38 East 14th Street, June 15, 1938. 14th Street (across foreground), at the S.E. corner of University Place, showing the former Springler Hotel under demolition. It will be replaced by a 2 story commercial structure. It is on a part of the old Brevoort farm of 22 acres that Elias Brevoort sold about 1758 to John Smith and whose heirs four years later sold to Henry Springler. The demolished building was originally a private dwelling and became a hotel after the Springler House of No. 5 Union Square burned down in the 1870's. It was a favorite rendezvous for actors playing at the old Academy of Music, Tony Pastors, the Union Square and other theaters of the vicinity. Tradition has it that well known Thespians lived here and that the "Lambs" had their inception here, though that organization has no record of having formally used these rooms.

The apartment building at 2 Fifth Avenue has been home to several notable LGBT figures who have made impacts in the fields of activism, health, theater, and literature. One resident, Larry Kramer, (b. 1935) helped catalyze the response to the AIDS epidemic as co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) and the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). His literary achievements as playwright include The Normal Heart (1985) and its sequel The Destiny of Me (1992). He is also well known for his controversial book Faggots (1978) and his screenplay of Women in Love (1969). Edith “Edie” Windsor & Dr. Thea Clara Spyer also lived here. Edith “Edie” Windsor was a LGBT rights activist and her wife Thea Spyer moved into their apartment in the mid-1970s. Windsor, who resided here at the time of her death in 2017, was the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court of the United States case, which overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Warren Weaver Hall, ca. 1975. Upon its completion in 1965, the New York Times described New York University’s Warren Weaver Hall as “the largest mathematics and teaching center in the world.” Designed by the firm Warner, Burns, Toan and Lunde; Weaver Hall replaced “light manufacturing buildings” on Mercer, West 3rd and 4th Streets, and the former 15th Precinct police station at No. 251 Mercer.

9 East 7th Street; 53-61 Cooper Square Building Date : 1867 Original Use : Commercial Original Owner : Metropolitan Savings Bank Original Architect : Carl Pfeiffer Description & Building Alterations This New York City Landmark building, constructed in 1867 and designated a landmark in 1969, is an impressive marble work of the Italianate and French Second Empire style. It remains a significant presence on the corner of Third Avenue and East Seventh Street. Originally constructed for the Metropolitan Savings Bank by architect Carl Pfeiffer, the structure is considered one of the earliest examples of fireproof construction in the city, prompting the Superintendent of Buildings to remark at the time of its construction that “it is one of the handsomest and most thoroughly constructed buildings in the city, and a perfect model in its precaution against fire.” The building’s four-and-a-half story facade is constructed entirely of elaborately articulated marble, with decorative band courses at each floor, extensive rustication and quoinwork, ornamental entablatures and braces, and ceremonial Corinthian columns and pediments framing the entry. The building’s final floor is in a distinctive and delicately-articulated Mansard roof supported by a decorative marble cornice, creating a sophisticated Second Empire profile on the streetscape. In 1937, the building was sold to the First Ukrainian Assembly of God and has seen continuous ecclesiastical use since, primarily by the First Ukrainian Evangelical

Tiffany and Company Building, 1903. The origins of Tiffany & Co date to 1837 when Irish immigrant Charles Lewis Tiffany opened a stationery and fancy-goods shop. Within a few decades Tiffany's was one of the most prominent jewelry stores in the country. In 1869, the business began construction on a new store on Union Square, The new building at 15 Union Square West (it is the first full building at left in the photograph) was designed by John Kellum. Clad in an elaborate cast iron facade, it was an imposing sight on the square. The New York Times called it a "palace of jewels." Louis Comfort Tiffany, the son of the founder, became the firm's first Design Director in 1902, creating jewelry with glass, enamel, and gemstones. Tiffany & Co. moved further uptown in 1906. The building on Union Square was then home to a number of garment companies and factories before becoming the headquarters for the Amalgamated Bank in 1925. In 1952 a piece of the cast iron facade fell from the building and struck a pedestrian, who later died. Following this accident the bank hired an architect to stripe the building of its projecting ornamentation and cover all the rest. The end result was a simple (almost Brutalist) white brick structure. In 2008 the building was sold and redeveloped in condos. The original structure was surrounded by dark glass and black aluminum framing, and an additional six stories were constructed.

Men and boys outside the entrance to 30 Lafayette Place (now No. 417 Lafayette Street), measuring cracks in the stoop of No. 28, August 8, 1901. Between 1897 and 1904, the city undertook twin projects connecting Lafayette Place to Elm Street, while building the IRT East Side Line (which later became the Lexington Avenue Line) by the cut and cover method. The man at right holds a measuring tape to the protruding stoop of No. 28 Lafayette Place, then a residential dwelling with a lower-floor storefront. The stoop and Greek Revival ornamentation were removed in 1911, during a street-widening project. Other such "encroachments" were removed along the block.

"Brown Building, originally the Asch Building. Site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, 1975." The Asch Building was built in 1900–01 by architect John Woolley, who designed it in the neo-Renaissance style. Because it was known for "fire-proof" rooms it was attractive to garment factories who were susceptible to fires. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory moved into the top three floors a year after the building was completed. It was on these top three floors (8th, 9th, and 10th) that the Triangle Fire occurred in March of 1911. Despite the fire hoses not being able to reach the floors that were on fire, and the massive loss of life, the building survived intact. In 1916 New York University began to use the 8th floor for a library and classrooms. In 1929 the building was purchased by real estate developer and philanthropist Frederick Brown, donated to the university and renamed the Brown Building. Today the top floors are occupied by science classrooms and labs. There are a number of plaques at the base of the building that memorialize the fire and a larger memorial is currently being planned for the facade of the building.

26 Washington Square North, ca. 1971. Washington Square North was once nearly fully lined with Greek Revival townhouses. Flanking the large mansion of William C. Rhinelander at the west corner of Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue and the slightly earlier Federal house at no. 20, the townhouses spread out in both directions facing what would become a park in 1850. Referred to as "the Row," the homes were constructed in the 1830s under the auspices of the Trustees of Sailors’ Snug Harbor. The homes were to be the residences of wealthy bankers and merchants from a leasehold which supported the retired sailors. This area was considered the perfect location for the upper classes who were looking distance themselves from the crowds and working classes of lower Manhattan. No. 18 was once the home of author Henry James' grandmother, and he immortalized the neighborhood in his 1881 novel Washington Square. According to the LPC designation report this row, with its classic ionic columns and length of wrought-iron railings, "may well be considered the prototype, in this country, of the monumental Greek Revival Rowhouse.” Today, west of Fifth Avenue only nos.19-26 remain of the early 19th century constructions. They are owned by New York University.

108 Waverly Place ca. 1933 108 Waverly Place is as unusual as its residents. The building is one of a few that remain of nine rowhouses built around 1826, but extensively altered over the years. The facade of No. 108, with its cut masonry and crenelated cornices simulating a castle, dates to 1906, and was designed by Charles C. Haight. The arched window on the ground floor is a 1927 alteration that replaced a former garage entrance. From the Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report of 1969: This group (108-114 Waverly Place), in its present appearance, is unique to Greenwich Village. These four houses are all that remain of a row of nine built in 1826 for Thomas R. Mercein. He was president of the New York Equitable Fire Insurance Company, and had also served as City comptroller. In No. 108, we see a love for the picturesque as this new front is a granite-faced, rough ashlar facade with crenelated cornice, simulating a small castle. It was designed in 1906 by Charles C. Haight for Miss Grace Wilkes. At that time the stable and coachman’s apartment were combined, and the roof over the attic floor was raised, and it now has a steeply sloping studio window. The present two-centered arched window at ground floor that replaces the former garage entrance is a further alteration in 1927 when the entire building was converted into a dwelling. Additionally, the building has a marker affixed to it that reads, “Prior Home of The Institute of The Jazz Studies founded by Marshall W. Stearns 1952.” Marshall W. Stearns played drums in his youth and studied medieval English at Yale University, obtaining a Ph.D. He taught English at a number of colleges, and during this time frequently wrote about jazz music for magazines. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1950 and used the proceeds to finish his seminal 1956 work The Story of Jazz, a popular introduction to jazz. He taught jazz at New York University and the New School, and in 1952 he founded the Institute of Jazz Studies at 108 Waverly Place, which he also directed.

Street scene of Third Avenue at East 13th Street, ca. 1935. At left, on the west side of the avenue, is the Variety Theatre, one of New York's earliest motion-picture houses. The building dated to about 1897, and was likely altered to house a conventional theater around 1914. The Variety screened short films, “photo plays,” second-run features, and, later, adult films, before it was closed by the health department in 1989 — illicit activities were not uncommon. From 1991-2004, the Variety operated as a live theater venue. Despite preservation efforts by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, the old theater was demolished in 2005. The tall building in the background, at right, is 200 East 16th Street, a 20-story Art Deco apartment building completed in 1930.

Church of the Ascension, ca. 1979. Built by architect Richard Upjohn between 1840-41 in the Gothic Revival style, the Church of the Ascension is compared in the registers listing to Trinity Church, also built by Upjohn between 1839-1846. The listing also details a remodeling of the interior from 1885-1889, undertaken by Stanford White of McKim, Mead, & White. This remodeling lightened the space considerably, removing galleries on the north and south and adding stained-glass windows and the mural “the Ascension of Our Lord” by artist John La Farge. The sculptured angels over the main altar are the work of Louis St. Gaudens and the two angels in the mosaic were done by D. Maitland Armstrong.

The New York Society Library was founded in 1754 as a subscription library and calls itself the oldest cultural institution in the city. The library was first housed in a room in the original City Hall during the colonial era. During the Revolutionary War, the collections were extensively damaged by looting and soldiers tearing up books to use for wadding in their muskets. During the years that New York City served as the country's capital (1789-1790), the Society Library effectively served as the first Library of Congress. (It is said that President Washington borrowed two books which he never returned). Following a number of moves in the first half of the 19th century, the Library settled in this purpose-built structure at 109 University Place building in 1856 where it remained for 81 years. In this venue, the Library was visited by luminaries such as Herman Melville and Willa Cather. The Library made its final move in 1937 into an Upper East Side mansion at 53 East 79th Street. At the time of this move the institution held 150,000 volumes; today, that number has nearly doubled. The building seen here was demolished for a new apartment building completed in 1940.

Greenwich Village has been the home of many women, whose actions have changed the fabric of New York and America.

East 11th Street.

Manhattan: 11th Street (East) - 4th Avenue.

Washington Square Park ca. 1935 Washington Square, at the base of Fifth Avenue, emerged in the Victorian era as one of New York City's most fashionable neighborhoods. Projecting dignified calm and cosmopolitan charm, the square drew favorable comparisons to similar patrician precincts in nineteenth-century London and Paris. To Henry James, born on nearby Washington Place, Washington Square (where his grandmother lived) had "a riper, richer, more honorable look than any of the ramifications of the great longitudinal thoroughfare- the look of having something of a social history." Originally a marshland drained for use as a potter's field and public gallows in the later eighteenth century, Washington Square underwent its upscale metamorphosis in the mid-1820s, when the area was converted into a military parade ground and subsequently reconfigured as an eight-acre public park, complete with fountain and intersecting pedestrian paths. In 1837 New York University established its headquarters on the square's east border. Affluent downtowners soon gravitated to this newly developed section of Greenwich Village, moving into the stately Federal-style townhouses constructed at the park's perimeter. By the century's end, a monumental arch designed by Stanford White and built from Tuckahoe marble dominated the Northern edge of Washington Square. Largely financed by the well-heeled homeowners who lived on the square, this imposing structure replaced a temporary portal erected in 1889 to commemorate the centennial of George Washington's inauguration as the nations first president. By the 1890s, various economic and demographic changes had conspired to trigger the flight of upper-class families from Greenwich Village; much of the district's housing stock had grown dilapidated, real estate values and per capita income began to plummet, local church congregations started to migrate north, and slum tenements and drab factories were encroaching the side streets running east and south of Washington Square.

29 Washington Square West ca. 1930s During her time as First Lady, from 1933 to 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt changed the role from the passive hostess to active political leader and became an outspoken politician in her own right. She held press conferences on important issues such as women's rights and children's causes and led marches and protests. After the death of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, she resided here at 29 Washington Square West until 1949. She later became a U.S. delegate to the United Nations, chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and is widely regarded as one of the most renowned civil rights activists of the 20th Century.

Judson Memorial Church, 2000. Adoniram Judson was the first American Protestant foreign missionary. In 1888 his son, distinguished preacher and church leader Edward Judson, began the process to create a church in memorial to his father. Supported by a number of wealthy Northern Baptists, including John D. Rockefeller, Judson spared no expense in his plans for the church. He hired Standford White as architect, John LaFarge for the stained glass, and sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens. The resulting building, an eclectic Lombardo-Romanesque style church, was completed in 1893. The grand campanile, or bell tower, was completed in 1896. The church, nearly from its inception, has been engaged in social health and justice activities. In 1920 the Judson Health Center was established as a community healthcare facility. They opened the first drug-treatment clinic in Greenwich Village (1960-1962). Under the long leadership of pastor Howard Moody (1956-1990), the church became involved in arts, social justice, and anti-war movements. Art projects created include the Judson Dance Theatre and Art Gallery. They operated an abortion counseling and referral service before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal and a support group for those with HIV-AIDS and their caregivers in the 1980s, while many churches ignored the AIDS crisis. They were actively involved in local and national movements for civil rights, peace, women’s rights, and gay rights. Today the church remained active in the arts and is a leader of the leading role in the New Sanctuary Movement for immigrant rights.

Luchow's Restaurant ca. 1975 Luchow’s was a German restaurant/beer garden. It opened in 1882 at 110 East 14th Street at a time when the East Village was known as “Little Germany”, or Kleindeutschland. The restaurant would expand over the years in size and prominence, eventually occupying a space eight times as large as the original venue. In its heydey, Luchow’s was the place to see and be seen if you were a part of the music, theater, or literary crowd. It imported 70,000 half-barrels of beer a year, a daily consumption of 24,000 liters. Famous diners include Theodore Roosevelt, Diamond Jim Brady, Oscar Hammerstein, John Barrymore, Arturo Caruso, Sigmund Romberg, Lillian Russell, O. Henry, Theodore Dreiser, Thomas Wolfe, and Edgar Lee Masters. Luchow’s was the first restaurant in the city to get its liquor license following Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. Union Square lost much of its luster and Luchow’s moved to midtown in the early 1980s. The Palace restaurant and disco opened in Luchow’s former space, followed by a gay bar. But a 1992 fire led to the building’s demolition in 1995, despite efforts to landmark the Victorian building. NYU bought the site and locals were hopeful when plans were announced to revive Luchow’s with a ground-floor “Gay 90’s”-themed restaurant with a (less warmly-received) 600-bed dorm atop it. In the end, the dorm was built, but the restaurant was never revived.

"Founded in 1890, Judson Church had served as a bridge between the upper classes on 5th Avenue and the impoverished Italian neighborhood below Washington Square. As many Italian families eventually moved to the suburbs, the congregation declined to fewer than 25 people by the 1950s. The church sought social relevance and hired ministers who were also artists to connect with the growing creative and intellectual communities in the Village. The idea was to open the sanctuary to bear witness rather than proselytize, and to embrace the 'free church' belief that the space of worship is not holy and need not be confined to traditional religious practices. The exhibition acknowledges Associate Minister Bud Scott‘s role in founding the Judson Gallery and Associate Minister Al Carmines’ vision for the Poets’ Theater. The theater was founded on two conditions: there would be no censorship and no requirement to produce religious dramas. However, the work of Reverend Howard Moody was also critical since he integrated activism into the church’s liturgy and mission and took up many of the social issues that the exhibition referenced, such as opening one of the first drug treatment facilities in the Village and an abortion referral service." For more on Judson Memorial Church, check out this article by Joanna Steinberg in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

Fifth Avenue Bus at Washington Square South and Thompson Street, October 21, 1936. Founded in 1885 as the Fifth Avenue Transportation Company, the horse-drawn omnibus line was established to hinder the installation of trolley tracks on fashionable Fifth Avenue. It was incorporated as The Fifth Avenue Coach Company in 1896. The Fifth Avenue vehicles went from horse-powered to gas-powered in 1907, and the company soon began manufacturing their own coaches, including those of the double-decker variety. In 1930, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company purchased 100 Yellow Coach “Z-type” double-decker buses. The bus in this image looks to be one of these coaches. The New York Transit Museum also has a 1930 coach in its historic fleet (its oldest bus rolling stock). The coach, affectionately nicknamed "Betsy," is featured during the Museum's annual Bus Fest.

