A guide to the places Bob Dylan worked, played and created in New York's Greenwich Village.

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

High pressure water system trench at Christopher and Washington Streets; undated photo. At left, the storefront at No. 163 Christopher Street (today known as 649 Washington Street) is occupied by druggist M.B. McAvoy. At right is the Christopher Street station of the Ninth Avenue Elevated line, above Greenwich Street. Between the two is the Church of St. Veronica.

The same, better view of the buildings which supplanted the Weehawken Market. About 1830.

Federal style townhouse at 41 Barrow Street, 1932. This brick house was one of seven built by the developer Charles Oakley between 1824-6. During the 19th century, it was home to Dr. Virgil Thompson and, later, Police Captain Ira S. Garland.

Whittemore House, October 21, 1935. President Abraham Lincoln, after saving the Union and winning the Civil War, was shot by actor John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865, finally succumbing to his wounds the next morning on April 15th. Lincoln was the first U.S. President ever assassinated, and his death led to a protracted period of national mourning and political tumult, including the first impeachment of a U.S. President, Lincoln’s successor Andrew Johnson. But this event which changed the course of history might never have happened were it not for events connected to one of the most unusual houses in Greenwich Village, constructed by one of Greenwich Village’s most prolific builders, which thanks to landmark protections still stands. 45 Grove Street, just west of Bleecker Street, was originally a free-standing home built in 1830. According to the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report “it was undoubtedly one of the finest and largest Federal residences in Greenwich Village,” often referred to ask the Whittemore Mansion. It was built for Samuel Whittemore one of the major property owners in the area, and who was largely responsible for the early development of this part of the Village. Whittemore was the senior member of the firm of S. Whittemore & Company, manufacturers of steam-propelled carding equipment used in textile manufacturing. One of his factories was located nearby on Waverly Place, then known as Factory Street. When 45 Grove Street was originally built it was just two stories, and many of its original details including Flemish bond brickwork, arched doorway, and Federal lintels at the windows are still intact (the two upper stories were added in 1871). But by 1851, the neighborhood was becoming increasingly crowded with immigrants and industry, and the Whittemore Family sold it. Not long after the sale, the home was operating as a boarding house. One of the boarders was a man named Samuel K. Chester. Chester was an actor and associate of fellow actor John Wilkes Booth. Around the beginning of 1865, Booth came to 45 Grove Street to meet Chester at his home and try to persuade him to participate in a “conspiracy to take over the government” including kidnapping President Lincoln. Booth was a strong supporter of the Confederate cause, and wildly opposed to Lincoln’s war to save the Union and his move to free the slaves. After Chester turned Booth down the offer to assist with the kidnapping of the President, Booth changed his plan, deciding to murder the President. Had Chester either agreed to participate in the plan to kidnap the President, or reported Booth’s plot, Lincoln’s life might have been spared, and the course of history quite different. But he did neither. Just days after Lee’s surrender at Appamatox and the collapse of the Confederacy, Booth shot Lincoln as he watched a performance of ‘Our American Cousin’ at Ford’s Theater, shouting (by various accounts) “Sic semper tyrannis” (“Thus always to tyrants,” the state motto of Virginia) or “The South is avenged!” as he leaped from Lincoln’s box and onto the stage. He escaped, but after the largest manhunt in American history up to that time, he was shot and killed. Lincoln was replaced as President by Andrew Johnson, a Southern Democrat who was significantly more sympathetic to the Confederate cause than Lincoln, who refused to adopt or enforce many of the Republican party’s Reconstructionist programs granting rights to freed slaves. By another twist of fate, shortly after the Civil War, 45 Grove became known as the “Lincoln Home” for destitute soldiers and sailors. Early 20th century residents included the poet Hart Crane, who lived at this address when he wrote "The Bridge," a paean to the Brooklyn Bridge and New York.

276 Bleecker Street; February 2, 1937. Anchored by the famous Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, Bleecker Street stood in the center of Little Italy and was lined with food specialty stores. The Mandaro family, which owned this cheese store, made many of their own cheeses and imported others. Although Mandaro’s is gone, similar shops can still be found along Bleecker Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. The Mandaro storefront has been absorbed by the ever- expanding John’s Pizzeria, a neighborhood institution that opened in 1934.

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

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

Pingpank Barber Shop ca. 1938 When Abbott photographed this shop window, August Pingpank was 87 years old, in business for more than 50 years, and said to be the oldest barber in New York City. On the verge of retirement, Pingpank remarked that “it’s different now with the men shaving themselves every morning at home.” Abbott’s photograph presents a distilled image of Pingpank’s world. Set up against a mirror are his customers’ personalized shaving mugs on a makeshift display stand. Given the place of honor on the stand are a Chinese porcelain jardiniere, a cut glass disinfectant jar, and a can of Jergen’s talcum powder. Attached to the mirror is a photograph of the shop’s interior, and on the left wall is a Victorian cigar advertisement. A horse-drawn cart is reflected in the window, a fitting accompaniment to this relic of a bygone era. Pingpank’s store, which falls within boundaries of the Greenwich Village Historic District, is currently occupied by an antique shop.

