi Theatre ca. 1923 From 1922 to about 1929, the short-lived though popular Fugazy Theatre stood on this site. Its interior housed 1,687 seats and one screen. Owned by Humbert J. Fugazy (1885-1964), a boxing promoter and prominent Italian resident who grew up in the South Village, the theater was designed by architects Reilly & Hall. A 1922 drawing appearing in The New York Times indicates that it was originally called the MacDougal Theatre, which makes sense since this was the street the entrance faced. Interestingly, plans had also been filed in 1921 to build a three-story brick theater here designed by F. E. Vitolo and C. W. Schlusing with Fugazy and one Anthony Rosetti as the owners. Numerous sources, including the Times article, show that the realized building was a Reilly & Hall design. The article mentions that the theater was five stories, which echoes what we see in the drawing, and that it was expected to open in October 1922. It also notes that “Besides providing an attractive building for the locality it will also furnish excellent entertainment, combining moving pictures with vaudeville.” The theater was touted as the largest in the heart of Greenwich Village at that time, and that Fugazy was the son of a well-known Italian banker in the neighborhood. At the time of the building’s construction, Fugazy lived at 157 Bleecker Street at the corner of Thompson Street. His past residences also included 142 Bleecker Street (at present-day LaGuardia Place) and 39 Charles Street (near West 4th Street). So what happened to the Fugazy Theatre? According to Cinema Treasures, the City purchased the theater in 1929 in anticipation of subway construction. A 1951 aerial shows that the stretch of property now occupying the Passannante Ballfield had long been cleared of any building here.

Construction on the Sixth Avenue extension at Bedford Street, 1928. The six-story buildings at left are 174-178 West Houston Street (although the entrances are actually on Bedford). Until 1925, Sixth Avenue extended only as far South as Carmine Street. As it had done for the 1917 Seventh Avenue extension, the city used eminent domain to clear existing structures between Carmine and Canal Streets— including the entirety of the forgotten Hanover, Congress, and Clark Streets — to make way for construction of the IND Eighth Avenue subway under the new Sixth Avenue extension. The new Eighth Avenue line opened in September 1932, seven years after work began on the extension aboveground.

Holland Plaza Building ARCHITECT: Ely Jacques Kahn DATE: 1930 STYLE: Modern Classical Holland Plaza Building is an exceptionally fine example of an industrial building in the Modern Classical style. The building was constructed on Canal Street, opposite the entrance to the newly-built Holland Tunnel. It was designed to be read as an industrial building, without extraneous added ornament, but it nevertheless has a decorative scheme that is completely integrated with the skin of the structure.

St. Anthony of Padua, during subway and street construction on West Houston Street; June 15, 1930. The congregation of St. Anthony of Padua was established in 1859 and was the first Roman Catholic Italian congregation organized in New York City. The first services were conducted at former site of the Church of St. Vincent de Paul on Canal Street. In 1866, the community moved into an edifice that had previously been the Sullivan Street Methodist Episcopal Church. It was organized was a hybrid between a national parish and a territorial parish. It had permission to minister to all Italians, wherever they resided, but it also had geographic bounds and welcomed all those within its borders. It opened a school in 1872, with some 500 Italian and Irish students taught by the Franciscan Sisters of Allegheny. Finally the parish began raising funds for their own purpose-built church. The new church, seen here, was designed by Arthur Crooks in the Romanesque Revival style, and completed in 1888. The church has been featured in a number of motion pictures including the The Godfather, Part II, Moonstruck, and Men in Black.

Hudson Park Branch, date unknown (pre-1920). Constructed between 1904 and 1906, the Hudson Park Library was designed by Carrère & Hastings. The library's location was chosen largely due to its proximity to the adjacent Hudson Park. That park, though, was effectively demolished during the south extension of Seventh Avenue. The construction that razed the park though also prompted the construction of a new addition to the building, so that patrons might also enter on the new Seventh Avenue South. The 1920 addition was also designed by the building's original architects. Given its location in an Italian community, the library, from its opening, offered Italian language books. Poet Marianne Moore worked as a library assistant from 1921 to 1925.