Did you know that this eight-story Arts & Crafts style loft building designed by Robinson & Potter now known as “The Petersfield,” was once known as the “The Fish Building” due to its direct connection to the area’s Dutch-colonial history? This building’s name comes from Stuyvesant Fish, who constructed the building and was a direct descendant of the last Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant. The loft building was converted to residences in 1986 and was named The Petersfield after the name given to the original home of Peter Stuyvesant, which was located nearby. This and surrounding blocks were part of the original Stuyvesant Farm. Click here to read more.

Salmagundi Club, November 24, 1937. The Salmagundi Club was an art club founded in 1871. Initially called New York Sketch Class and later the New York Sketch Club, the organization was a men's only group of artists, students, and friends who met once a week. It was renamed Salmagundi in 1877 and meet at a number of Greenwich Village locations during its first 40 years. In 1917 the club purchased and moved into the1853 Italianate-style townhouse at 47 Fifth Avenue. For the last century it has operated in this building as a center for fine arts, artists and collectors, exhibitions, classes, demonstrations,and auctions.

Edith Jones Wharton (1862-1937), one of America’s most important authors, lived at 14 West 23rd Street, Manhattan at a time when 23rd Street marked the northern boundary of fashionable New York. There, in her father’s extensive library, young Edith Jones discovered the world of literature. Wharton wrote with authority on gardens and design, but was most celebrated for her fiction. Her novels and stories are characterized by her intelligence, perception and the great beauty of her prose. Wharton lived in France for the latter part of her life, but the complex world of patrician New York remained the source of her greatest fiction. This includes The House of Mirth (1905) and The Age of Innocence (1920), for which, in 1921 she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature.

Klein Department Store, ca. 1984. S. Klein On The Square was department store whose flagship location sat in two buildings on the corner of 14th Street and Union Square East. Considered a more affordable option to stores such as Macy's and A\&S, Klein still offered a furniture department, fur salon, and a full service pet department. The original store (at 14th Street) opened in either 1905 (as stated in the founder's obituary) or by 1912 (as noted in the Landmarks Preservation Commission's East 17th Street/Irving Place Historic District Designation Report). The store expanded in 1930 to include the former Union Square Hotel building at the southeast of 15th Street (out of frame at left). During the 1960s the business expanded opening stores in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. By the late 1970s the parent company of the store began closing the locations en masse and selling off the property, including the flagship location, which closed in 1975. The building was demolished in the mid 1980s for the 1987-completed, Zeckendorf Towers apartment complex.

113 Waverly Place, ca. 1950.

14 West 10th Street (second building from the left), May 29, 1933. The Greek Revival house at 14 West 10th Street was constructed sometime in the 1850s. The house, in the fashionable area near Washington Square Park, was home to members of New York's high society in the 19th century. In 1900 Mark Twain lived in the house for a year or so. In the long history of the house at least 22 people died while residing there. (This is not an inconceivable number given the home's age and the fact that for much of history people died at home). In 1937 the single family home was divided into multiple apartments. Starting around that time residents began taking note of strange occurrences and haunting visions. Author Jan Bryant Bartell lived in an apartment there for seven years and wrote about her supernatural experiences there. It has been called the "House of Death." Unfortunately the building also hosted a real life gruesome event in 1987 when a former New York defense attorney beat his illegally adopted daughter to death in the house.

6 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1831 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Thomas E. Davis/Daniel Rogers Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This heavily-altered 4-story building started out as part of the row house development that Thomas E. Davis’ began in 1831. The first three floors have been added to, bringing out the front facade of the building and facing it with a red brick storefront topped with arched transom windows and an iron balustrade on the third-floor terrace. The facade is obscured by large retail signs. The upper floors of the building have been stuccoed and the attic level extended to create a full fourth floor. In the early 20th century, this building was the home of The Modern School, an anti-capitalist and anarchist institution dedicated to “provide education to the working classes from a liberating, class-conscious perspective”. Famed academic and anarchist thinker Emma Goldman was a founder of the institution, and lived nearby on East 13th Street. In 1979, Bruce Mailman opened the New St. Mark’s Baths at this site. They were closed by the New York City Health Department in 1985.

Colonnade Row ca. 1913 These four houses survive from a row of nine Greek Revival marble-fronted residences that, at the time of their completion, were among the grandest dwellings in New York and were occupied by members of New York’s leading families. Erected, and possibly designed, by the developer Seth Greer and named for the Marquis de Lafayette’s estate in France, the row is unified by the use of a Corinthian colonnade that was once crowned by a continuous band of anthemia (now visible only at No. 434). The buildings began to deteriorate in the post-Civil War era as the wealthy moved out of this neighborhood, and the houses were subdivided into apartments and commercial spaces. The row now contains apartments, restaurants, and theaters. From the "Guide to New York City Landmarks", courtesy of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Union Square Savings Bank ARCHITECT: Henry Bacon DATE: 1905-07 STYLE: Academic Classic, Bank The Union Square Savings Bank was designed in a bold and monumental Academic Classic style popularized by the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Bacon’s design accentuates its prominence with a freestanding portico supported on four giant Corinthian columns and a monumental entranceway behind the columns.

On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times, most famously by Gladys Night and the Pips and Marvin Gaye, whose version landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. But where did it come from? Plentiful evidence and credible sources say it all goes back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village.

German Savings Bank, ca. 1905. The Central Savings Bank was constructed between 1870 and 1872 as the German Savings Bank. The bank, founded by successful German businessman Jacob Windmuller, dated to 1859. Windmuller created the bank for the large and growing lower Manhattan German population. Business was conducted in German and the immigrant community flocked to the institution. In 1864 the successful bank moved north to a location at the corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue. They outgrew their original building, purchased some of the surrounding lots, and hired German-born architect Henry Fernbach to design a French Second Empire style building. The resulting five-story structure had a facade of arched openings, separating pilasters, and cornices at each level. While the bank occupied the lower floor, the upper floor tenants included artist and glassmaker David Maitland Armstrong and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Following the anti-German sentiments of the First World War, the banks changed its name to ‘The Central Savings Bank in the City of New York.' The bank left the neighborhood in 1928, relocating to a large new building that occupied the entire block between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, 73rd to 74th Streets. The upper floors of the 14th Street bank building housed the New York County Committee of the Communist Party for a number of years in the 1940s. The bank building was demolished in 1962 and replaced by a no-style red brick apartment building.

Shoppers and Carriages Outside Wanamakers, 1898. The cast iron building, that became Wanamakers Department Store in 1896, survived for 94 years. Despite the intense blaze that destroyed the interior of the building in 1956, the cast iron facade seen here remained standing and had to be dismantled.

Grove St Press moved here after a brief stay at 80 University Place from 1964-67. Less than half a block down to 53 East 11th Street the move came at a crucial time for the enterprise. In 1967 Grove became a public corporation, vastly expanding its scope and resources. According to “From the Third Eye: The Evergreen Review Film Reader”, in January of that year, the Press also announced the acquisition of the prestigious Cinema 16 Film Library, consisting of two hundred shorts and experimental works, including films by Stan Brakhage, Kenneth Anger, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Peter Weiss, all darlings of the cinematic avant-garde.

The Hotel Earle (Now The Washington Square Hotel) has been a haven for writers and artists for more than a century. Everyone from Bob Dylan to Norah Jones has been housed under its roof!

George Bruno residence at 1 Macdougal Alley (aka 176 Macdougal Street), August 5, 1927. Macdougal Alley was created in 1833, for access to the carriage houses of property owners on Washington Square North and West Eighth Street. The corner building was home to the Prohibition-era Jumble Shop tearoom (later tap room, following repeal), and in recent decades a restaurant, laundromat, florist, and bridal shop. Macdougal Street and Alley are both named for Alexander McDougall, the Scottish born merchant and Revolutionary War figure who was a representative to the Continental Congress, the first president of the Bank of New York, and New York State Senator.

Alexander Lyman Holley Statue, ca. 1900. Sculpted by John Quincy Adams Ward in collaboration with Thomas Hastings, this bronze bust casted and dedicated in 1889 commemorates one of the founding fathers of engineering and industry. Sitting atop an Indiana limestone pedestal in a park replete with a grand arch, fountain, dog park, and chess tables, funds from the Society of Mechanical Engineers and Save American Treasures allowed the MAS Adopt-A-Monument program to restore this sculpture in 1999.

98 Third Avenue Building Date : 1839 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Caleb Bartlett Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Lot 31 is occupied by a mixed-use four-story building, built as a single-family residence in 1839 for Caleb Bartlett. The facade is similar to those belonging to nos. 92-96, except this building has a double window with a shared lintel and sill at the top story. A 1872 alteration permit indicates that the building had been utilized as a dwelling with a ground floor store and would become a three-family dwelling with a new storefront.

The former Hotel Albert complex consists of four buildings at 23 East 10th Street/40-52 East 11th Street/65-67 University Place. The buildings were constructed in 1875-76, 1881-82, 1903-1904, and 1922-1924. From the 1880s through the early 1970s, the Hotel played a large role in New York City’s cultural life. During the postwar era, prominent painters, writers, photographers, and musicians found inspiration at the hotel. LGBTQ and African-American artists established communities here, as did radical, Jewish, and working-class organizations such as the Progressive Labor Party. The hotel hosted dramatic productions at the “Albert Theatre for a brief period.” To learn more about the Hotel Albert, click here.

While Manhattan's streets were largely laid out with the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, this grid system was only implemented between Houston and 155th Streets. The plan left Greenwich Village with its long-established mews, alleys, and courts, many of which date to the city's early colonial period, intact. While not exclusively in the Village, most of the secret streets on this list are located there among the organically developed 18th-century street plan. While some changes have come to these streetscapes in the last century, in most cases their concealment and a healthy dose of historic preservation work have aided in their continued survival in the 21st century.

50 & 52 Third Avenue | Block : 556-1 | Lot #26 Building Date : Mid-19th c./1991 alt. Original Use : Commercial/Residential Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations This three-story conjoined building was once two separate buildings. Today there are still two separate storefronts. The buildings were likely constructed in the 19th century, but their facades have been given a complete 20th century makeover. From the late 19th century until sometime in the 1960’s, a store called Sig Klein’s Fat Men’s Shop existed in the northern storefront. As evidenced by the tax photo, around the 1930’s and 40’s Stuyvesant Loan Office was housed in the southern storefront.

59 (right) and 60 (left) Washington Square South are the two four-story homes next to the wood-frame corner structure. When writer Willa Cather moved to New York in 1906 she lived in a studio in no. 60.

The Whitney Museum is now one of New York City's unparalleled art institutions. But it took a while to get there. Here's a brief history of the Whitney Museum

Germania Theatre, ca. 1895. The Germania Theatre pictured in this photo actually began life as the Church of St. Ann’s, which makes sense given the ecclesiastical design of the building. It was built at some point in the mid-19th century and later became a factory before it was ultimately converted to a theater. The Germania opened in September 1894, though the building had been used as a theatre previously. It did not survive long after, however, as it closed in 1903 to make way for the construction of the Wanamaker Building.

Southeast corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, ca. 1977. The now unrecognizable corner of Union Square where today a large CitiBank occupies the corner lot.

The original Rhinelander Mansion, No. 14, on the west corner of Fifth Avenue, was built in 1839-1840 for Mary (Rogers) Rhinelander as her family’s residence and continued to serve the family until the death of her daughter in 1914. The house, and adjoining No. 15, were a pair of splendid Greek Revival town houses, each 42 feet wide and three and one-half stories high, with attic windows in the fascia. At each, a stoop led to the entrance portico, framed by Corinthian columns, and an iron balcony graced the parlor floor. No. 15 was built as the residence of Gardiner Greene Howland, who had previously lived with his brother Samuel at No. 12 Washington Square North on the block east of Fifth Avenue. They were important shipping merchants.

"Peter Cooper became one of New York’s prominent millionaires, yet he still saw himself as a master craftsman, 'A Mechanic of New York.' However, education was paramount on Cooper’s agenda. With the fortune Cooper had amassed from his glue business, ironworks, his patent inventions and his real estate holdings Cooper invested his money in The Cooper Union, commonly called at that time, Cooper Institute. It would be the crowning glory of his life. The cornerstone was laid in 1854.He erected an imposing six-story Italianate building between Third and Fourth Avenue at Astor Place. To support the floors and make the building fireproof the rolled structural iron beams were produced at the Cooper Hewitt & Company ironworks. These iron beams would make possible the building of future skyscrapers... Cooper Union was the first free institute to provide adult education in the fields of engineering, architecture and science for young men and women who qualified regardless of race, religion, sex or social status. It is acknowledged that although Cooper Union was Peter Cooper’s vision, it was Abram Hewitt’s brain that made it possible because he oversaw the construction of the building and served as Cooper Union’s president for over forty years." For more on Peter Cooper and Cooper Union, check out this article by Polly Guérin in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

12-14 West 12th Street ca. Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue. In 1849, Davis designed two matching Italianate mansions on West 12th Street, Nos. 12 & No. 14. A description of these buildings can be found on Daytonian in Manhattan: ” …abutting the churchyard of First Presbyterian Church, which had been completed three years earlier. The handsome brick residences reflected the refined neighborhood. Each two bays wide, they featured arched entrances four steps above the sidewalk and a cast iron, second floor balcony that ran the width both structures. Brownstone lintels and a simple cornice added to the understated elegance of Davis’ design.” These mansions survived into the mid-20th century, changing hands a couple of times throughout their lifespan. Most famously, No. 12 was the home of Thurlow Weed, an influential statesman. After the death of Thurlow, ownership of No. 12 fell to his daughter Harriet, and after her passing both buildings were taken over by the First Presbyterian Church, becoming their parsonage. However, in 1958, the church, in need of a modern church house, made the decision to tear down Nos. 12 & 14. A necessary decision for the church proved to be an unpopular one with the community, as reported by The Times: “Though church folk dislike the idea of having the old mansions torn down, and architects in town frown on the notion, too, they know they must go. The space is sorely needed for the children. So, one by one, the master works of great architects vanish from the city.” Davis, who worked along with the architect Ithiel Town, had a hand in other architectural works within the Village, including a portion of the now-demolished Brevoort Mansion on 5th Avenue, and the designs for Colonnade Row. However, with the loss of Nos. 12 & 14, the city lost a truly wonderful example of Davis’s designs. As lamented by The Times, “All that will remain of his dreaming on paper when the Twelfth Street mansions go down in rubble…will be a few villas up in Hudson River Valley.” Architect Alexander Jackson Davis was born on July 24, 1803. Davis, one of the most successful and influential American architects of his generation, is perhaps best known for his association with the Gothic Revival style of architecture and rural settings. Though many surviving examples by Davis exist in upstate New York and at other locales along the East Coast, some very prominent examples of Davis’ fine work once stood on lower Fifth Avenue.

"On March 25, 1911, a mere three days after the founding of the Wage Earner’s Suffrage League, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire transformed what Americans (especially in rural areas) knew and how they thought about factory work. When the fire broke out on the upper floors of the Asch Building at closing time on Saturday March 25, 1911, panicked workers instinctively ran for the nearest exits only to discover that the doors had been locked ostensibly to prevent employee thefts. Trapped in the inferno on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of the building too high up for ladders and hoses to reach, desperate workers jumped to their deaths. The fire claimed the lives of 146 immigrant workers, mostly Jewish and Italian women. Front-page banner headlines in newspapers across the country bore news of the tragedy and immediately heightened public awareness about the dangers of the industrial workplace. The time had come for state intervention. New York convened a factory investigating commission that would eventually pass more than thirty workplace fire, safety, and health laws. In 1914, the Smith Bill went as far as limiting the number of hours that women and children would be allowed to work." For more on how the Fire galvanized New York City's nationally pivotal suffrage movement, check out this article by Karen Pastorello in Gotham: A Blog for Scholars of New York City History.