Dilapidated Federal style frame house, once home to Thomas Paine, 1932. Paine, the English-born Revolutionary era author, moved to the wooden house on Herring Street (as Bleecker was then known, west of Sixth Avenue) after his release from French prison in 1802. He would live there nearly until his death in 1809. Nearby Barrow Street was briefly renamed Reason Street in Paine’s honor, referencing “In Praise of Reason,” a tract he wrote while imprisoned in France. Locals, however, had difficulty embracing the new name: it was often bastardized as “Raisin Street.” In 1827, the Barrow Street name was restored.

51: 1843; 53: 1846; 1930, combined façade: William Bayard Willis) NYC IL, NYC HD, NR-P, NHL The Stonewall Inn was the starting point of the Stonewall Rebellion of June 28-July 2, 1969, which began when customers at the bar refused to leave during a police raid — in the 1960’s, it was illegal for a gay bar to obtain a liquor license and police routinely raided them. The uprising became a catalyst for the formation of organizations and groups across the country devoted to LGBTQ civil rights, and it’s commemorated nationwide and around the world with Pride marches and the celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. In 2015, the Stonewall Inn became the city’s first Individual Landmark commemorating an LGBTQ site, designated entirely on the basis of its cultural, rather than architectural, significance. The area was designated as the Stonewall National Monument in 2016, the country’s first U.S. National Monument dedicated to LGBTQ civil rights history. Further State and National designations have made it one of the most decorated and protected sites in the city. Photo by Diana Davies/NYPL.

Grocery store at the corner of Christopher and Bleecker Streets, June, 1925. This tiny corner store was built between 1802 and 1808 by a grocer named William Patterson, in what was then a rural village. In 1807, the house at the corner of Herring (Bleecker) and Christopher Streets served as a meeting place for the commission charged with designing Manhattan’s street grid. Lead surveyor John Randel spent ten years staking out and marking intersections from 1st Street to 155th Street. Recognized as a work of genius today, Randel and his surveyors were pelted with cabbages and artichokes by landowners furious at the prospect of streets being plowed through their properties.

Built as the New York headquarters for the Bell Telephone Laboratories, this industrial complex was one of the largest in the country when completed. As a telecommunication facility between 1898 and 1966, a number of major inventions took place here including the first transistor, first experimental talking movies, first vacuum tube, and early television. In 1966 Bell abandoned the massive complex. In 1968, under the direction of developer Dixon Bain and with funding from the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the National Council for the Arts (later the NEA), the buildings were converted into low-income live-work spaces for artists and their families. Westbeth Artists Housing was one of the first instances of adaptive reuse of industrial buildings for artistic and residential use in the country. The buildings opened to resident artists, including dancers, musicians, actors, writers, visual artists, and filmmakers in 1970. The building also became home to a number of large cultural organizations such as Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance and Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, the first LGBT synagogue in New York. Today the buildings are on the National Register and are a designated NYC landmark. They also remain the home and workplace of dozens of working artists.

The White Horse Tavern, ca. 1975. In addition to its literary bona fides, the White Horse served as a meeting place for leftists, labor organizations, and journalists, including writers associated with the Village Voice, whose 1960s headquarters at Sheridan Square was a short walk away.

A tour of the architectural and cultural gems of Bleecker Street. From Bob Dylan to Dylan Thomas, from Federal style rowhouses to new law tenements, Bleecker Street represents a wonderful cross-section of New York City’s diverse history.

102 Bedford Street. 102 Bedford Street began its life around 1830 as a 2 1/2 story wood-frame Federal style house — the kind of simple structure one sees throughout Greenwich Village and Lower Manhattan. It seemed to live a pretty unremarkable life until 1925 when Clifford Daily purchased the building. According to NY Times Streetscapes columnist Christopher Gray, records show Daily, 39 years old at the time, was unmarried, lived in an old house on Sheridan Square, and was the decorator of “The Little House,” a tea room located next door at 100 Bedford Street in the tiny former back shed of 17 Grove Street. The 1910s and 1920s saw a lot of new interest in Greenwich Village from artists and those who simply wanted to live around artists. Like today, real estate developers were quick to try to capitalize on this trend, and rundown buildings in the neighborhood were often given makeovers intended to project an artistic image. Few, however, were as complete, or as fanciful, in their transformation as 102 Bedford Street. The two and a half story building was raised to five stories and given a sort of Tudor/Medieval/Swiss Chalet facade, including the twin-peaked roofs, from which its name is derived. The building was specifically intended to attract artists, with 10 one-room studios with casement windows, similar to the “artists’ studios” which had been popping up on the top of houses throughout the Village during this time. Again according to Gray (citing the NY Herald Tribune) the building was originally painted black, green, orange, and blue — a color scheme which has long since been replaced with the more conventional brown and beige we see today, and of which there seems to be little or no photographic record. Perhaps most notable, however, was the building’s dedication ceremony: On May 21, 1926…the actress Mabel Normand stood on a platform on top of one of the gables and shattered a bottle of Champagne over the roof. Next to her, Princess Amelie Troubetskoy (an American novelist who had married a Russian prince in czarist days) burned acorns in a charcoal brazier in honor of the Greek god Pan. Holy water, flowers, and other rites also inaugurated the building. The studio apartments in the building are all tiny, approximately 20 by 18 feet. However, many maintain original details, and the interiors of the building literally ooze Village bohemian charm. Despite the incredible appeal of the apartment’s unique charms, their modest dimensions have given rise to some skepticism about claims that Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Walt Disney, Cary Grant, and Miles Davis each lived there for a time

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

17 Commerce Street, July 1967.

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

The West Street facade of 6 Weehawken Street.

Jillian Jonas was the house photographer at the legendary boy bar on St. Mark’s Place in the mid 1990’s, where she captured thousands of images of drag performers who mixed gender-bending and illusion with downtown in-your-face attitude. This collection includes images not only from boy bar, but the Pyramid Club, Wigstock, the Gay Pride Festival, Jackie 60 and various other downtown nightlife and performance venues of the early-to-mid 1990s. Her pictures capture a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance, as well as an edgy slice of life when drag and blurred boundaries of gender were just beginning to make inroads into the broader public consciousness, largely through this vibrant local scene. This image was taken by Jillian Jonas and is from Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

Charles Lane looking east, September 20, 1938. Named for the same man for whom Christopher Street is named, Charles Christopher Amos, Charles Lane is a narrow street with no sidewalks and a unique brick paving. The pavers, seen prominently in the photograph, are laid out horizontally with 3 rows of vertically paved bricks in the middle. This configuration, which created a sort of gutter in the middle, was likely constructed to assist in the drainage of water from the street into the gutter on nearby West Street. Like many of the small hidden Manhattan alleys, Charles Lane saw debris, garbage, and likely its share of illicit activity in the 20th century. Today it is a quiet, quaint street, lined with brick buildings, some of which were originally stables.

Manhattan Borough President Andrew Stein (in suit on right) cuts the ribbon, 1982. From its founding in 1980 until 1984, GVSHP was known as the Greenwich Village Trust, as noted on the sign.

Formerly the Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex, the Westbeth Arts Complex is a group of buildings that takes up an entire city block. Westbeth is significant not only as the former home to one of the world’s most prestigious telecommunications research organizations but also as the first and largest publicly- and privately-funded artists’ housing project in the United States. Westbeth is a pioneer of large-scale industrial rehabilitation and adaptive reuse.

The Napolitana Kitchen, photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1947, in the ground floor space of no. 228, a 1900 Romanesque Revival tenement designed by Peter J. Herter.

132 Bank Street This charming row of three brick residences was built in 1833 for William E. Fink, a grocer. These houses, early Greek Revival in style are three stories in height with basements. Nos. 132 and 134 have fronts of Flemish bond. The corner house, No. 136, is constructed of running bond, and the top floor attic windows have been replaced by larger ones. The original wrought iron hand railing of the stoops has been retained at all three houses. At Nos. 132 and 136, the horizontal band beneath the handrail proper is designed with a very graceful scrollwork pattern. The iron spindles are enhanced by a delicate ball design at mid-height. The handrailings, resting on very simple newels with urnlike bases, terminate in a curved volute. A simple wrought iron areaway railing, and wrought iron uprights, topped by small acorn finials may be seen at all three residences.; At. Nos. 132 and 136, the charming Greek Revival doorways have columns and transoms. These doorways consist of a handsome three-paneled door which is flanked on both sides by well proportioned, fluted Doric columns. The two handsome columns support a low entablature which is surmounted by a five-paned transom. A simple lintel, enhanced by a delicate cornice, is seen over the transom. The lintels above the muntined windows of the first and second floors of all three houses have had cornices added. In all three houses, the original sills remain unchanged. The facades may have originally been crowned by a deep fascia board with waterproofed surface seen at No. 134, with small windows cut into it. No. 136 has a shallow cornice set above the lengthened windows, while No. 132 was remodeled to provide a double window located on center with casements, above which a dormer has been added to obtain north light. Philip Evergood, a well-known painter, lived at No. 132 Bank Street from 1940-47.

Trowmart Inn ca. 1906 While the Martha Washington Hotel established a model for housing business women, a 1907 housing exposé titled: “The Problem of Living for 97,000 Girls,” emphasized the “Absurd Restrictions and Poor Housing Conditions” working-class women continued to suffer. The article mentions one innovative solution, however: the Trowmart Inn. Completed in 1906, the Trowmart picked up on the ideas put into practice at the Martha Washington and, for the first time, provided accommodation for the working-class girl without the strict rules of a “Moral Home.” Like its inspiration, the Trowmart highlighted this fact in its promotional brochures. Compared to the Martha Washington, the inn’s interior spaces and furnishings were plain and even utilitarian, but the Trowmart provided similar amenities: a dining room and cafeteria, “beau parlors” (small parlors where the residents could entertain their gentlemen friends), a large parlor with a piano, a library, and doctor’s office. In addition, the Trowmart provided a sewing room, full laundry, and a drying room, essential spaces for the shop, millinery, and factory girls for whom the Inn was planned. Living expenses ran to $4.50 to $5 per work week, with breakfast and dinner included. The Trowmart Inn was an immediate success: a 1908 newspaper article reported the hotel, which housed 250 women, had been full since its 1906 opening. The Trowmart was the exception however. The majority of women’s hotels constructed during the first few decades of the 20th century were for professional women.