72 Fifth Avenue ca. 1915 In 1847, on Bond Street in London, a young man named Philip Morris opened a small tobacco shop. Eight years later, Morris began to produce his own cigarettes. When, in 1873, he died, his widow Margaret and brother Leopold took over the business. In 1885, the company gained international fame and was officially named Philip Morris & Co. LTD. By 1902, Philip Morris was incorporated in New York. After some shuffling around and restructuring, in 1917, the business moved to 72 5th Avenue, at the northwest corner of 13th Street. This 7-story building was erected in 1893 as a warehouse. The masonry façade ornamentation and rhythm is very characteristic of loft warehouse buildings in this area at the time. In 1913 an alteration was performed by the architect Adolph E. Nast who worked for the firm of John L. Sands. In 1931, after disappearing from his New York hotel, Nast’s body was found in Baltimore with a pistol wound to the head. It was believed to be a suicide. Up until the 1930s the building was owned by the estate of Katherine Lorrilard and throughout the 1940s a bank was located in the storefront. In 1960, Ginn & Company publishers occupied three floors of the space, totaling 15,000 square feet. Philip Morris relocated to 5th Avenue and 19th Street in 1938, where they continued to grow. In 1954 the company launched a major campaign with Marlboro Cigarettes, marketing them specifically to men. In 1970 Philip Morris acquired Miller Brewing Company and in 1985 acquired Kraft. In 2003 the name Philip Morris disappeared when Altria Group, Inc. took over the company. Five years later the entire company was relocated to Richmond, Virginia.

Variety Theatre ca. 2005 The Variety Photoplays Theater on 3rd Avenue between 13thand 14th Streets was never a grand movie palace like the RKO Keith’s, the Loew’s Kings, or the Loew’s Paradise, but for its 90 years of existence it played a notable supporting role in the East Village theater scene as the neighborhood transformed around it. Though its earliest history is somewhat sketchy, it seems that the original building that housed the Variety Theater at 110 3rd Avenue was constructed as early as 1897. Only 25 feet wide and just under 100 feet deep, it was most likely a store or residence that was altered to convert the space into a two story theater in 1914. As the moving picture craze swept the city in the early twentieth century, nickelodeon theaters sprung up all around the city to cash in and bring the new medium to the masses. While the Union Square area had served as home to the center of legitimate theater in New York in the late 19th century, as the twentieth century progressed that center moved north, and the neighboring East Village area became a center of ethnic theater and popular theater, movie houses, nickelodeons, and dance halls. The uses of other nearby sites such as Webster Hall, the Yiddish Art Theater, and the Academy of Music/Palladium on 14th Street all reflect this. The Variety seated 450 and as the Times notes, “first presented groups of two-reelers, collections of individual features, each 15 or 20 minutes long. This was at a period when the feature-length film was still uncommon and films in general were generally considered low-culture — ”photo plays” or not.” In 1930 a balcony, new lobby, and art deco renovations to the original 1923 marquee sign were made by architects Boak and Paris. Because of its limited size, the Variety never attracted the best first-run films, and by the late 1960s, the Variety — like many other struggling theaters in New York — turned to blue movies to help keep it afloat. By the 1970s and 1980s, the theater screened a somewhat unpredictable mélange of B and/or C-grade films as well as soft and hardcore pornography. The theater space also became a meeting place for gay men. A writer for the Bright Lights Film Journal described the scene when he visited the Variety in 1984: “Upon entering the auditorium, I saw the movie was playing upside-down. This lasted a good fifteen minutes. Nobody complained or perhaps even noticed… It was like stepping into a time capsule. I noticed four large globe-like lighting fixtures that had somehow survived the decades. The walls were an unremarkable (patched) plaster, but the ceiling was special, composed of patterned pressed tin. There was a single modest balcony. My main memory was of patrons moving about the theater in a constant bustle and streaming into and out of the toilets oddly situated down front below the screen and surely a distraction for anyone trying to watch the film. The room was filled with the continual rustlings and creakings of people on the move. It was more like a mass happening than a movie screening, and in fact I have no recollection of the film at all.” As the cinematic quality of the films shown at the Variety declined during the 1970s and 80s, so did the reputation of the surrounding East Village neighborhood. The Variety Theater was even featured in the film Taxi Driver. You can read more about Taxi Driver filming locations which happen to be just down the block from the Variety in a previous Off the Grid post. The Variety ended its run as a movie theater in 1989 when it was closed by the city’s health department, but later reopened in 1991 as a live off-Broadway theater. It ran for more than a decade as the Variety Arts Theater until 2004 when it was closed and demolished in 2005 to make room for a 21-story condominium tower.

The Macmillan Co. Building (later Forbes Building), April 1, 1925. Called a “pompous limestone cube” by the AIA Guide to New York, the Macmillan Co. headquarters was built between 1923-1925, in a collaborative effort by two firms known for New York City landmarks: Carrère & Hastings (New York Public Library, 5th Avenue) and Shreve & Lamb (Empire State Building). In 1965, the building was acquired by Forbes Magazine, whose Malcolm Forbes opened a small gallery there, showcasing his eclectic art collection. New York University purchased the building from Forbes in 2010.

Sixth Avenue El over West Broadway at West Third Street, ca. 1938. This view is looking south on West Broadway, from near Washington Square Park. The photo was likely taken shortly before Sixth Avenue El service was discontinued in December, 1938. Few elements of this street scene remain: The elevated tracks were dismantled shortly thereafter; the Open Door (left) at No. 567 West Broadway has been replaced by the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library; No. 562 (upper right) has been replaced by new, low-rise construction. Even the street names have changed: West Broadway is now LaGuardia Place, above Houston Street.

MacDougal Alley, March 20, 1936. A cul-de-sac off MacDougal Street, MacDougal Alley is actually a mews. In a mews, the buildings have to have been working stables or carriage houses at some point. And the homes seen here were just that, for the large homes that lined nearby West 8th Street and Washington Square North. Named after a Revolutionary War hero, Alexander McDougall (the original spelling of his name), the small street had been home to a number of artists and art related venues. Gertrude Vanderbilt established her studio at no. 19, which has since become the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. Jackson Pollack lived at no. 9 for a year in the late 1940s and sculptor Isamu Noguchi lived at no. 33, which was demolished mid-century during the construction of nearby 2 Fifth Avenue.

Astor Library ARCHITECT: Alexander Saeltzer; Griffith Thomas DATE: 1849-69 STYLE: Northern Italian Renaissance The Library is a three-story brick and stone building with basement and attic story. This structure has special value because each of the three portions of its development has been carefully maintained and constituted a source of stylistic influence over a wide area. Modifications, for the most part, have been few. The Library is developed in a symmetrical plan in an early Renaissance manner. Most of the architectural details of the building stem from North Italian Renaissance work of the first half of the 15th century.

Washington Square Park ca. 1908 Originally a potter's field and gallows, Washington Square was later reclaimed as a parade ground and then converted to a park. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century Georgian houses lined the park's periphery, several examples of which still stand on Washington Square North. By the early twentieth century, boarding houses appeared on the south side of the park, attracting many artists as tenants.

United States Post Office, Station D (Peter Cooper Station), August 12, 1937. Though the Village isn’t known for having too many stand-out post office buildings (many are small offices located within other buildings scattered throughout the neighborhood), Cooper Station is an exception. Located at 93 Fourth Avenue, on the northeast corner of 11th Street, the building was designed by William Dewey Foster and constructed in 1936-37 as part of the W.P.A. (Works Progress Administration) to combat the Great Depression. Foster was responsible for designing structures in both New York City and Washington D.C., including ten post offices in New York City and its immediate suburbs. Cooper Station was designed in the Classical Revival style and its most dramatic feature is the curve of the facade at the irregular corner of the site. Further highlighting the curve of this building is the two-story colonnade comprised of six receded Doric columns which delineate the corner bays.

853 Broadway, ca. 1945. The Domestic Sewing Machine Company Building, which previously occupied the lot at the southwest corner of Broadway and 14th Street, was designed by Griffith Thomas. The structure was tall (for its time!) and capped with an eye-catching cupola and “DOMESTIC” sign at its rooftop. At the time of its 1873 construction, it was hailed as an early skyscraper, the tallest cast-iron building yet built. It’s hard to imagine a seven-story building as a skyscraper nowadays, but in the late 19th century it certainly was. The Domestic Sewing Machine Company showcased its sewing machines on the first floor. Its corporate headquarters were on the upper floors.

For much of New York's history, its Easter Parade was one of the most important parts of the Easter holiday. Starting in the 1880s, it quickly became one of the social events of the season.

Hancock Building, 1978. Built in 1897 by the firm of Marsh, Israels & Harder, the Hancock Building was the home of Hammacher & Schlemmer beginning in 1904. The city's first hardware store, established in 1848 in a building on the Bowery, moved into this new structure after its small local storefront boomed into national company and popular mail order catalog. The seven-story building has Romanesque details such as the arched windows on the top floor. It also features Beaux-Arts decoration, like the elegant scrolled detail above the entrance and Ionic pilasters (columns projected from the facade) on the middle stories of the building. The hardware company moved once more to a larger location out of necessity in 1926. (The new location was 147 East 57th, which remains the flagship store today.) Today the building looks very much the same as it did in this 1970s photograph.

27 Third Avenue | Block : 464 | Lot #3 Building Date : Circa 1850 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations 25 Third Avenue was constructed in 1829 for William Butler, and 27 Third Avenue was constructed in 1831 for Piere Hall. Both were originally built as residences above ground-floor shops. By 1914, both buildings were six-stories tall and only used for commercial purposes. In 1936, the upper floors of both buildings were removed and the remaining one-story structures were joined along with 3 St. Mark’s Place.

Southeast corner of 14th Street and Broadway, ca. 1977.

While it may look like the fountain has been standing since the park’s construction in 1852, the structure we see today was actually the product of a 2007 renovation. This renovation, spanning four years, reoriented the location of the fountain to properly align with the archway (designed by Stanford White), creating one of those picture-perfect NYC views down Fifth Avenue. However, the plan was not widely accepted by the community. Prior to construction, there were several lawsuits filed against the city to block the project from taking place. Ultimately the city won, and the final phase of the project was completed in 2011

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Landmarks Law, which for the first time allowed buildings, neighborhoods, and sites to be preserved through landmark designation in New York City. Designated on April 29, 1969, the Greenwich Village Historic District is one of our city's oldest and largest historic districts. At over 2,200 buildings and 100 blocks, it covers much (but not all) of Greenwich Village between University Place and Washington Street, 13th Street and West 4th Street/St. Luke's Place. Its continuing preservation and oversight remains at the core of Village Preservation's mission, along with that of the 15 other historic districts, over 100 individual landmarks, and eight interior landmarks designated in our neighborhoods since — you can view an interactive timeline of all of these designations here. The Greenwich Village Historic District is undeniably charming — so much so that it’s virtually impossible to come up with a top-10 list of its most alluring architectural gems. But with no insult to sites not included, here is one run at 10 of the most charming sites you’ll find in this extraordinarily quaint historic quarter.

Columbia Hall/"Paresis Hall" (former location), 32 Cooper Square ca. 1919 James T. (Biff) Ellison (a gangster affiliated with the Five Points Gang) opened Columbia Hall, better known as Paresis Hall, in the 1890s in the building that is still standing at 32 Cooper Square. He apparently made no attempt to disguise the establishment as anything other than what it was, a 'fairy resort', where male prostitutes waited tables, performed, and offered sex to patrons. For the men who frequented Paresis Hall, it was not the degenerate resort that tourists and reformers saw. It offered them an important social center and provided a sense of community and support.

The East Village has long been a richly diverse immigrant neighborhood. It has also served as a hub for cultural movements: the Beats, punk rock, bohemians, Hare-Krishna…the list goes on. Take a walk through the area that was considered the center of counterculture in New York.

First Presbyterian Church ca. 1900 Set in ample grounds where it may be seen from three sides, this handsome exemplar of the Gothic Revival makes us realize that all was not necessarily fuss and gingerbread in this period. Joseph C. Wells, the architect, attempted a scholarly representation of an ecclesiastical style which, at best, was foreign to this country before 1835.

Forbes Building, 60-62 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1977.

396 Sixth Avenue, ca. 1969. Nathan's Hot Dogs was one of the first tenants to occupy No. 396 Sixth Avenue, a one-story commercial space built in 1950. According to the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, photographer Doris Diether "took this picture because of objections to Nathan's move to 8th Street. At the time, it was the first chain restaurant to move onto the street and there were concerns that it would move operations outdoors." Following Nathan's departure, the building was renovated in the early 1980s into a two-story storefront for B. Dalton, a local bookstore. Barnes and Noble later took over the space, though, after 12 years renting, it was priced out in 2012.

Doorway of 61 Washington Square South, March 1945. Referred to as the “House of Genius,” the rowhouse at 61 Washington Square South was so named for the creative and bohemian writers, musicians, and artists that lived in the boarding house there. Madame Blanchard, a Swiss immigrant, began leasing the home in 1886. She converted the single-family home into a rooming house that only rented to creative types. Considered a cultural landmark, residents included writers Stephen Crane, O. Henry, and opera singer Adelina Patti. The four-story red brick rowhouse, which had been constructed in the early to mid 19th century, was one of a row of similar buildings between West Broadway and Thompson Street, which all occupied a role as literary and artistic residences. In 1937 Madame Blanchard, the house matron died. In the 1940s, no. 61 and its neighbors were purchased by developer Anthony Campagna, who planned to demolish the row for a new apartment complex. In response to this plan, the neighbors and artists pushed back, establishing the Committee for the Washington Square Living Art Center. They hoped to retain the structures for a live and work art space. Despite their efforts, the residents were evicted and the buildings were razed in 1948. The developer did not construct the planned apartment house and instead sold the land to NYU, which built a student center. This failed preservation battle is considered the impetus for passionate preservation efforts by the neighborhood and the eventual designation of the Greenwich Village Historic District in 1969.

23 East 11th Street, ca. 1971.

New York's first major library, the Astor Library, founded on Lafayette Street with money donated by financier John Jacob Astor. The Astor is one of three private libraries that merged to form the New York Public Library in 1895.

From Washington Square Park to the Whitney Museum, there is always a new piece of New York City social and cultural history to discover on a walk through Greenwich Village. The neighborhood is steeped in history. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Village was the center for the LGBT and counterculture movements and still continues to be a welcoming and accepting place for all. With a plethora of jazz clubs and local music venues to stop in and soak up the local scene, you’ll need to stop for a coffee or a quick bite at one of the storied cafes or restaurants along your way. Many of the great dining options around the neighborhood have been around for decades—some boast over a century of service—and whatever cuisine you’re in the mood for, Greenwich Village is sure to serve it up.

The Union Square Theatre, on the southeast side of the Square, was next to the Union Square Hotel. It Opened in 187 as a variety house and was transformed into a legitimate theatre the following year. Originally the most prestigious dramatic house on the Square, it faltered after a series of managers who tried to continue the tradition of serious fare, and became a vaudeville house which enjoyed a successful twenty year run under the management of B.F. Keith and E.F. Albee.

Colonnade Row ca. 1929 Presenting a uniform facade to the street, this building might be best described as a "house of mansions," in that it consisted of a row of individual, privately owned town houses unified behind its superb colonnade. Unfortunately, half of these have been torn down to make way of a warehouse. We can see that New York, with such superb planning as this, once had ideals that might have rendered entire city blocks as handsome as those of Paris.

Moquins Restaurant. ca. 1910. Though today no. 456 Sixth Avenue is located at 11th Street, when this photograph was taken ca. 1910, no. 456 was located further uptown between 27th and 28th Streets. In 1929, during the extension of Sixth Avenue south from Greenwich Village to Canal Street for the Sixth Avenue IND subway, the addresses on the avenue were renumbered.