My Archive Spring 2019 "An old abandoned Pier in Manhattan, which connects with both West 10th Street and back then, the old elevated West Side Highway. Looking south at the then-new World Trade Center. The couple had just learned of a tragedy in the family. June 21, 1978." —Michael Castellano

666 Greenwich Street Rising like an ark over Christopher Street, the Archive Building’s construction and multiple uses over a New York century reflect the changing character of the Far West Village waterfront and the city as a whole. Join us as we trace the unique history of this colossus of the West Village. Filling the entire block bounded by Barrow, Greenwich, Washington, and Christopher Streets, the Archive Building sits on an irregularly shaped lot more than an acre in size. In the best tradition of the Village street plan (or lack thereof), none of the lot sides are actually parallel to each other. Construction began in 1892 and was completed in 1899 based on the designs of Willoughby J. Edbrooke, the supervising architect of the U.S. Treasury. Crafted in the Romanesque Revival style, the structure is capped by a weighty cornice atop a masonry façade that features wide brick support piers and round Roman arches and a three-foot thick brick base. The massive building reflected the Far West Village’s transition from earlier light residential use to a more commercial and industrial character that would remain for much of the twentieth century. Though English-born, Edbrooke came to the U.S. government from a successful practice in Chicago where the influence of the developing “Chicago Style,” disseminated by the likes of Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler, was strong. It’s been noted that the façade of the Archive Building reflects the Chicago work of Sullivan and Adler’s Auditorium building. You can find an actual Louis Sullivan building here in New York right over in NoHo – the Bayard-Condict Building on Bleecker Street. The building, originally termed the U.S. Appraisers’ Warehouse, was used by the U.S. Customs Service to assess the tariffs on goods arriving in New York via ship. Originally it was meant to be built near the planned U.S. Custom House at Bowling Green far downtown, but shipping owners lobbied to have the building constructed closer to the West Side piers near Christopher Street so they would not have to deal with the headache of navigating their cargoes from the piers and through the congested, narrow streets of lower Manhattan. After the Federal income tax was instituted in 1913, revenue generated by import tariffs was no longer a crucial component of the Federal budget and by the 1930s the building was reconfigured into office space for the National Archives, a post office, and other Federal agencies. Even as the various Federal tenants gradually began to depart, the City recognized the important character of the structure and in 1966 designated it a city landmark. It was later recognized by the State and National Register of Historic Places in 1973. By 1976 the federal government deemed the building to be government surplus property and its future was in jeopardy. However a deal was successfully arranged to preserve the structure by transferring ownership to the New York State Urban Development Corporation. The UDC in turn leased the property to a private developer for residential conversion. By the 1980s, despite its continuing industrial, gritty character, the Far West Village had lost many of the industries housed in the large structures in the neighborhood. The area was beginning its transformation into one of the most sought after residential communities in the city. By the late 80s several large residential buildings were constructed or re-purposed from existing commercial structures farther and farther west. The renovation of the current Archive Building as we know it was completed in 1988. Although many historic elements were retained, many new elements were added and an entire interior atrium was cut into the structure to make the floor plans viable for apartment living. It was one of the earlier examples of preservation by commercial conversion in to residences in the city. The conversion of Westbeth (which was just landmarked) to the north is another, but it did not have the same overtly commercial character.

Le Gandarme ca. 1970 The 9th (later 6th) Police Precinct Station House was the first New York City police station house built under the new Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in 1896-97. It became familiarly known as the “Charles Street Police Station,” and also included a prison and a stable wing. The building ceased to function as a police station in January 1971 after the construction of the new station at 229-235 West 10th Street. The old police station was sold at auction and converted to “Le Gendarme” Apartments in 1977. Only eight months after the Stonewall uprising, in the early morning of March 8, 1970, police raided the Snake Pit, a gay-run non-Mafia, the after-hours bar in the basement of a Greenwich Village apartment building at 215 West 10th Street. The raid was led by Seymour Pine, who had also led the ill-fated raid on the Stonewall. Fearing similar rioting from the crowd of patrons, the police arrested 167 people, who were taken nearby to the 6th Police Precinct Station House. Argentinian immigrant Diego Vinales apparently panicked over the possibility of deportation, tried to escape from the second story of the jail, and was impaled on the iron fence below. According to Arthur Bell in Dancing the Gay Lib Blues: A Year in the Homosexual Liberation Movement, one witness later commented, “I was at the window right after he landed on the spikes. The remarks the cops made after this happened were unbelievable. One cop said to a fireman, ‘You don’t have to hurry, he’s dead, and if he’s not, he’s not going to live long.’ I was with three or four kids when one of the kids heard crying and screaming out. Then the other kids started crying. They saw what was happening and they were shaken. But the remarks kept coming from the cops. They probably thought they were justified. Diego was a faggot, they said. They used the word faggot so many times it was unbelievable.” Vinales was cut loose along with part of the fence, taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital and survived, but word spread that he was dead or dying. The Gay Activists Alliance and Gay Liberation Front organized a quick response – an angry protest by a crowd numbering around 500 people, who marched from Christopher Park to the police station.

Felipe Rose of the Village People, Can't Stop the Music Film Set in front of 244 West 4th Street, 1979.

Zito's Bakery, 259 Bleecker Street. Taken February 3, 1937. The day after photographing Mandaro’s Cheese Store, Abbott returned to Bleecker Street to make its counterpart, Bread Store, owned by Anthony Zito. Zito’s was the older and larger of the two family businesses: Mandaro had been in the neighborhood for 15 years and Zito for more than 30; Mandaro’s business was primarily retail, while Zito supplied restaurants and groceries throughout the City; Mandaro’s business was valued at $5,000, and Zito’s at $12,000. The narrow, crowded Bleecker Street sidewalk afforded Abbott little flexibility in composing these storefront photographs. The intricate geometry of Bread Store — the fancifully shaped breads, the “five-cent” signs, the basement entryway, the large wicker baskets, the white brickwork, and the complicated reflections from across the street — make this one of Abbott’s most memorable photographs. In a variant, a young man’s head and shoulders rising from the basement lends the work a surrealist touch. Abbott preferred the version which, like many of Atget’s Parisian storefronts, shows a shopkeeper looking out at the photographer. Zito’s still operates at 259 Bleecker Street, run by Anthony’s son Charles and grandson Charles, Jr.

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

Bedford Street at Commerce Street, ca. 1910. The clapboard house at the corner (no. 76) has long since disappeared, but there’s a historic under-the-radar building just visible further up Bedford Street. At far left (zoom in!), past Barrow Street is no. 86 Bedford, a Federal style house with twin dormer windows on its third floor. From 1922-2007, it was the home of Chumley’s, a legendary Prohibition-era speakeasy established by the leftist activist Leland Stanford Chumley. The bar was accessed by a secret entrance off Barrow Street, along with an alleyway called Pamela Court. As legend has it, the restaurant industry term “86” (meaning something has run out or should be thrown out) originated here, either in reference to ejecting unruly customers via the door at 86 Bedford Street, or to Prohibition cops tipping Chumley off to impending raids, so patrons could exit through the side door — while police used the courtyard entrance. The bar was also known as a meeting place for writers — the walls were lined with the dust jackets of books by regular visitors — both for the modernist generation (Edna St. Vincent Millay lived down the street) and the Beats who followed. Sadly, a chimney collapse in 2007 spelled the end for Chumley’s. The building has been restored, but the restaurant that opened in October 2016 is, despite the dust-jackets, a successor in name only.

St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, ca. 1978. Built 1821-22 as the Eighth Presbyterian Church, the Federal style church was sold to St. Matthew’s Episcopal in 1842. The church was sold again in 1855, this time to a Lutheran congregation of German immigrants. In 1886, Victorian embellishments were added to the facade, including a new pediment inscription commemorating the church’s German-American heritage: “Deutsche Evangelish-Lutherische St. Johannes Kirche.

289 Bleecker Street, ca. 1979.

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

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

GVSHP Executive Director Regina Kellerman conducts TV interviews ahead of the groundbreaking of the Sheridan Square Architectural Dig, 1982.

St. Luke’s Chapel (Church of St. Luke in the Fields), ca. 1912. St. Luke’s was established in 1820 as a chapel of Trinity Church. Clement C. Moore, the first pastor, was responsible for planning the full-block complex that included a brick church building in the Federal style (1821-2), private burial ground, rectory, and surrounding townhouses. James N. Wells, a prolific builder, was responsible for construction. The popular moniker “St. Luke’s in-the-fields” arose from the character of the surrounding neighborhood at the time the church was built. Greenwich Village, though starting to be developed, still included considerable tracts of farmland. St. Luke’s has long had a reputation for philanthropy and ministry to the poor, including in recent decades, as the West Village community was hard-hit by the AIDS crisis. The AIDS Project of St. Luke’s, founded in 1987, provided food and care to New Yorkers, including many parishioners, affected by the crisis.

Valerie Perrine being filmed in Can't Stop the Music in front of Sevilla Restaurant & Bar, 1979.

10 Grove Street This fine row of Federal two and one-half story houses from 4-10 Grove Street is one of the most delightful in the Village. They are frame structures with brick fronts in Flemish bond and were built between,1825 and 1834 on land leased from Trinity Church and St. Luke’s Chapel. The builder associated with the row is James N. Wells, who, like Samuel Winant and John Degraw, had started out as a carpenter, but soon achieved recognition as a builder. He did a great deal of work for Trinity Church and built St. Luke’s Chapel. With the exception of No. 2 1/2, subsequently altered by the addition of a third story with bracketed cornice and steel casement windows, this row of houses has been modified very little. They faithfully reflect the type of modest dwelling which a conscientious builder erected in the late Eighteen-twenties and early Eighteen-thirties. No. 6, built in 1827 by and for D. G. Van Winkle, a house carpenter, and No. 8, erected in 1829 for Abraham Storms, Jr., merchant, were extensively remodeled by James N. Wells in 1833-34, as was No. 2 1/2, the earliest house of the row, which Wells had originally built in 1825. No. 4, erected by Wells in 1833-34, replaced a shop owned by William J. Roome, a house painter. Consequently, Wells should certainly be credited with the fine proportions and good taste so evident here. All of these Federal houses, with the exception of No. 2 1/2, are three windows wide, two and one-half stories high, and surmounted by two dormer windows at roof level. A low stoop leads to a doorway framed by paneled reveals. Although No. 4 was the last house in the row to be built, it is interesting to note that it has a prototype Federal doorway flanked by columns, standing in front of rusticated wood blocks simulating stone. The three other doors are similar, but have pilasters instead of columns. The transom of No. 10 retains its handsome leadwork applied over the glass. The eight-paneled entrance doors of these houses, surmounted by a rectangular transom, are also typical of the era. The stone lintels, flush with the brickwork, above the doorways and windows have lost their cornices, but the plain wood cornices with undecorated fascia board may be the originals. The dormer windows at Nos. 4, 8, and 10, have double-hung muntined sash; they have frames with small square paneled blocks at the meeting of vertical and horizontal trim members and are crowned with little pediments. At No. 6, the two dormers have been combined under a low gambrel-shaped gable with a small diamond-shaped window inserted between the two original ones.