Sprague Building ca. 1905 On the corner of 12th Street, the highly ornamented 817 Broadway is a visual treat. The building, which turns 120 years old this year (in 2015) , was constructed in 1895 to the designs of prolific architect George B. Post. Post designed several well-known buildings in New York that have long been demolished, so it was nice to come across his name during our survey of the Broadway/University Place/14th Street area. As with many other buildings along Broadway at the turn of the century, 817 Broadway housed clothing manufacturing. This particular structure was designed for Meyer Jonasson & Company, cloak manufacturers, for a cost of $250,000. The building later became known as the Sprague Building. This 1905 photo, taken by Irving Underhill (courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York), shows what the intersection of Broadway and 12th Street looked like 110 years ago. Needless to say, this building made quite a statement. Post was known for his innovative skyscraper designs; his now-demolished New York World Building was, for a time, the tallest in the world. It seems surprising today that this would be considered a skyscraper, but when you look at the surrounding buildings in the photo you can see what an impression this building must have made. An alteration permit from 1940 indicates that the storefronts were changed in that year. The thing that is particularly striking about this building is the way the triangular piers change the look of the facade depending on where you’re looking. There is also the sense that there are two different facade designs – Broadway versus 12th Street – when in fact they are both exactly the same (except that Broadway is only three bays wide).

The church tower was built in 1847 and the nave in 1870 to the designs of renowned architect Napoleon LeBrun. At the time of demolition in 2005 to make way for NYU’s Founder’s Hall, it was one of the only structures in all of New York City to have served what had been the city’s three main religions – it was originally a Protestant Church, later became the first home of Temple Beth El synagogue, and served as an Armenian National Shrine for the Roman Catholic Church. The demolished rectory (blue brick building) dated to the 1840’s.

The Fifth Avenue Hotel, 24 Fifth Avenue ca. 1926 Replacing the Brevoort mansion at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and West 9th Street, the Fifth Avenue Hotel was built in 1926 as a high-class apartment hotel. Apartment hotels provided people with the option of a permanent residence with the provision of housekeeping and cooking services. Typical units ranged in size from one to three rooms and each came with a serving pantry in lieu of a kitchen. This handsome building is 15 stories in height with a limestone, two-story base and brick in two different shades of buff to lend texture to the upper floors. Terra-cotta ornament is featured throughout the exterior colored in blue, brown and gold

The Brittany Hotel ca. 1922 The Brittany dates to 1929, and was built as an apartment hotel. It was consciously and respectfully built in the Gothic Revival style in deference to the magnificent Grace Church across the street — one of New York’s great Gothic landmarks designed by one of America’s most prominent architect’s, James Renwick.

No. 7 Washington Square North, ca. 1925. Built by the Scottish-born merchant John Johnston in 1832-3, No. 7 was the largest house on the block. After Johnston’s death in 1851, the house remained in the family: His son, John Taylor Johnston, would become the first President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the time of Samuel H. Gottscho’s photo, ca. 1925, the residents were Robert W. de Forest and Emily de Forest, the elder Johnston’s granddaughter. According to Robert de Forest, “on the day of \[the Met’s] founding, I became engaged to the daughter of one of the founders and married her as soon as I could.” De Forest would go on to become a Trustee of the museum and, in 1913, its fifth President. Architecturally, all is not as it seems along Washington Square North. A 1939 renovation connected the townhouses of Nos. 7-13 as a modern apartment building, without altering the appearance of their historic facades. The residences, now owned by New York University, are entered on Fifth Avenue.

70 Fifth Avenue (at far right), May 19, 1933. Constructed in 1913 as a speculative office building, the 12-story structure on the corner of Fifth Avenue and West 13th Street was advertised as "office space at a prestige address." In 1914 it became the headquarters for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the offices of its official publication, The Crisis. (The NAACP had previous worked from offices at 20 Vesey Street for the first five years of their existence.)

5 St. Mark’s Place Building Date : 1890 Original Use : Residential/Commercial Original Owner : Joseph Fox Original Architect : Kurtzer & Rohl Description & Building Alterations Originally meant to be a four-family dwelling and storefront, this five-story high building was constructed by Kurtzer & Rohl for Joseph Fox in 1890. The building is four bays wide and features a variety of highly decorative window surrounds made of stone and carved brick. The bracketed cornice has been painted with multiple colors to highlight its details.

Bryant's Minstrel Hall, Later Tony Pastor's New Fourteenth Street Theatre, was the first tenant of Tammany Hall, which was dedicated on July 4, 1868. Audiences flocked there to enjoy the best in entertainment at what became the most famous vaudeville house of the eighties and nineties. It would later be renamed yet again as the Olympic Theatre

Clinton Hall, operated by the New York Mercantile Library, 1891. This building was formerly the Astor Opera House, site of the infamous 1849 Astor Place Riot. On the evening of May 10, 1849, a crowd some 15,000 strong gathered outside the Astor Place Opera House to protest the appearance of the English Shakespearean actor, William Charles Macready. A symbol of British aristocracy, Macready (1793-1873) had not endeared himself to Americans, most of whom he considered boorish and uncultured. In expressing its distaste for Macready, the crowd championed Edwin Forrest (1806-1872), an American-born Shakespearean actor who shared their fierce working-class determination not to be dominated by elite outsiders. Members of the crowd, primarily young males, began pelting the theater with paving stones, the debris from a nearby construction site. The stones rained down on the building and on the unarmed police called in to protect the theater and the English actor. Assault followed assault. The crowd would not be repulsed. Policemen were injured. Finally, the militia were summoned to quell the disturbance. When the echo of gunfire quieted, 23 people lay dead or dying, and over 100 were wounded, some seriously.

801 Broadway, unknown date. The middle of the 19th Century saw an influx of wealthy New Yorkers moving north of Washington Square. To cater to this growing population, lavish new developments began to spring up around Union Square. Gothic Revival religious institutions such as the James Renwick-designed Grace Church and the Richard Upjohn-designed Church of the Ascension (a 2011 GVSHP Village Award winner) served as local landmarks. For the more informal daily routines of wealthy women, stately department stores became the trend. Often known as dry goods stores (to distinguish their goods from those carried in hardware and grocery stores) , these large shopping meccas also served as social gathering places where women could mingle with their peers, have lunch, and, of course, spend money. The original Macy’s store was located on 14th Street (which was landmarked in 2011) and the A.T. Stewart store was on East 10th Street and Broadway. Another important retail presence was James McCreery & Co. James McCreery & Co. Dry Goods opened its doors in 1869. Previously, Mr. James McCreery was employed by Ubsdell, Pierson & Lake, a department store located on Broadway and Grand Streets. He worked his way up to become a partner in the company. Upon Lake’s retirement in 1867, the company was renamed James McCreery & Company. He then commissioned a new store on Broadway and 11th Street that would come to be known as one of the nation’s most esteemed dry goods stores. The building was designed by architect John Kellum, known for his work in the new medium of cast-iron. His reputation stemmed in part from his design of the A.T. Stewart Department Store. The James McCreery & Co. building occupied a large lot fronted by both Broadway and 11th Street. Both facades were cast-iron from the foundry of J. B. & W. W. Cornell Ironworks. The Italianate/French Second Empire style exemplified the extravagant goods housed inside, namely the luxurious silks unavailable elsewhere. Around 1895, McCreery followed the department store trend up to “Ladies’ Mile,” 6th Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets, when he opened his second store on 6th Avenue and 23rd Street. According to CastIronNYC.org, “McCreery sold the \[11th Street] building to the Methodist Book Concern and Missionary Society and leased back space in the lower floors; McCreery repurchased the building in 1889. James McCreery & Co. remained in the building until 1902. By 1910 the original mansard roof had been replaced….and the storefront housed Fleischman’s Restaurant.” The original mansard roof referenced here was lost to a fire on July 3, 1909 and replaced by a one story addition. The upper floors were occupied by factories that produced suits, shoes, and leather wares. In 1971, a fire begun in one of the factories destroyed the interior of the building. Thanks to the cast-iron construction, though, the façade was left unscathed but the top story was lost. The following year, the building was purchased by the Elghanayan brothers. As noted by Daytonian in Manhattan, “When their intentions to demolish the remaining shell and erect a high-rise apartment building in its place were announced, the community protested. Residents rallied along with the Friends of Cast Iron and community groups, appearing before the Board of Appeals. The Board granted variances that made renovating the existing structure to residential use economically feasible.” This project became an early example of a commercial building converted to residential use. During the adaptation, the two setback stories were added at the roof. It was renamed the Cast Iron Building. There are 144 apartments, none of which are identical. The building is currently calendared for landmark designation.

120 East 14th Street, September 2, 1936. Irving Place, south from East 15th to 14th (where it terminates) Streets, showing prominently what was once the City Theatre.

Marion Parker, a graduate of Michigan State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall, and Broad-Exchange buildings, and assisted in designing the Flatiron Building. Elmina Wilson, a graduate of Iowa State University, designed the structure for the Whitehall Annex, the Manhattan Municipal Building, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Tower — the tallest building in the world from 1907 to 1913. Learn more here.

Judson Memorial Church ca. 1935 When McKim, Mead & White brought a note of gaiety to a drab city of brownstones with Madison Square Garden, they introduced the best of the Italian Renaissance to New York. It was followed by an ever increasing series of handsome buildings and churches, of which this group with its campanile is one of the finest.

Washington Square Arch ca. 1925 Originally erected in staff and plaster by Stanford White in celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Washington's inauguration as President, the arch found such popular favor that it was rebuilt in permanent materials. Statues of Washington in war and peace face northward up the Avenue, and it is interesting to note the freedom in design of the panels behind them relative to the otherwise Classical design.

8 Third Avenue & 95 East 10th Street Building Date : 1886 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : S. Thorne & S.F. Jenkins Original Architect : James M. Farnsworth & Co. Description & Building Alterations This five-story old-law tenement still retains its original cornice, but its ground floor storefront has been altered. The quirky Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop occupied this ground floor in the 1920’s and 30’s. In the 1950’s through 1970’s a wine and liquor store occupied the 3rd Avenue and 10th Street storefronts. The building also housed the March Gallery from 1957 until 1960, which was run by Boris Lurie, a Holocaust survivor. Lurie gained national attention in 1960 as one of the founders of the NO!art movement, which stood in opposition to the popular movements of the era such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art.

The Asian-American and Pacific Islander community has a more than 150-year-long history in the United States, dating back to the first wave of Chinese and Japanese immigrants settling on the West Coast. And while nearby neighborhoods like Chinatown or the Lower East Side may have been much more prominent hubs for Asian-Americans, Greenwich Village and the East Village nevertheless can boast a long and impressive roster of individuals, organizations, institutions, and events located here that played an important role in the story of Asian-Americans in our city and country — especially (and unsurprisingly) in relation to civil rights and the arts. It is here that rights were won; discrimination was given a human face; innovations in painting, writing, and sculpture took place; and people gathered to confront the challenges and opportunities presented by the world around them. Here are just a few of those inspiring individuals, places, and associations:

Buildings on the west side of Fourth Avenue, below 9th Street, during construction of the IRT Lexington Avenue Line, December 10, 1902. The buildings were razed the next year, when construction began on 770 Broadway, the massive, full-block annex to the original Wanamaker department store.

Webster Hall, a run-down community center on East 11th Street, was the site of a succession of masquerade balls during the 1910s that enhanced the image of Greenwich Village as a perpetual party place. Patterned after the bacchanals staged in the art-student quarter of Paris, these costume spectacles were conceived initially as fund-raisers for local radical organizations. However, the causes they purported to support receded in importance as the balls grew rowdier, drawing many oglers and uptowners to the Village. At their peak of popularity around 1918, as many as two balls per week were being presented at what the Villagers teasingly had branded "The Devil's Playhouse."

100 Third Avenue Building Date : 1837-39/2012 alt. Original Use : Industrial Original Owner : Ebenezer Pray Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Formerly a four-story, 19th-century building, the facade was completely refaced and an extensive rooftop addition was built between 2009 and 2012. The now seven-story building features a metal facade. In the past this lot held many different functions. In the 1830s, it composed part of was a factory owned by Ebenezer Pray along with Lots 28 and 29. The lots were divided by 1865 and Lot 30 was used as a saloon. By 1899, it was converted into lofts and a concert hall. During the 1900s, different theater companies occupied the space: first the Comet, and then the Lyric Theater in 1936. In the 1960s-70s, it was called the Jewel Theater, known for playing all-male films. In the 1980s it was the Bijou, which played XXX fares until city officials had it closed in 1989.

Judson Memorial Church was named by founder Rev. Edward Judson for his father, Rev. Adoniram Judson,the first American Protestant "foreign missionary," who went to Burma in 1812 and died at sea on the way home with no other memorial.

Grace Church ca. 1893 Completed in 1846, Grace Church in New York is one of the earliest examples of Gothic revival architecture in New York City. Designed by James Renwick, Jr. at the age of twenty three, the building and its campus hold three celebrated distinctions: New York City Landmark, National Register of Historic Places, and National Historic Landmark. Grace Church remains an active Episcopal congregation, with worship throughout the week and abundant opportunities for service and fellowship. Its landmark buildings feature designs by Renwick, a renovation and extension by Heins & La Farge, decoration by Tiffany, windows by Clayton & Bell, along with many other celebrated artisans. The Bicentennial Organ, Opus 65, one of the finest instruments in the city, was completed in September 2013 by Taylor & Boody of Staunton, VA. It's comprised of 97 ranks and over five thousand pipes. Throughout the last decade, Grace Church has undergone significant interior restoration, including the Te Deum window rising above the altar and chancel at the front of the church. In the summer of 2017, the entire expanse of the high ceiling was restored to its original condition. Taken together, this important work will ensure that Grace Church lives on as a Greenwich Village landmark for generations to come.

New York's Doughnut Hut of the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army's connection to donut making originated in 1917 when a troop of 250 American volunteers traveled to the front lines in France during World War I. Stationed to provide spiritual and emotional support for the fighters, the volunteers, primarily women, wanted to give the soldiers a taste of home by serving them home-baked goods. However, they found it difficult to procure the ingredients necessary to bake pastries or cakes and so opted for a simple dessert that wouldn't even require an oven: donuts! Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance began coordinating an effort to provide this taste of home to the soldiers in the trenches. They were quickly able to produce around 2,500 to 9,000 donuts daily, using a cutter fastened out of a condensed milk can and a camphor ice tube. This heroic effort has been credited for donuts' popularity in the states today. During the Great Depression, the Salvation Army used the donut in yet another campaign to boost morale. National Donut Day, celebrated on June 4th, was invented in Chicago in 1938 to fundraise for aid efforts provided by the Salvation Army.

Washington Square Arch Wrapped, 1980. In 1980 artist Francis Hines wrapped the Arch in 8,000 yards of polyester netting. Using rope and fabrics and metal and mechanical devices, Hines' work often included covering large objects, similar to artists Christo and Jean-Claude. Described as “a giant bandage for a wounded Monument,” the work stayed up for six days and aimed to call attention to and raise funds for park improvements.

New York City Fire Engine No. 72 Cinema Village, located at 22 East 12th Street, is the oldest continuously operated cinema in Greenwich Village and one of the oldest continuously operated art cinemas in the city. Information from GVSHP’s research notes the following about the Cinema Village building: The façade appears to date from a 1964 alteration. The NB application shows that the structure was built as a three-story fire engine house in 1898 and designed by Horgan & Slattery for the City of New York. (Horgan & Slattery designed the Butterick Building at the Corner of 6th and Spring Streets in 1903 and other sites around the city during the early twentieth century). The building at 22 East 12th Street remained in use as a firehouse until it was converted to a movie theater in the 1960s. A 1964 Certificate of Occupancy shows it was operating as a “moving picture theater and entrance lobby.” The theater opened on October 5th of that year with Ingmar Bergman’s All These Women. Through most of its early years, Cinema Village was one of the city’s many repertory cinemas, showcasing vintage movies, cult classics, and contemporary favorites on double bills (aka double features) that would usually change three times a week. This once essential programming format has mostly died out in commercial movie theaters throughout New York City and the United States. By the late 1980s – and due to the surge in home video, buy outs by large-name theaters, and real estate development – commercial repertory cinema all but disappeared in New York City. Cinema Village escaped closure, surviving by presenting limited engagements of unconventional first run shows. In the early 1990s, before Jackie Chan, John Woo, Michele Yeoh and their stunt coordinators went to Hollywood, Cinema Village became known, through its annual festivals and other bookings, as the place to see the Hong Kong films of what would soon be acknowledged as a filmmaking golden age.

De Vinne Press Building, ca, 1975. In 1884, owing to the success and growth of the De Vinne Press company, owner and printer Theodore Low De Vinne purchased a large plot of the corner of Lafayette (then) Place and 4th Street. De Vinne commissioned the firm of Babb, Cook, and Willard to design a functional space that would also be impressive from the outside. The resulting eight-story, red brick, Romanesque Revival building, completed in 1886) met all of the press company's wishes. Though obviously a solid industrial building, the massing was lightened by multi-story arched windows and thin brick quoins at the softly curved corner. The interior had little ornamentation and was laid out for efficient productivity. It was here that the press produced the 24-part, six-volume “Century Dictionary,” considered to be De Vinne's greatest accomplishment as a printer. De Vinne Press ceased operations in 1922 and today the red brick building is the Astor Center, an event space and wine shop.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Residence, 23 5th Avenue ca. 1915 Mabel Dodge Luhan was born in Buffalo, New York, to wealthy banker Charles Ganson and his wife Sarah Cook and grew up among the social elite. While living in New York City in 1912, Gertrude Stein introduced her to the Greenwich Village intelligentsia and provided Dodge's introduction to the artists and collectors organizing the Amory Show of modern art, which is considered the event that launched Dodge into action. Dodge organized weekly salons in her apartment at 23 Fifth Avenue (since replaced by the building with the address 25 5th Avenue) to include a mix of intellectuals and artists. John Reed and Max Eastman met with Margaret Sanger and Charles Demuth. Most importantly, the salons often crossed class barriers as Dodge invited those of different classes such as Emma Goldman and Bill Haywood to bring new voices into the conversations she hosted. She wrote that she wanted her guests to mix “in an unaccustomed freedom a kind of speech called Free.” In 1919, she moved to Taos, New Mexico and began a literary colony and hosted a number of influential artists and poets including Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Georgia O'Keeffe, Aldous Huxley, and D.H. Lawrence. She died in 1962 at her home in Taos, which is now a National Historic Landmark.

This is an introductory text to this sample story. From here you can explain the premise of the story or jump right into its context.

Samuel S. Cox Statue, 1891. Louise Lawson's sculpture of Congressman Samuel S. Cox stands eighth feet tall on an eleven-foot tall pedestal and depicts Cox gesturing towards Congress. The passionate orator stood at the triangle between Fourth Avenue and Lafayette Street, just behind the present uptown 6 train station entrance. Cox was known as the "letter-carriers' friend," championing legislation that led to paid benefits for postal employees. The statue was funded by the U.S. Postal Service workers - in fact, the monument credits mail carriers from 188 cities for their contributions. Upon the unveiling of the statue, the New York Tribune wrote: "The likeness is not a good one." The New York Times pondered if it would ever be regarded as a work of art. The Sun's Guide was more direct with its criticism, calling Lawson's work " a stiff, inartistic affair." When Lafayette Street was extended, the Cox statue was moved to Tompkins Square Park, close to Seventh Street and Avenue A. His back is positioned squarely towards the park.

8th Street, at the intersection of Fourth Avenue, Astor Place, and the northern end of Lafayette Street, 1931. The building at right is the Bible House of the American Bible Society. Constructed in 1853 the six-story building occupied a full city block and included a salesroom, a modern printing facility, and a technologically advanced department for book binding. The first cast iron framed building in the city, the facility produced tens of millions of bibles in various languages. This headquarters along with the move of the New York Mercantile Library to a nearby building, attracted other publishing firms, libraries, and bookstores to the area, which became a sort of 'Book Row.' The Bible House was demolished in 1956, and signaled the beginning of the end for the literary and publishing firms in the neighborhood. It was replaced by the Cooper Union Engineering Building, which itself was replace by a 13-story new glass facade building in 2013.

"Taken from above and across Broadway of Grace Church in the snow at 11th Street with adjacent courtyard and parish house," 1902.

Amid the cast-iron facades of commercial and converted residential buildings between Broadway and University Place in the Village resides a large brick and brownstone institutional building. With its Police Athletic League (PAL) banners and Police Department signage over the door, it looks like it could have been an old station house re-purposed for PAL uses. In fact, this building on East 12th Street between University Place and Broadway is one of the city’s oldest surviving school structures and was the workplace of one of the pioneers of higher education for women.

Peter Cooper monument, Cooper Square, ca. 1975. This bronze statue, enthroned under a marble and granite pedestal and canopy, was designed by Augustus Saint-Gardens in collaboration with Stanford White. Completed in 1894 and unveiled in 1897, this collaborative design reflects an inspired synthesis of the two artistic disciplines characterizing the Beaux-Arts tradition. Saint-Gardens, a student at this institution offering free instruction in the sciences and art, admired its heroic founder and chose to memorialize his legacy as an American industrialist, inventor, and philanthropist. After years of wear to the bronze patina and marble from corrosion, oxidation, cracks, pigeon droppings, and vandalism, MAS led the original restoration in 1987 with a grant from Cooper Union, 20th Century Fox Foundation, and Con Edison.

The Hotel Grosvenor Apartments were constructed in 1926 on the site of the 1876 Grosvenor Hotel. The original hotel was one of the earliest businesses in the fashionable mansion district.

Lincoln Building ARCHITECT: R. H. Robertson DATE: 1889-90 STYLE: Romanesque Revival A classic example of the layered arcade design solution, a solution in which New York pioneered, the Romanesque Revival Lincoln Building is representative of an important transitional phase in the history of tall buildings. Using interior metal skeleton skyscraper construction in combination with traditional masonry bearing walls, the building is executed in limestone, granite, and brick, and has exceptionally fine carved and terra cotta detail, which includes the corner griffin, acanthus scrolls, Byzantine capitals, crisp moldings, human and lion heads.

2 Fifth Avenue visible above MacDougal Alley, ca. 1955. Designed by the firm of Emery Roth Sons for the developer Samuel Rudin between 1951 and 1952, 2 Fifth Avenue is a massive 353-apartment building. The major portion of the structure is the large 20-story white-glazed brick building (visible in this photograph). At the south end of the lot the building faces Washington Square Park, and it was designed to complement the low rise structures that face the park. 2 Fifth Avenue here is a five-story red brick building that works with the 19th century mansions that sit to its west. The building has been the home of a number of well-known New Yorkers including former Mayor Ed Koch and writer and activist Larry Kramer. The pair had an acrimonious relationship, as Koch was mayor for the first decade of the AIDS epidemic and his failure to act had serious repercussions for the gay community.

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts was founded in 1859. The institution began as a night school hosting courses in architectural drafting and the applied sciences, also hosting day-time classes in the Female School of Design instructing women in then-new technologies such as photography, telegraph, and typewriting. Peter Cooper's humble beginnings inspired a pedagogical model that offered working-class men and women upward mobility, at the same time instilling a sense of social responsibility that would create highly active citizens.

Washington Square Arch, ca. 1961. Clipping on the back of the photograph is entitled, "Guarding Washington Square Fountain Yesterday." The caption reads: "Police surround fountain in Washington Square to prevent troubadours from singing.

59 Copper Square, ca. 1975 Completed in 1867 by the architect Carl Pfeiffer, the French Second Empire building was constructed for the Metropolitan Savings Bank. The corner plot has two impressive facades, which, given the width of Cooper Square and the open plaza across the intersection, can "be advantageously viewed at the same time," (according to the 1969 LPC designation report). In 1937 the building was sold to the First Ukrainian Evangelical Pentecostal Church, a Ukrainian-language parish. In 1960, though a merger, the church became the First Ukrainian Assembly of God, which it remains today.

Statue of the Marquis de Lafayette, Union Square, March 20, 1936. S. Klein, a discount department store, the Union Square Savings Bank and the tower of the Consolidated Edison Building are visible in the background. Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s bronze sculpture, a gift from prominent French residents, was installed in Union Square on September 6, 1876. Bartholdi is best known for another iconic, French-funded civic sculpture: the Statue of Liberty.

East 9th Street. Street Bridge, Wanamaker Building, 1923. Called the "Bridge of Progress" this sky bridge connected the 1862 Stewart department store building (which became a Wanamaker store in 1896) and the 1907 Wanamaker "Annex" Building between 8th and 9th Streets. These two buildings were lavish shopping destinations for the first half of the 20th century. In 1954 the store closed and the older north building was set to be demolished but the interior and sky bridge were first destroyed by a fire 1956.

The Brevoort Hotel and "Mark Twain House" on Fifth Avenue, between 8th and 9th Streets, October 24, 1935. Berenice Abbott’s 1935 photo captures lower Fifth Avenue in its waning days as a boulevard of the stately townhouses. The 27-story apartment building at 1 Fifth Avenue (extreme right) is a harbinger of the developments to come. The corner townhouse at left was known as the “Mark Twain House,” but its historical significance long predates the author’s brief residence in the winter of 1904 (or 1906, sources differ). The house — called “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York” in the 1969 Greenwich Village Historic District Designation Report — was built by architect James Renwick Jr. for his family’s estate. The light-colored building at right (actually a set of multiple townhouses connected by a shared cornice) is the Brevoort Hotel, named for Henry Brevoort, Sr., the owner of a large farm north of 9th Street that predated Greenwich Village development. Brevoort, a vehement opponent of the grid plan, successfully persuaded the city to bend Broadway at Tenth Street to accommodate his property. In 1953, the entire block was razed for the construction of the Brevoort superblock apartment building.

The three townhouses combined to form the new museum building.

Washington Square Arch with No. 1 Fifth Avenue behind. March 3, 1929. The Washington Square Arch, a Tuckahoe marble triumphal arch designed by Stanford White, commemorates the centennial of George Washington’s inauguration as President. William Rhinelander Stewart, a Washington Square resident, had erected a wood and plaster arch in 1889. After Stewart’s temporary tribute proved popular, White was commissioned to design a permanent monument, which was completed in 1892. The arch includes a little-used 102-step spiral staircase inside its western end, leading to an skylit attic room and rooftop.

Union Square West, north from and including the southwest corner of 15th Street, 1904.

Washington Square Arch with 2 Fifth Avenue (left) and 1 Fifth Avenue (right) visible in the background, ca. 1955.

Giuseppe Garibaldi monument, Washington Square Park, ca. 1975.

Hotel Earle, ca. 1902-08. Named for its owner, Earle L’Amoreaux, the slim, eight-story Hotel Earle went up on Waverly Place, just west of Washington Square, in 1902. Six years later, L’Amoreaux expanded the hotel by building an identical tower next door. In 1917, he added an additional floor and connected to a further adjoining building at the corner of Macdougal Street. As Washington Square and Greenwich Village transition from an elite enclave to a Bohemian district, many notable artists were either guests or residents, including Ernest Hemingway, Dylan Thomas, and Bob Dylan. In 1986, the Earle was renamed the Washington Square Hotel.

63 Fourth Avenue Building Date: Mid-19th c./1927 alt. Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Unknown Original Architect : Unknown Description & Building Alterations Lot 13 is a modern style building with a light panel design. Although the current building’s construction date is unknown, an alteration permit indicates it was used as a store and dwelling in 1927. Permits issued in 1954 and 1955 suggest that the building mainly consisted of stores and showrooms.

Lafayette Hotel, February 3, 1937. The Lafayette Hotel consisted of three historic townhouses which functioned as the hotel (first at the Martin Hotel, then the Lafayette) from the 1880s until 1953 when they were demolished. During and after the First World War, the hotel became a favorite gathering location for airmen (both American and French stationed in New York). The owner of the Lafayette, Raymond Orteig, was the person who offered up the prize money for the first trans-Atlantic flight, won by Charles Lindbergh in 1927. The ground floor cafe was a well-known spot for writers and artists of the bohemian movement. The building was depicted not only by Berenice Abbott in this photograph by also by painter John Sloan.

Washington Square Park, April 16, 1936. What today might be a scene of benches covered in lodging students, a dog park, and buskers trying to make a dime, was once a potters field. In 1797, New York City bought a plot of land that had once been a farm to create a potter’s field—a burial ground for the indigent, poor, criminals, and victims of epidemic. Occupying what is now the eastern two-thirds of the park, the burial grounds remained open for more than 30 years. The area also hosted a hangman's gallows used by a nearby prison. By the 1810s the potter's field had largely been filled to its capacity (unsurprising with yellow fever epidemics in 1797, 1798, 1801, and 1803). Burial spaces for the Cedar Street and Pearl Street Presbyterian churches were also located nearby in the early 19th century. In 1827 the area was declared a public square and over the next century became the park as we know it today.

39 Fifth Avenue ca. 1923 Emery Roth designed this 14-story apartment building, his first in Greenwich Village, in 1922. It was the first of many of the larger apartment houses which would line this part of Fifth Avenue, typically replacing the 19th-century mansions which originally lined the thoroughfare. It is clad in Flemish bond brick and is restrained in its ornament with the exception of the multi-colored terra-cotta loggias at the third and the eleventh and twelfth floors.

120 East 12th Street, ca. 1975. The parish of St. Ann's was established in 1852 in the fashionable neighborhood near Bond Street, in what is now NoHo. The church began a habit of occupying churches that had been constructed for other, earlier congregations when they moved into a sanctuary on on East 8th Street, opposite Lafayette Place. In the 1860 the congregation had outgrown their space and also wished to constructed a school. The parish purchased the plot at 120 East 12th Street, which included a building constructed in 1847 for a Christian church, which had subsequently been converted to a synagogue. St. Ann's retained the original 1847 facade but demolished the rest of the structure to build their own church and an adjacent school. Dedicated on New Year’s Day, 1871, the church was a spectacular French Gothic style church, a fitting venue for one of the wealthiest congregations in the city. Over the next century the church remained a vibrant part of the community, becoming a shrine in 1929 (they held a relic of St. Ann, a bit of her finger bone). Re-established as St. Ann’s Armenian Rite Catholic Cathedral in the early 1980s, it was one of the last churches to have traditional, pre-Vatican II, Latin masses. The Archdiocese announced their intention to close the church and sell the property in 2003 and by the following year the doors were shut. Despite the efforts of preservationists and the community, the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to designate the building. The lot was sold in 2005 with plans drawn up for a new 26-story NYU dorm. In the end all but the facade was demolished (supposedly as a concession to the preservationists) and the new tower was constructed. In the shadow of the tower is the disembodied front of the more than century and half old church.

The Renwick, 808 Broadway, ca. 1978. Named for James Renwick, Jr., the celebrated architect of Grace Church, this mixed-use Gothic Revival building was designed by Renwick’s firm — Renwick, Aspinwall & Russell — in 1887. Renwick himself is unlikely to have been involved in the design, which features repeated arch motifs echoing the facade of Grace Church next door. Over the years, the Renwick’s tenants included a variety of clothiers and manufacturers of consumer goods, with a storefront available at street level (in recent years it has been occupied by a Halloween-themed costume store). In 1981, the building was converted for residential use.

Marquis de Lafayette Statue, ca. 1917 Located at a prominent site of protest and political gathering, this statue, designed by Henry Kirke Brown, with assistance by John Quincy Adams Ward and Richard Upjohn, depicts this founding father as an equestrian hero. Celebrating the General's arrival in New York on November 25, 1783, the day the British troops evacuated the city after a seven-year occupation, the monument was unveiled on July 4, 1856. It remains one of the earliest examples of bronze statues cast in the United States and a unique record of nineteenth-century American foundry techniques. After over a century of vandalism, corrosion, and missing elements, such as a sword that once fit into the scabbard, MAS's Adopt-A-Monument program facilitated restoration efforts in 1989 with a grant from the Glick Organization.

The Rhinelander House, Washington Square North, January 1950. Built for William C. Rhinelander in 1940, the Greek Revival mansion at Washington Square North and Fifth Avenue became a preservation flashpoint after the Rhinelander Real Estate Company sold the property for development in 1944. After a half-decade in limbo, the house was demolished in 1951, over the objections of the nascent Washington Square Committee, formed in January 1950. Today, the nineteen-story 2 Fifth Avenue stands on the site.