Spanning over a century of architectural styles from the 1860s to 1960s, with a stellar renovation in the 1970s by Richard Meier, the Bell Laboratories Building Complex is an amazing example of adaptive reuse. The oldest building in the complex was constructed in the vernacular Italianate style circa 1860 to house the Hook’s Steam-Powered Factory. It is one of the last remaining 19th-century industrial buildings on the Hudson Riverfront. From the 1920s to the 1960s, the complex served as the headquarters for Bell Laboratories and bore witness to parts of the Manhattan Project and innovations including the first television broadcast. When Bell Laboratories vacated the property in the early 1960s, the complex fell into disrepair and found itself at the mercy of an aggressive Urban Renewal Program. Jane Jacobs spoke on behalf of the West Village Committee at a townhall discussing the demolition of Bell Laboratories, arguing that the complex suffered only from negligible blight and that it would be unconscionable to demolish it. Thankfully, Bell Laboratories escaped this fate, with an innovative plan to convert the historic structure into a hybrid work/live artists’ studios complex. In 1968, the J.M. Kaplan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts provided $1 million in seed money to purchase the former Bell Laboratories site for the Westbeth Artists’ Housing project. The adaptive reuse project was designed by Richard Meier, who was inspired by Le Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseilles. Meier created 383 single-story and duplex residential units, gallery spaces, dance and theater performing spaces, and common studio spaces in the basement and the Section I (former Hook’s Steam-powered Factory) building. The Bell Laboratories complex showcases the evolution of the West Village from a gritty industrial hub to a hot spot for art and architecture.

10 Sheridan Square, steel framing, March 6, 1929.

Christopher Street Pier In the 1970's and 1980's, LGBTQ culture was much less mainstream than it is today, and young men and women relied on the kinship and mutual aid of their community for support. The late 1980s film 'Paris is Burning' offers an intimate look into New York's LGBTQ culture of the time. The "family" structure explored in the documentary served as a replacement to the subjects' biological families, whom they were often rejected by because of their gender and sexual identities. They also created a community at the Christopher Street Pier. The piers at the western edge of Greenwich Village have been a haven for gay youth since the 1970s. Today, the pier remains a popular place to socialize for black and Latino LGBTQ youth.

New York has always been a great place to enjoy a pint (or three). A rare class of the city’s taverns date to Prohibition days or earlier, and each carries decades of local history: from the Revolutionary War to the gay rights movement. Starting with the Old Town Bar on 18th Street, take a loop through downtown Manhattan, and pay a visit to the dives that have withstood the test of time.

10 Sheridan Square, under construction, April 8, 1929. The 14-story apartment house called the Shenandoah loomed over its more low-rise neighbors when constructed in 1929. It remains still one of the taller buildings in the area, directly across from a pocket park on one side and a small garden on the other. Designed by famed apartment house and hotel architect Emery Roth, the simplified neo-Romanesque building includes a multi-colored stonework base with large segmental-arched windows. The tower, with arched loggia (open portico) can been seen in both construction photographs set back from the corner on the Sheridan Square-facing facade (on the right in the photographs). Take note of the small stone and metal sea creatures, elephants, and dragons that decorate the ground floor, which has been occupied by a gay bar called Monster since the 1970s.

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

59 Christopher Street, ca. 1909. This Greenwich Village standard, known as Kettle of Fish, was established 1950 as a Wisconsin Sconnie bar. In the early-1960s, when the bar was located at 116 MacDougal Street, it emerged as a major hangout for Beat writers like Jack Kerouac, and musicians and writers, including Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Joyce Johnson, Bob Dylan, and Andy Warhol among others. Kettle of Fish later moved to Third Street, where the live music venue Fat Black Pussy Cat is now, before relocating to its current Christopher Street location in the late 1990s. While the bar has moved twice since its opening, through the years, Kettle of Fish has proven to be popular with people from all walks of life -- intellects, musicians, writers, and sports fans alike. The owner, who hails from Wisconsin, has made the bar the go-to NYC spot for Packers and Badgers fans!