Located in the NoHo Historic District, this full block building at 770 Broadway was built in the Renaissance Revival style and was originally home to the department store, Wanamaker’s and its warehouse when this stretch of Broadway was a bustling commercial center at the beginning of the 20th century.

Man playing chess in Washington Square Park; unknown date.

Liquor Raid at Luigi's, Greenwich Village Progressive-era and Prohibition reformers often took aim at saloons, arguing that spent wages and alcohol consumption hurt working-class families. While $60,000 of illegal liquor was confiscated from Luigi’s in the raid shown here, the owner was not charged, as he claimed that the alcohol was left over from before Prohibition. Image Info: January 24, 1923 CREDIT: Museum of the City of New York, Cityana Collection, gift of Mr. Benjamin Blom, 91.69.20.

52 West 9th Street ca. 1933 52 West 9th Street has a rather unusual studio window. According to the designation report for the Greenwich Village Historic District, this house was built in 1848 for physician Austin Sherman. But the unusual studio renovation took place some time in the early 20th century. Here the studio is not only unusually high (seemingly a nearly double-height space), but is recessed enough to supply a balcony with a balustrade for the lucky resident.

Most of us remember the famous line from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller, Rear Window, “Meet me in the bar at the Albert Hotel,” delivered hauntingly by Jimmy Stewart to Raymond Burr. Today the building is a co-op complex comprised of four distinct structures functioning as a single entity and occupying the entire blockfront of University Place between East 10th Street and East 11th Street. The oldest of the buildings dates back to the 1870s, while another section was built by one of New York’s greatest and most celebrated architects. Collectively, the four buildings of the Albert Hotel have hosted a nearly unrivaled list of historically significant figures over the years. In 2012 the complex was listed on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places — a largely honorific designation.

61 Fifth Avenue, ca. 1983. 61 Fifth Avenue first opened in 1938 as a Schrafft's luncheonette. The cozy restaurant, framed by a grand staircase, semi-circular open ceiling, and heaps of flowers, gift baskets and boxes of chocolate, was designed by architects Bloch & Hesse. By 1969, Schrafft's became the “official dining spot” for what New York Magazine then called “L.O.L.’s,” or Little Old Ladies. With the hope of reinventing its image, the owners hired Andy Warhol to film a trio of young girls in miniskirts with the tagline, “Have you seen the little old ladies in Schrafft's lately?" for a commercial. Despite efforts to appear hip, the restaurant closed in the 1970s and was replaced by a Brew Burger. Then came The Lone Star Café. Known for its “honkytonk” live music and the giant 40-foot iguana statue that sat on its roof, the Texas-themed cafe and club was the top venue for country music in New York from 1976 to 1989. Mr. Fuji's Tropicana opened at 61 Fifth Avenue in the early nineties, but only remained open for a short period of time. The club was famous for its tie to Vin Diesel, who is rumored to have worked the front door as a bouncer. A Korean deli with a secret karaoke bar on the second floor opened after Mr. Fuji’s shut down, and following that, a 24-hour convenience store. In 2006, the building was destroyed in a fire. The land was sold to a developer who recently erected a 10-story condominium at 61 Fifth Avenue. Designed by architect Alta Indelman, the building today is surrounded by a fence that has become a showcase for street art.

Old Grapevine Tavern ca. 1895 On August 6, 1966, the first known recording of “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was made by the Miracles. Written by Motown pioneers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the song was re-recorded several times; Marvin Gaye’s cover landed on the top of the charts for seven weeks in early 1969. While the song now a Motown standard, the famous saying about receiving important news or information through a person-to-person chain of communication significantly pre-dates the Motown era. In fact, plentiful evidence and credible sources trace it back to a beloved tavern on the corner of 6th Avenue and 11th Street in Greenwich Village. A wooden two and a half story house built in the 1700s that stood at the southeast corner of this intersection housed a saloon called the Hawthorne. Originally a private home, by the early 19th century it had become a refuge for those escaping the beehive of activity in Lower Manhattan. But by the late 19th century, as the city grew around it, the tavern took on a different role. In 1877, the Tavern became a noted hangout for lawyers and politicians, including future presidents Teddy Roosevelt and Chester A. Arthur. There they shared information from and speculated about the many goings-on at the nearby courthouse, and the tavern became known as the best place to hear political gossip in New York. Also in the 19th century was the growth of an ever-expanding grapevine along the 11th Street façade of the building. So prominent was the climbing plant that the Hawthorne simply came to be known as “The Grapevine.” And thus, at least according to legend, this fertile ground for gossip and reconnaissance became the source for the figure of speech that information could be “heard through the grapevine.” In 1915, the old Grapevine Tavern was demolished to make way for the six-story apartment building which now stands at 78 West 11th Street.

Union Square Park, 1902. In 1815, the former potter's field at the intersection of Bowery and Bloomingdale Road (Broadway) was designated Union Place, a public commons. Official establishment as a park came in 1833, and re-designed in 1839 to adopt the spirit of the public spaces dotting the London city map. Development in the surrounding neighborhood accelerated during the middle decades of the 19th century, as Manhattan's fashionable residential and commercial districts shifted uptown. In 1872, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the celebrated landscape architects behind Central Park and Prospect Park, were enlisted to redesign Union Square. The Olmsted and Vaux design is still evident in today's park, with its emphasis on space for public assembly and greenery.

Van Tassell and Kearney Auction Ring ca. 1910 Did you know that 126 East 13th Street is believed to be the last surviving horse and carriage auction mart building in New York City? It was threatened with demolition until GVSHP got the Landmark Preservation Commission to hold an emergency hearing on landmarking the building on September 7, 2006, which started the long path toward designation of the building as an official New York City Landmark. A once-common building type in New York, these marts are distinguished by their high central halls, where horses were paraded around on rings for potential buyers to review. This particular survivor also has an unusually distinguished history. It was built in 1903 by Jardine, Kent, and Jardine, one of the era’s most distinguished architectural firms. According to contemporary reports in the New York Times, in the mart’s early years “the Belmonts and the Vanderbilts and other families transacted their horse affairs” there. Later, the building was converted to a machine shop, and there according to the New York Times during World War II women were taught “assembly and inspection work, the reading of blueprints, and various mechanical aspects needed in defense industries.” Most recently, the building served as the studio of Frank Stella, one of the 20th century’s most notable and influential artists. Few buildings in New York could be said to have had such a distinguished history, intersecting with so many key phases of our city’s development and transformation.

Cooper Union This building was specially designed to house Peter Cooper's great philanthropy- a trade school for boys in New York who could not otherwise afford such specialized training. It is notable for the early use of rolled-iron sections produced by Cooper, Hewitt & Co. at Trenton Jersey- Cooper's own rolling mills. Cooper put off the completion of the school to roll beams for Astor's new library on Lafayette Street and for Harper & Brothers' publishing house on Franklin Square.

Salmagundi Club ca. 1965 As written in the designation report, the four-and-a-half story Italianate style building at 47 Fifth Avenue was constructed in 1852-1853 for Irad Hawley, the president of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, which had yards along the Hudson River in the West Village. The building’s arresting entrance, up a flight of wide steps, is framed in original stone ornament and flanked by French doors that open onto cast-iron balconies. And, the report indicates, the inside is no less stunning. The first floor of the building showcases Italianate-style carved marble chimney pieces, rose wood doors, and an arcaded Corinthian screen dividing the front and back parlors. The dining room features elements of the Gothic Revival style and is one of the few remaining interiors in New York to do so. The Salmagundi Club, by 1969, was one-of-a-kind, the last architectural relic of the swath of mid-nineteenth century Anglo-Italianate brownstone mansions that once lined the lower portion of Fifth Avenue. Its dignified, former northern neighbors at 49 and 51 Fifth Avenue were razed to make way for a 19-story apartment building, built-in 1929 by Thomas W. Lamb, but the Salmagundi Club stayed put. Beyond the architectural significance of 47 Fifth Avenue, the designation report cites the building’s cultural significance as a key reason for its designation. The Salmagundi Club, before moving into its longtime home, was organized in 1871 for the “the promotion of social intercourse among artists and the advancement of the art” and named for the “Salmagundi Papers,” a satirical magazine published by short-story writer Washington Irving in which he coined the term “Gotham.” The Club purchased the grand Fifth Avenue mansion in 1917, and has resided there ever since. The designation report credits the maintenance of the historic building to the club, which had been, and continues to be, a reliable and generous steward. Notable members of the Club include illustrators Edwin Abbey, N.C. Wyeth, and Howard Pyle; Impressionist painters William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam; Arts and Crafts pioneer John LaFarge; designer Louis C. Tiffany; Hudson River School artist Thomas Moran; and architect Stanford White. But that’s not all there is to celebrate today. The building is not only a historic cross-section of Fifth Avenue history and an esteemed center of orbit in the city’s art world. It is noteworthy also as one of the first individual landmarks named and protected by the city. The designation report is a mere page long, absolutely minuscule compared to the over 50-page reports put together today, but it set a crucial precedent in New York City’s landmarking process. And, from April 1, 1982 until 1999, Village Preservation’s offices were located in the building’s attic!

In 1981, a “rare cancer” first seen in a group of gay men primarily in New York and San Francisco eventually became a widespread epidemic more accurately known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This curated collection includes the residences of influential AIDS activists and artists, venues where fundraising events were held, and meeting and demonstration locations of AIDS organizations.

View up Fifth Avenue from the top of the Washington Square Arch, ca. 1908.

100 East 12th Street ca. 1925 This 12-story terra cotta and brick building was completed in 1920. It was designed by Starrett & Van Vleck Architects as manufacturing lofts for the International Tailoring Company with a retail ground floor. In 1938, an adjoining 3-story building on the northeast corner of the lot was demolished by the W.P.A. and turned into a loading dock. In 1955, the dock gave way to a parking lot. Starrett and Van Vleck became known for their designs of department stores, including those buildings for Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Lord & Taylor (their first department store commission, which is now a designated New York City Landmark).

830 Broadway This eleven-story brick building was constructed in 1897 for owner Ferdinand H. Mela, and designed by the architectural firm of Cleverdon & Putzel in the Renaissance Revival style. On January 1, 1898, the Real Estate Record and Guide noted that “Builder F.H. Mela has just completed a new 11-story mercantile building at no. 830 Broadway which contains several features that are likely to be imitated, notably the arrangement of stairs and elevators. Mr. Mella reports a good demand for lofts, and the fact that more than half of his new building is already rented testifies forcibly that the inquirers have meant business.” During the 20th century, a number of businesses were located at No. 830, largely within the clothing industry. Beginning in the 1970’s, artists occupied the building for studio and living space.

Triangle Fire, March 25, 1911 When an accidental fire raced through the top three stories of the Triangle Waist Company factory in Greenwich Village, hundreds of blouse makers escaped on elevators and stairs. Others were blocked by a locked exit door or trapped on the fire escape. Firemen’s ladders could not reach them, and dozens of people jumped to their deaths. Twenty-one-year-old pipefitter Victor Joseph Gatto witnessed the fire from Washington Square Park. Over 30 years later, he painted this vivid depiction of the fire from memory. Image Info: Victor Joseph Gatto, 1944-1945, oil on canvas CREDIT: Museum of the City of New York, Gift of Mrs. Henry L. Moses, 54.75

Palladium, ca. 1985.

New York University Main Building, February 1928. Constructed in 1892-1895 as the Main Building of the New York University campus replaced a previous 1835 Gothic Revival structure on the site. Alfred Zucker, the German born architect of the building retained the foundation and a number of elements of the early structure. The impetus for this new building was perhaps less pedagogical than one might imagine. According to the AIA Guide the new building was constructed to accommodate a well paying tenant, the American Bank Note Company. That firm occupied the lower seven floors while the upper floors were used as the main administrative offices and the schools of law, commerce and pedagogy. Following the end of the First World War, the increase in student body necessitated the school taking over the entirely of the building. In 2002 a bequest of $150 million by Julius Silver, a College of Arts and Science alumnus, prompted the building to be renamed the Silver Center for Arts and Science.

Fleischmann’s Vienna Model Bakery, Broadway and 10th Street, 1898. Sometime after 1876, Louis Fleischmann built his bakery on Broadway, in the shadow on James Renwick’s Grace Church (left). The bakery, which sold a popular “new dough” style of bread made with yeast, also operated a restaurant and rented storefront space to other vendors. Beyond baking technique, Louis Fleischmann’s influence endures in an evocative turn of phrase: the bread line. Noticing the indigent New Yorkers who gathered near the bakery, Fleischmann instituted a practice whereby the bakery would give away its unsold loaves at the close of business. When hungry men lined up for their daily loaves, the phrase was born. Fleischmann’s Broadway bakery remained open until 1908, when the property was razed, having been acquired by Grace Church. Today, the Fleischmann name lives on in a brand of baker’s yeast available in supermarkets.

Alamo Sculpture, ca. 1980. The Alamo, also called the Astor Place Cube or just The Cube is an eight-foot-square cube mounted on one corner that sits in Astor Place and has become an icon of the neighborhood. Created by artist Bernard (Tony) Rosenthal and installed in 1967, the work was originally a temporary piece in the outdoor art show called "Sculpture and the Environment" organized by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. It was so popular that citizens petitioned the city to allow it to remain. Spinning the Cube (which takes more than one person) has become a sort of token New York City experience. The Cube was placed in storage between 2015 and 2016 during the reconstruction of Astor Place. It made a triumphant return in November of 2016 as the centerpiece of a new, permanent, pedestrian plaza.

The painter and writer Jack Dowling, at the Ninth Avenue station of the Third Avenue El, near Cooper Union; 1953. Dowling graduated from Cooper Union in 1957 before going abroad to teach and paint in Italy. In the mid-1960s, Dowling began to gain recognition in New York's art scene. In 1971, after losing the lease to the East Village loft where he lived and worked, Dowling moved into the Westbeth Artists Housing complex, where he later directed the in-house gallery.

840 Broadway ca. 1927 840 Broadway was constructed for garment industry tenants in 1899-1901. This 12-story, steel-frame Renaissance Revival style building was designed by Robert Maynicke, and is a prominent reminder of Broadway’s turn-of-the-20th century development below Union Square. The report tells us that permits to construct 840 Broadway were filed with the Bureau of Buildings in December 1899. Construction began in 1900 and was completed in 1901. The structural framing was fabricated by the Hecla Ironworks, possibly at their North 11th Street Williamsburg factory During the first half of the 20th century, the ground (or first) floor was leased to companies that sold men’s clothing. Thompson & Company was first, signing a ten-year lease in 1899. A 1901 ad described 840 Broadway as “The Thompson Building.” It was the clothier’s uptown branch, selling “haberdashery and hats, as well as men’s and youth’s clothing.” The store closed at the end of 1907. Lester & Lester, another men’s clothing company, was the next tenant, followed by the Goodyear Waterproof Company, which sold raincoats and waterproof apparel. Goodyear operated in this location until 1953.” The architect of 840 Broadway was the German-born Robert Maynicke (1848- 1913). He took night courses at the Cooper Union (also a New York City Landmark). He supervised the construction of the New York Times (1888-89), Equitable (1886- 89), World/Pulitzer (1889-90), Union Trust (1889- 90) and Havemeyer (1891-93) Buildings, as well as the New York Produce (1881-84) and New York Cotton (1883-85) Exchanges. Further south on Broadway and Waverly Place, Maynicke was also responsible for the Guggenheimer Building. Maynicke was an expert on the structural properties of iron and steel and, consequently, tall buildings. Not just an engineering expert, Maynicke used various types of classical ornament here. The upper stories have elaborate terra-cotta details that draw from Greek, Roman, Renaissance, and Baroque sources. Such features include wreaths, garlands, margents, fasces, rosettes, banded arches with keystones, and banded Ionic columns with fluting.

A hot spot for writers and artists, this bar is credited as an important incubator of the Abstract Expressionist movement in the mid century. The Cedar Street Bar first opened in 1866 on (unsurprisingly) Cedar Street in lower Manhattan. After nearly a century and a number of moves further uptown, in 1964 the bar relocated to 82 University Place (seen here) after its venue a few blocks to the south was demolished for apartment buildings. While at its previous location at 24 University Place (1945-1964) the Cedar Tavern became a popular watering hole for many Abstract Expressionists. Artist Robert Motherwell held weekly salons in his nearby studio and this was the closed spot for a drink after the meetings. This group of patrons included Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Michael Goldberg, Landes Lewitin, Aristodimos Kaldis, and others of the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. Beat Generation writers and artists, including Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Bob Dylan, also frequented Cedar Tavern. The 82 University Place location closed in 2006 and its century-old, 50-foot mahogany bar was sold and transported to a bar in Austin, Texas.