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

Construction of the Sheridan Square Viewing Garden, 1982. For most of the twentieth century, Sheridan Square served as nothing more than a traffic-safety island. It wasn’t until 1982 that the area went from a paved triangle to a lovely viewing garden. The genesis of this project came in July of that year when a group of Sheridan Square neighbors, the Sheridan Square Triangle Association, convinced the Parks Department to turn this plot of land into a garden. GVSHP’s then-Executive Director, Regina Kellerman, heard about these plans and thought it would be the perfect spot to conduct an archaeological dig since the 4,200 square foot triangle hadn’t been used since the early twentieth century and hadn’t really been touched at all prior to that. Professional archaeologists contributed their time, and Dr. Anne Marie Cantwell, a professor at Rutgers, agreed to direct the site excavation and involve her students. Mostly it was Native American artifacts that were being searched for, many of which were uncovered. The Sheridan Square Viewing Garden stands today, cared for still by its neighbors, as a reminder of the unity and commitment to history of Greenwich Village.

Entrance to Grove Court, 1939. Grove Court is one of several private courts that dot the city. Entered through a gate on the south side of Grove Street near no. 10, the residence is a row of six, brick-faced townhouses. Completed in 1853, the development was funded by a local grocery store owner. While today the Grove Court homes are offered on the market in the range of $4 million, when constructed they were considered 'backhouses,' occupied by poor residents.

Christopher Street Station, June 18, 1936.

17 Commerce Street ca. 1932 No. 17 serves as a welcome reminder of the original proportions and general appearance of the row adjoining to the east. This small two and one-half story late Federal house, with basement, has a low pitched roof and central dormer window. It was built in 1830 as an investment by Abraham R. Bogert, a stone-cutter, and rented immediately. With a brick front of Flemish bond, its handsome paneled stone lintels, dark exterior blinds, and small light fixtures flanking the doorway, it is easily the most attractive building on the block. Pilasters flank the deeply recessed door with leaded transom. The second story windows have muntined sash, and the dormer has a casement window. The ironwork of the stoop is the original and notable for its fine openwork newels of wrought iron.

From 1972 until 1982, a racially and economically diverse crowd patronized the Duchess, a lesbian bar located on the ground floor of 70 Grove Street. Guidebooks at the time described the bar as, “A friendly and relaxed atmosphere, popular with ‘movement’ women.” and with a “relaxed Feminist atmosphere.” A small space, the Duchess did not offer as many attractions as other bars; a jukebox near the entrance provided music for the small dance floor. It also offered a Sunday buffet and table service, like some other lesbian bars of the time. While staff at earlier Mafia-run lesbian bars monitored bathroom use to supposedly prevent sexual activity, this was not the case at the Duchess. Alison Bechdel, cartoonist and author of the graphic memoir Fun Home, said of the bar: “There was a lot of routine anti-gay hostility on the street. Even in Sheridan Square \[Christopher Park] on a weekend night you’d get hassled for holding hands. But then you’d step past the bouncer at the Duchess, and you were home free …. it afforded me the space to just be, with my guard down, and that was salvational.” - Alison Bechdel, 2016 By 1980, however, the Duchess ran into legal trouble for not serving alcohol to men, an act of “discrimination” that led to the bar losing its liquor license. However, it continued to serve liquor and, on September 8, 1982, the bartender and bouncer were arrested for doing so by two undercover police officers from the “NYC Morals Division.” Ironically, the “anti-discrimination” law for which the Duchess’s license was revoked was one many movement women who patronized the bar had actively supported in an earlier era. Fran Greenfield of Womannews explained the justification for the Duchess’s discrimination as opposed to misogynistic discrimination, against which the law was meant to protect: “On one side there are privileged and powerful groups who use their clubs to keep ‘social undesirables’ clearly on the outside. On the other side there are the people denied privilege and power who rely on their own clubs as a haven in an otherwise hostile world.” The Grove Café / Duchess II / Grove Club / Pandora’s Box After an unsuccessful attempt to continue the space as a lesbian “juice bar” without liquor, and a brief hiatus (based on guidebooks), soon after 1983, the Grove Café opened with a similar atmosphere to the Duchess. By 1989, the name changed to Duchess II, and then again in 1990 to Grove Club, and finally in 1992 to Pandora’s Box. The Grove Club was described in a guidebook as, “One of the most famous women’s bars in the entire world, known as one hang-out where you can still have a good feminist conversation.” By 1992, the bar was again running into legal trouble, but this time from neighborhood residents complaining about bar fights and noise. Cynthia Russo, then-manager of the club, claimed “residents dislike the club because many of the patrons are lesbians and because most are black or Hispanic.” Pandora’s Box apparently closed shortly after, ending the over twenty-year long lesbian legacy of 70 Grove Street.

Just behind 17 Grove’s wooden workshop lies a building that captures the whimsy, flamboyance, and bohemian spirit of early-20th-century Greenwich Village like no other. This Story is adapted from a blog, which can be viewed here.