80 Fifth Avenue, an elaborately-detailed Renaissance Revival style office building constructed in 1907-1908 by the architecture firm of Buchman and Fox, has been a striking presence at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 14th Street for well over a century. The stunning architecture would be enough to warrant landmark designation of the 17-story office, store, and loft building, which has housed law firms, clothing and jewelry shops, magazines and real estate offices, a school, and civic organizations over it’s more than one hundred ten year history. But beginning in 1973, the top floor was also home to the National Gay Task Force, the country’s first national LGBT rights organization, during its early period when it made groundbreaking advances — the first in fact ever made — for LGBT rights on the federal level. This building was constructed in 1908 to be used as manufacturing and office space. Known as both 80-82 Fifth Avenue and 2-4 West 14th Street, its facades facing two of New York’s busiest streets is full of stately embellishments. This beautiful building’s lower and upper levels feature decorative floral and geometric ornamentation, elaborate cornices, and angled bay windows on the third floor. Ornamented pilasters are found at either side of these windows, with slightly more austere middle floors and in its arched windows and elaborate ornamentation at the top story. The National Gay Task Force, now renamed as The National LGBTQ Task Force, works to advance full freedom, justice, and equality for LGBTQ people. The organization is the country’s oldest national LGBTQ advocacy group. The founding members of the Task Force included Dr. Howard Brown, Martin Duberman, Barbara Gittings, Ron Gold, Frank Kameny, Nathalie Rockhill, and Bruce Voeller. They were inspired by the Stonewall uprising and the burgeoning LGBTQ rights movements in the Village. Among the Task Force’s accomplishments during the time it was located at 80 Fifth Avenue included getting the American Psychiatric Association to end its classification of homosexuality as a mental illness; getting the federal government to end its ban on employing gay or lesbian people in any federal agencies (though a guarantee not to discriminate based upon sexual orientation was not implemented until decades later); and brokering the first meeting of gay rights advocates with the White House in 1977.

Grace Church at night, ca. 1975. Grace Church was first organized in 1805, and they built a church at Broadway and Rector Street three years later. The parish moved uptown in 1843. They commissioned 24-year-old James Renwick Jr.—in his first major work—to design their new edifice. The cornerstone of the French Gothic Revival masterpiece was laid in 1843, and the church was consecrated in 1846. The stone of the church was Sing Sing marble (cut by inmates of the infamous prison). At the time of completion, the steeple was built of plain wood (a cost saving measure). They also used plaster and lath (and not cut stone) for some of the interiors—it was quite the scandal! Over the next few decades, through the generous support of various congregants, most notably philanthropist Catharine Lorillard Wolfe, the church complex was expanded. The new features included a beautiful stained glass East Window (1878), a small chapel next to the church (1879), and a stone spire (1883). Additions and updates continued into the early 20th century. In the second half of the 19th century, the church was one of New York's most fashionable. Minister and author Matthew Hale Smith wrote in 1869 that, "To be married or buried within its walls has been ever considered the height of felicity." Pews within the society church were traditionally rented at a premium, though this practice was abolished in the 1960s. According to the Municipal Art Society, it is "one of the few buildings in New York that closes a vista." Visible from far south on Broadway and prominent at its location where Broadway begins its path northwestward, the church is one of the most significant examples of Gothic Revival architecture in America. It underwent a multi-million dollar rehabilitation project in the mid-1990s which focused on the restoration of crumbling marble exterior and the stained glass windows.

48 Third Avenue Built in 1886 by Samuel Thorne and S. F. Jenkins as a tenement with stores, 48 Third Avenue cost $15,000 to construct and was designed by James M. Farnsworth. Samuel Thorne (1835-1915) was kind of a big deal in his day — he was President of the Pennsylvania Coal Company, and served on the boards of Bank of America, the New York Life Insurance Company, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As a member of tony private social clubs, the Union League and the Metropolitan Club , he regularly rubbed shoulders with J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilts. Appropriately enough, Thorne’s building at 48 Third Avenue was no less distinguished, in spite of it being a tenement located in what was then a hard-scrabble, working-class district. Compared to the heavier ornament typical of other Victorian era buildings, architect James M. Farnsworth (1847-1917) used a light and purposeful approach to the building’s detailing. Recessed mortar joints and belt courses wrapping the building emphasize its structure. The patterns of its cornice imply more abstract, naturalistic forms than the classically derived ornament more typically found on tenement cornices from this era. However, the most richly detailed element of the building is the gorgeous, balconette-like iron fire escapes on the 10th Street elevation, more reminiscent of New Orleans that New York. What kind of talent created such a building? James Mace Farnsworth worked as a draftsman for Calvert Vaux, the man who, along with Frederick Law Olmsted, designed Central Park and a number of buildings for the Children’s Aid Society. Later, with his partner Benjamin Sillman, Jr., Farnsworth designed office and institutional buildings including the Morse Building (1878-80) at 138-142 Nassau Street, and the Temple Court Building (1881-83) at 3-9 Beekman Street, both designated New York City landmarks. Red brick buildings in the Romanesque Revival style seemed to be a favorite motif. From 1883-1897, Farnsworth also practiced independently and one of his most notable works was the renovation and additions to the Bennett Building (1872-73, 1890-92, and 1894) at 93-99 Nassau Street, one of New York’s finest and largest Second Empire cast iron buildings. On the applications submitted to construct 48 Third Avenue, Farnsworth listed his address as 218 West 23rd Street. Can you guess what iconic New York City building that is? Give up or did you Google it? Yep, it’s the Chelsea Hotel. Hmm, wonder if Farnsworth was inspired by the then-recently completed (1885) Chelsea Hotel’s lovely balconies (the work of the Cornell Foundry)?

Temporary staircases for buildings along Fourth Avenue, June 5, 1906. Stations between City Hall and and 33rd Street on the IRT Lexington Avenue line opened in October, 1904. In this photo 1906 photo, it’s unclear what work is being done, though the placement of the wooden stairways suggests sidewalk work.

Townhouses on West 10th Street, October 11, 1940. (Note the growth of the tree in front of No. 17!)

The Astor Library opened to the public in 1854, and in 1895 consolidated with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Foundation to become the New York Public Library (NYPL). During this time, its building was expanded twice, in 1859 and 1881. In 1898, the Astor Library became part of the new public library at 42nd Street. Subsequently, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society purchased the building to use it as a "receiving station, aid center, dormitory, and synagogue for thousands of newly arrived immigrants." (Christopher Gray in the New York Times) In this iteration, the stacks were removed and the interior was largely reworked by architect Benjamin Levitam. The building was sold once more, in 1965, and just as the developer who bought the structure planned for demolition, it was saved by the newly established Landmarks Preservation Commission. The Commission arranged for the producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival, Joseph Papp, to step in to purchase the building. And thus, the present-day program for the building was born. Aside from major interior reimaginations, the building's front stoop, as the 1875 photo above shows, was restored (though with considerable stylistic difference), to re-establish the connection between Lafayette Street and the building entrance.

Streetcar tracks alongside the high pressure water system trench on Union Square West; undated photo. At left is the shop of Victor S. Flechter, violin dealer, at No. 23 Union Square West. Flechter was not a merchant of high moral character: He twice ran afoul of the law during the 1890s: first for selling an imitation violin as a Gasparo Duiffopruggar original; and again in 1896, for possessing a Stradivarius violin stolen from the late Prof. Jean Joseph Bott, for which he was sentenced to one year in prison.

8 and 10 West 8th Street. This pair was building in 1838 (along with nos. 12 and 14 to the east). In 1914, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney turned 8 West 8th Street into the Whitney Studio Gallery. In 1931, she turned nos. 8,10, and 12 into the first home of the newly established Whitney Museum.

Washington Square Art Show; ca. 1950.

The University Place Presbyterian Church was officially established in 1845 by members of the Duane Street Presbyterian Church who wished for a community further uptown. With more than $60,000 in donations (or subscriptions), the new parish purchased a plot at the corner of University Place and 10th Street from the managers of Sailors' Snug Harbor who owned this and much of the surrounding acreage. The parish commissioned famed architect Richard Upjohn to design their new home. Rendered in an English Gothic style with soaring spire, the church was dedicated in June 1845. In the ensuing decades, the once wealthy surrounding neighborhood began to decline as well-to-do New Yorkers moved further uptown. The church merged with Mercer Street Church in 1870 while continuing to use this edifice. Further financial struggles due to declining membership necessitated the 1918 merger of this church and the Madison Square Presbyterian into the nearby Old First Presbyterian Church on Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. In 1927 the old church was razed and in its place, the Devonshire House, a 14-story apartment building, was erected the following year.

Northwest corner of 14th Street and Fourth Avenue, ca. 2001.

The Sinclair Building, March 2, 1955. Named for the Sinclair House, a hotel that occupied this site as early as 1840, the Sinclair office building was built in 1908 by architect W.H. Gompert. The building was converted for residential use in 1980. At the corner, an entrance to the 8th Street station of the BMT Broadway line is visible.

Lincoln Funeral on Broadway, 1865. This 1865 photograph of President Lincoln's funeral procession shows Broadway looking north from 13th Street. The large home on corner is that of Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt, grandfather of future president Teddy Roosevelt. Cornelius was a very successful plate glass importer and he owned the entire blockfront of Broadway from Union Square to 13th Street. In the 1940s a filmmaker and author named Stefan Lorant was putting together a pictorial biography of Lincoln. Upon closer inspection of this photograph he noticed two small figures in the second-story window. Lorant proposed that the two children were Teddy and his brother. He was able to ask Roosevelt's widow, Edith Carow Roosevelt, who was then in her late 80s, and she confirmed that it was very likely them.

The Ritz (at Webster Hall), ca. 1985. In 1980, a club called The Ritz (1980-1992) took over the space, and performers such as U2, Guns & Roses, Depeche Mode, Ozzy Osbourne, Run-DMC, and Duran Duran played gigs there. In the 1980s a new cable music channel called MTV broadcast its first live show from here and “Live from the Ritz” was a regular feature.

LaGrange Terrace (Colonnade Row), ca. 1890. LaGrange Terrace, a set of nine colonnade-fronted Greek revival townhouses, was built in the early 1830s on land owned by John Jacob Astor. At the time, Lafayette Place was a short, cobblestoned street between Great Jones and Art (later Astor Place) Streets, adjacent to the Vauxhall Gardens pleasure garden and theatre. Astor’s residences attracted member’s of New York’s upper crust: members of the Vanderbilt and Delano families owned homes, as did Washington Irving and Astor, himself. LaGrange Terrace remained a fashionable address through the 1870s, by which time the wealthiest New Yorkers had begun to decamp for parts uptown. Five of the townhouses were later demolished. While the 20th century has seen Astor’s development continue to deteriorate, the surviving houses were designated New York City Landmark in 1965.

Village Preservation successfully advocated for this building's landmark designation in 2021. This building housed the headquarters of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organizations, the NAACP, the first magazines for an African-American audience, The Crisis Magazine, and what would become the American Civil Liberties Union, among many other entities. To learn more about 70 Fifth Avenue, click here.

The Village Barn, unknown date. 52 West 8th Street has a long and interesting history. From 1930 to 1967, the basement housed The Village Barn nightclub. Later, the space attracted abstract expressionist artists, such as Hans Hofmann, who hosted a series of lectures there in 1938. In 1970, Jimi Hendrix purchased the building to start Electric Lady Studios. While Hendrix only spent a few weeks recording at the studio before his death, it has since been used by many notable artists including Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, AC/DC, the Clash, and Weezer.

The Hamilton Fish House, 21 Stuyvesant Street, ca. 1971. The Hamilton Fish House (a.k.a. Nicholas and Elizabeth Stuyvesant Fish House, Stuyvesant Fish House), was built in 1803-04 by Peter Stuyvesant, the great-grandson of the last Dutch Director-General of New Amsterdam. The three-story Federal style townhouse sits on a parcel granted to the first Peter Stuyvesant in 1651, by the Dutch West India Company . The house was a wedding gift to Stuyvesant's daughter Elizabeth and her husband, the Revolutionary War officer Nicholas Fish, a veteran of Valley Forge. Fish served throughout the Revolutionary War and at the age of 18, was commissioned as the youngest Major in the history of the United States army. His son, Hamilton Fish, who later served as Governor of New York and as Secretary of State, was born at this address in 1808.

The Renwick The striking loft building at 806-808 Broadway/104-106 Fourth Avenue, which runs the entire block from Broadway to Fourth Avenue behind Grace Church at 11th Street, was designed in 1887 by James Renwick (architect of the adjacent landmarked church forty years earlier) and the partners in historic successor firm –James Lawrence Aspinwall and William Hamilton Russell, Renwick’s grand-nephew. Though a utilitarian structure housing offices, storage, and manufacturing, Renwick and partners designed it with vivid Gothic detail to serve as an appropriate backdrop to Grace Church, a New York City and National Historic Landmark. Aside from some storefront signage, the building is almost completely intact to its original design, from the gothic arches and tracery to the more robust, industrial Romanesque detailing of the Fourth Avenue façade. Both sides of the building maintain beautifully intact cast-iron storefronts, while the Broadway side boasts florid Art Noveau-style ironwork over the doorway and entry. The harmony between this structure, built as a store and manufacturing building, and one of the most delicate and important Gothic Revival structures in the United States, is nothing short of remarkable. In 1981 the building was converted to residences and renamed ‘The Renwick,’ in honor of its architect. The building gained additional notoriety with the publication of Caleb Carr’s The Alienist, in which the building serves as the headquarters for the team of investigators looking into the murders at the heart of the book’s story. The Grace Church, Grace Church Rectory, Grace Church Memorial House, The Renwick, and The Lancaster, an 1887 apartment building at 39-41 East 10th Street also designed by Renwick –all within feet of one another –provide an unrivaled example of the skill of James Renwick as an architect. The sadly recently-demolished St. Denis Hotel at Broadway and 11th Street added even further to this rich ensemble of Renwick designs added over time. While the master architect constructed other ensembles elsewhere, few if any span nearly half a century as these do, and serve such varied purposes –religious worship, residences, and commercial loft space –while maintaining such compatibility and dialogue between the pieces.

Every year millions of tourists make their way to New York City. While many of them may bypass the Village to flock to Times Square or the Statue of Liberty for a photo, there are many spots here that have gained popularity as a top spot to Instagram. Many of the popular spots draw tourists with their pleasing aesthetics. But often these traveling shutterbugs know little about the vast amount of history behind the sites. So for our many visitors, today we provide some history of some of the spots they use as a backdrop for their social media feeds.

The first European settlers arrived in modern-day New York in 1614. Twelve years later, the Dutch West India Company brought over eleven enslaved people from Africa. From the settlement of New Netherland, African Americans have played a critical role in the development of New York. In the early portion of New Netherland's history, the Dutch divided Black people into two groups: those who were enslaved, and those who were not. This division persisted until the Civil War in 1861. To southerners, a portion of this period from the 18th century to the start of the Civil War was called the "Antebellum" which means the pre-Civil War era. In the south, these years were marked by economic growth due to the reliance on slavery in the region. This period also marked the beginning of a divide between two schools of thought, those who were against slavery, the abolitionists, and those in support of slavery. This story teaches us about what that period was like for Black people in the North and specifically, in New York City. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 4.7, 7.7, & 11.3. For Teachers: African American in Antebellum New York Lesson Plan

21 Fifth Avenue ca. 1933 At 21 Fifth Avenue at the southeast corner of 9th Street stood a stunning brick townhouse and a one-time residence of Mark Twain. Referred to in the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report as “one of the most architecturally notable houses in all New York,” the Romanesque Revival style home was likely designed by the noted architect James Renwick, Jr. for his parents, James and Margaret Ann (née Brevoort) Renwick. Renwick, Jr. was also the architect of Grace Church at Broadway and 10th Street in 1843. In designing his family’s home, Renwick, Jr. employed graceful round arches at the window lintels and colonette door surround. Brick corbelling at the window sills and cornice as well as ironwork at the parlor floor balcony added extra dimension to the façade. The side street elevation was equally as detailed with its peaked gable and numerous windows of varying sizes. In 1906, the noted author Mark Twain lived here when he began dictating his autobiography to his collaborator, Albert Bigelow Paine. Despite the beauty of its architecture and its link to famous figures, 21 Fifth Avenue – along with its four townhouse neighbors and the famous Hotel Brevoort to the south – was razed in the early 1950s to make way for the fourteen-story apartment building at 11 Fifth Avenue, known as the Brevoort. Paired with the Brevoort East, the apartment complex occupies the full city block bounded by Fifth Avenue, East 8th Street, University Place, and East 9th Street.

19 Stuyvesant Street Building Date : 1894 Original Use : Residential Original Owner : Andrew Brose & Charles Rentz Original Architect : Charles Rentz Description & Building Alterations Built in 1894 by architect Charles Rentz for himself and co-owner Andrew Brose, this five-story building was meant to house twenty families. The lower half of the building is solid brownstone where as the top half is made of tan stone with window sills of the same brown as the bellow. In 1937, the projecting high stone steps were removed and a new entrance was installed.

Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Arts was founded in 1859 by philanthropist and inventor Peter Cooper. Peter Cooper himself came from a working-class background. He hopped between various odd careers such as cabinet making, hat making, and brewing, yet through and through he was an inventor at heart. Cooper was able to purchase a glue factory in 1821. He found new ways to produce glues and other products like gelatin and isinglass from the raw materials that nearby slaughterhouses provided. This propelled Cooper into a business career in which he invented the "Tom Thumb" locomotive to navigate the hilly terrain near Baltimore, built the largest rolling-mill for railroad iron in the United States, and eventually oversaw the production of the first structural wrought-iron beams. He went on to found the Cooper Union, inspired by Paris' École Polytechnique. The institution began as a night school that hosted courses in architectural drafting and the applied sciences. The building also held day-time classes for the Female School of Design instructing women in then-new technologies such as photography, telegraph, and typewriting. Peter Cooper's humble beginnings inspired a pedagogical model that offered working-class men and women upward mobility, at the same time instilling a sense of social responsibility that would create highly active citizens. The building which the school resides in features the rolled wrought-iron beams Peter Cooper invented and produced. Another quirky feature of the structure is its round elevator shaft, which was completed prior to the invention of the elevator. Cooper believed that the elevator would soon be invented in a cylindrical shape. The Foundation Building was the tallest when it was completed in 1859 and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.

Prohibition began in 1920 with the passage of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. For the next thirteen years, the production, sale, and consumption of alcohol in the United States was illegal. The Prohibition Movement originated with organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union and the Anti-Saloon League in the second half of the 19th century. Belonging to the Progressive Movement, these temperance organizations sought not only to address the effects of society's problems, but to eliminate the root cause of crime and poverty by prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. While these ideas might seem noble, they involved a darker side. These organizations were rooted in Protestant ideas of the Social Gospel and exhibited prejudice towards the growing number of immigrants and Catholics in America's cities. Many supporters of Prohibition viewed the newly arriving immigrants' enjoyment of beer and whiskey as the reason for the rising poverty and crime rates in many American cities, especially New York. Prohibitionists' intentions of eliminating crime and poverty not only failed, they backfired! Prohibition actually led to an increase in crime and illegal activity, as many began to profit from the illegal importing, production, and selling of alcohol. While the experiment with Prohibition ultimately ended with the passage of the 21st Amendment, it transformed American society and culture. NYS Social Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.4 & 11.7 For Teachers: Prohibition Lesson Plan

Manhattan: 11th Street (East) - 4th Avenue, 1936. Corner buildings shown in the process of demolition for the new United States Post Office.

Hotel Earle ca. 1915 The Washington Square Hotel has been a haven for writers and artists for more than a century. Built in 1902 as a residential hotel named the Hotel Earle after its first owner, Earle S. L’Amoureux, the hotel occupied a single, eight-story, red brick building on Waverly Place, in the heart of Greenwich Village. In 1908, L’Amoureux built an identical connecting building to create a grand apartment hotel, complete with reading rooms, restaurant and banquet facilities. Four years later, he added a ninth floor and, in 1917, he acquired an adjoining three-story building, bringing the hotel to MacDougal Street, at the northwest corner of picturesque Washington Square. In the 1930s, Knott Hotels, one of the nation’s first hotel chains, owned and managed the Earle and advertised: American Plan from $3.50 single, $7.00 double European Plan from $2.00 single, $3.50 double The 1950s saw great change in the Village which was swiftly becoming the center of New York’s bohemian counterculture, reflected by the Beat generation who gravitated to the coffee houses and jazz clubs. The once-grand hotel began to deteriorate into a shabby apartment hotel, making it an affordable location for struggling artists, actors, writers, and musicians. Ernest Hemingway stayed at there for a few weeks in 1914, just before he went off to serve in World War I. Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Barbra Streisand, the B-52’s, Maynard Ferguson and Bo Diddley have all been guests at the hotel. Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin were evicted from the Beekman Hotel after, legend has it, the management got tired of his partying and excessive demands on room service. Seeking residence close to one of his favorite bars in the Village, the Minetta Tavern, Dylan checked into the Hotel Earle. He wrote a letter to his parents in May 1950 in which he described the Earle as “right in Washington Square, a beautiful Square, which is right in the middle of Greenwich Village, the artists’ quarter of New York.” In recent years, Judy Paul and her husband Marc Garrett have renovated it to become a charming, beautiful boutique hotel. The restaurant has large picture windows overlooking Washington Square Park which bathe the room with sunlight. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. On Sunday afternoons, they do a jazz brunch. A few years back, one of the breakfast waitresses asked if they’d let her perform. She gave them a demo CD to listen to. The Pauls were impressed and gave her the green light. She went on to win five Grammy Awards. That waitress was Norah Jones.

In 1892, 27% of the country's millionaires lived in New York, when the city only made up 2% of the country's population! Welcome to the society of the Gilded Age. This tour takes its inspiration from an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York that explores the visual culture of New York's richest residents from the mid-1870s to the start of World War One. It stops at several places, such as the old headquarters of Tiffany \&Company that are connected to the dazzling objects in the show. It also introduces you to some of the people at the center of Gilded-age society, and illuminates how-over the course of three decades- the city transformed more rapidly than ever before. It was during this time that New York became a world capital on par with London and Paris. Before the 1870s the lives of the rich and the places they frequented had been more private and understated. By the 1890s they were public and over the top: Simple brownstones gave way to French chateaux, cluttered dry good stores became palatial department stores; and grand hotels and restaurants became premiere places to entertain, outside the home. Even if shoes are more comfortable now than they were in the Gilded Age, you may find it tiring to walk this tour from beginning to end. So feel free to split it up!

Union Square is known today as a site of public gathering and for expressions of discontent. This is built upon Union Square’s rich, multi-layered history as a public space in Manhattan. The name of the park comes from its location within the downtown area, placed between, or at the “union,” of the then-Bloomingdale Road and Bowery Road, which is now Fourth Avenue and Broadway. Only thirty years after it was designated a public space by the State Legislature in 1831, despite its fencing and narrow sidewalks, Union Square evolved into a space where mass demonstrations, rallies, and protests took place.

While the holiday season seems to begin earlier and earlier every year, there is a point every winter when New Yorkers know Christmas has actually begun: when the Christmas trees markets come out. But how did this practice come about? Crowding sidewalks with the smell of pine, funneling pedestrians into a gauntlet of jutting branches. The answer involves two essential elements of New York's history: immigration and capitalism.

In 1864 William Steinway opened a showroom for his pianos on 14th Street near Fifth Avenue. Owing to their overwhelming popularity, he decided to build a new concert hall as a venue to display and promote his pianos. The original Steinway Hall was constructed at the rear of this white marble building. Opened in 1866 the hall sat 2,500 guests and was one of the largest auditoriums in the city. Over the next 25 years, it was the home of the New York Philharmonic. The success of Steinway Hall in promoting Steinway's instruments was considerable, so much so that his competitors, the Aeolian Company and Chickering & Sons, felt the need to open concert halls as well. Following a few decades as a hub of musical and literary performances, in 1890 Steinway Hall ceased live shows. By then the neighborhood had lost its identity as both an upscale commercial district and a hub of entertainment. These areas had long been on the move uptown. For many years the auditorium was used largely for storage. Owing to a desire to have their showroom and a concert venue near Carnegie Hall, Steinway & Sons commissioned a new building on 57th Street in the late 1910s and moved to 111 West 57th Street in 1925. This photograph was taken just after the move. The sign on the front of the building notes that the building had commercial space for rent. Less than a year later the building was razed, and in its place, the S. Klein Department Store rose.

Washington Square Park, ca. 1975.

The Gilded Age describes the era following the Civil War and preceding the Progressive Era. From around 1870-1900 the United States industrialized rapidly. Factories sprung up throughout the towns and cities in the Northeast and Midwest. New railroad networks and telegraph lines connected these industries and cities with the financial centers of the nation, specifically New York City. The Gilded Age is a complicated period. It saw the rise of monopolies and the creation of vast wealth. However, this wealth was limited to only a few families. Most Americans, including the millions of immigrants arriving annually, remained incredibly poor. The inequality of the Gilded Age prompted Progressive Reformers to enact laws which helped those poorer Americans. New York City represented well this "tale of two cities." In 1892, 27% of the country's millionaires lived in New York, when the city only made up 2% of the country's population! Yet the vast majority of poor immigrants arriving to the country entered through New York Harbor. While many Progressive reforms got their start in the Big Apple, the city was also the center of Gilded Age opulence. NYS Social Studies Scope and Sequence Standards: 8.2 & 11.5 For Teachers: The Gilded Age Lesson Plan

100 Third Avenue Built about 1880, the Lyric Theatre began as a restaurant and was converted into a music hall before its 1910 renovation as one of New York’s earliest motion picture houses. Originally holding 274 seats, the theater doubled its seating in 1923 in response to the growing taste for movie-going. By the 1930s, the Lyric’s clientele consisted chiefly of transients from the Bowery, a few blocks to the south, who paid ten cents to see two features (one a western), a newsreel, and a short subject.

The "New" Albert Hotel refers to the last two parts of the hotel Albert complex. These were built as a 12-story extension on University Place, built 1903-04 and designed by the firm of Buchman & Fox. The final section of the Hotel Albert to be built was the 6-story neo-colonial style building located on the northeast corner of University Place and East 10th Street. It was built 1922-24, and designed by William L. Bottomly and the firm of Sugarman & Hess. Some of those writers who have stayed at the Albert (or St. Stephens) include Robert Louis Stevenson, Harte Crane, Richard Wright, Anais Nin, Diane di Prima and Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka. Political radicals stayed at the Albert as early as 1906 including Ivan Ivanovich Norodny (chief executive commissioner of the Russian Military Revolutionary Party). John Gages, the editor of the Daily Worker, held a rally there in 1958. Many artists stayed there or gathered in the ground floor restaurant. Joseph Brody, who ran the restaurant from 1946 to 1968, hung the art of some of the many patron/artists on the walls and sponsored poetry contests; he also offered tours of the Village on a bus decoratively painted by Salvador Dali. Some of the famous musicians who spent time at the Albert during the 1960s and 70s included Jim Morrison, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, and James Taylor. The Mamas & the Papas wrote the hit “California Dreamin'” and Lovin’ Spoonful wrote “Do You Believe in Magic” at the Albert.

Marble House, March 20, 1936. No. 8 (the corner building) was built for John Taylor Johnston, the founding president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Johnston made his fortune in the railroad business. According to his obituary, he was the originator of the entire Central New Jersey Railroad system. Johnston created what was the first art gallery in NYC–to showcase his own collection– in a stable building next to his home before the Met was established. The house, which was called the first marble house in the city, was constructed in 1856 and, as a bright white building, stood out from its slightly later red brick neighbors. After his death the home was occupied by his daughter Frances for some time. She passed away in 1928 while living further uptown on Fifth Avenue. That same year the Johnstons, who had leased the land the home occupied from the Rhinelanders family, gave up the lease when the land owners planned to build an apartment building. The building never came to be as originally planned, due to the Depression. In 1936 when it was photographed, the home had been subdivided into apartments and named the Marble House. It was later occupied in part by NYU. The home and its neighbors seen here (and others unseen) were demolished in the early 1950s for the large apartment house at 2 Fifth Avenue.

One of a pair of almost entirely identical townhouses, 24 West 12th Street was built in 1851 by Charles Partridge. In 1853, it was sold to General Winfield Scott, who used it as his residence in the city. Winfield Scott was one of the most important generals of the 19th century. Having successfully lead the United States Army during the invasion of Mexico, Scott was important in the organization and modernization of the American military. Despite the respect of his peers and broad popular support, Scott was unsuccessful as the Whig presidential candidate of 1852 (the party having been broadly divided due to the Compromise of 1850.) Despite being a Virginian, Scott stayed loyal to the Union during the civil war and developed the Anaconda plan to crush the rebellion. However, Lincoln caved to popular pressure for an immediate (and disastrous) attack. Scott resigned in 1861, dying five years later.

James Renwick’s Gothic Revival Grace Church sits prominently at the bend of Broadway. Built in 1846, the building has all the accolades – it is a United States National Historic Landmark, New York City Landmark, and is also on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was one of the young (23 years old!) architect’s first projects. Renwick’s most well-known building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, is among his many other notable works which include St. Bartholomew’s Church on Park Avenue in New York and the Smithsonian Institution Building in Washington, DC. Now back to the Grace Church – while the building itself has not undergone any major renovations, Grace Church School (which sits just to the east of the church) received a major subterranean addition ten years ago, affecting the land that the church sits on. At the southwest corner of the lawn in the image you see here, there is a hidden underground gymnasium two stories below, with additional staff offices and facilities for students!

De Vinne Press Building ARCHITECT: Babb, Cook & Willard DATE: 1885-86 Solid in mass and sound in construction, the architectural elements, displayed in its two fronts, have unusual cohesion and unity in their composition. The elevations display interesting contrasts of round and segmental arch windows. Particularly handsome features of this building are the three-story high deeply recessed window arches and the corner treatment (quoins) at the rounded corner of the building. The low pitched roof expressed by a brick gable-end and round-arched attic windows is a pleasing feature of this dignified commercial brick building.

Building Date: 1836 Original Use: Residential Original Owner: Edward Wilkes Original Architect: Unknown Description & Building Alterations According to tax assessment records, this five-story house was constructed in 1836 for Edward Wilkes. The land was formerly owned by Thomas E. Davis who purchased the property in 1831-1832 and surrounding area on Eighth Street from Peter Stuyvesant. Davis was a 19th-century real estate developer who created St. Mark’s Place. The house has Flemish bond brickwork everywhere except the top floor. This is the result of an 1897 alteration when the attic was raised to a full story. At the time, the house was used as a one-family residence with space for a business and a bowling alley in the basement. In 1924, two families occupied the building, along with a pool parlor and a restaurant.

Entrance to the uptown platform of the Astor Place subway station, ca. 1990.

My Archive Spring 2019

In celebration of the centennial of George Washington's inauguration in 1889, a temporary wood and plaster arch was erected at Washington Square. Six years later it was replaced by the present seventy-seven-foot marble structure. In 1916 another celebration of sorts was held. A group of artists led by John Sloan and Marcel Duchamp forced open the door to the stairs leading to the top of the arch and held a midwinter party to declare the secession of Greenwich Village from the United States of America. They lit Japanese lanterns, read poems, fired cap pistols, and proclaimed the independence of the state of New Bohemia.

Manhattan: Washington Square North - 5th Avenue (I) Washington Square Park,showing the center fountain with the Washington Arch in thc background,and children at play in the water. I8-22 Washington Square North,west of Fifth Avenue,are the houses in background. August 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. NEG ~~376E (2) The same,from another angle . AES ~S766 August 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. (3) The same. Augaut 6th,I932 P.L.Sperr. No Reproductions. NES~~ 3767