The Stonewall Inn, site of the 1969 Stonewall riots, 1969. The buildings at 51-53 Christopher Street were constructed in the 1840s as stables. In 1930 the two buildings were given a unified first floor of an Arts & Crafts style brick and stucco facade. The Stonewall Inn opened in 1967 and became a popular bar for the LGBT community. In the early morning of June 28th, 1969 the police raided the bar (as they often did to gay establishments in the 1960s). The patrons of the bar did not disperse as ordered but instead fought back, angrily remaining on the streets in front of the bar, growing in numbers, and chanting at the rough treatment of those arrested. The Stonewall Riots (sometimes referred to as the Stonewall Uprising) lasted for the next six days and included demonstrations that encompassed the surrounding blocks. This event is considered the beginning of the modern LGBT right movement. The buildings (today only no. 53 is the Stonewall Inn, an iteration that opened in 1993) are a part of the Greenwich Village Historic District, designated in 1969. In 2000 it was the first LGBT-related location to be named to the National Register of Historic Places and in 2015 an individual landmark designation was enacting, marking its cultural importance and making it the first landmark in New York City to be recognized on the basis of its status in LGBT history.

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

Christopher Park, the triangular landscape across from the Stonewall Inn, has played an important role in the history of the LGBT rights movement. Interestingly, due to a number of possible factors, including the fact that a statue of General Sheridan was placed here in the 1930s, the park has historically been misidentified as Sheridan Square (this is actually a group of streets with a landscaped median around the corner). As such, accounts of the Stonewall uprising and other LGBT-related events that occurred in or near Christopher Park sometimes incorrectly refer to it as Sheridan Square. Even before the June/July 1969 Stonewall uprising, Christopher Park was a favorite hangout for a diverse group of (often homeless) gay street youth and those who might identify today as transgender. By the time of the uprising, crowds took over the park and Christopher Street and, at its peak, several thousand people filled the streets. In 1999, the 30th anniversary of the uprising, Christopher Park was included in the National Register of Historic Places nomination for the Stonewall Inn, a nomination co-written by two founders of the NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. A month after the uprising, LGBT activists Marty Robinson and Martha Shelley addressed a crowd of several hundred people in the park, capping off a rally that began in Washington Square Park to protest the police’s actions at Stonewall. In 1979, the tenth anniversary of the Stonewall uprising, New York City announced that a commemorative statue by sculptor George Segal would be placed in Christopher Park. Activist Bruce Voeller initially proposed the idea to place a statue in the park commemorating LGBT liberation. Due to controversy from Village residents, LGBT activists, and lack of official support, Segal’s Gay Liberation (1980) sculpture was not installed here until 1992, when it was unveiled by Mayor David Dinkins. Executed in bronze, with the artist’s signature white patina, the memorial was commissioned by arts patron Peter Putnam, who stipulated that the figures “had to be loving and caring, and show the affection that is the hallmark of gay people…and it had to have equal representation of men and women.” Mysteriously abstract, Gay Liberation avoids direct reference to the uprising. The sculpture, commissioned through the Mariposa Foundation, has become an important focal point of the park. A second cast was installed on the campus of Stanford University in California in 1984, though it was vandalized and restored that year and again in 1994. In the 1980s, landscape architect Philip Winslow, who later died of AIDS-related causes, redesigned portions of the park. His work included installing new benches and brick paving. The overall park configuration still looks as it did during the Stonewall uprising.

367 Bleecker Street, ca. 1980.

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

“The Shenandoah”/10 Sheridan Square/80 Grove Street This building was also originally an apartment hotel, albeit presumably intended for more middle-class residents than the intended tenants of 24 Fifth Avenue. It was built in 1928-29 and designed in what the Greenwich Village Historic District designation report refers to as “a severely simple version of Neo-Romanesque” style. The battlements, use of irregular and multi-colored stone and dark brick lend to a medieval feel to the exterior of the building. The living units were designed predominantly as one-room apartments which served as living, dining and sleeping space, with a bathroom and a pantry directly adjacent.

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

Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex ARCHITECT: Cyrus L. W. Eidlitz; McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin; Warren B. Sanford; Richard Meier DATE: 1860-1903 STYLE: Neo-Classical 45-465 West Street, 137-169 Bank Street, 51-77 Bethune Street, and 734-754 Washington Street, Manhattan. Built c. 1860; 1896-1903, Cyrus L.W. Eidlitz, architect, Marc Eidlitz & Son, builder; 1924-26, McKenzie, Voorhees & Gmelin, architect, Tidewater Building Co., builder; 1929, Warren B. Sanford, engineer, Turner Construction Co., builder; 1931-34 alterations, Voorhees, Gmelin & Walker, architect; and 1968-70 conversion, Richard Meier, architect. The Bell Telephone Laboratories Complex, occupying an entire city block in Manhattan’s Far West Village, is highly significant as the site of one of the world’s most prestigious telecommunications research organizations, where research work that resulted in many significant innovations and inventions was conducted, and later, as the first and largest publicly- and privately-funded artists’ housing project in the United States, as well as a pioneering large-scale industrial rehabilitation project. The Western Electric Co. built an office and factory building for telephone-related equipment (1896-1903) at 455-465 West Street, 149 Bank Street, and 734-742 Washington Street. After 1913, the building ceased as a manufacturing plant and was largely the headquarters of Western Electric’s Engineering Department. In 1925, it became Bell Telephone Laboratories for research and development for both the American Telegraph & Telephone Co. and Western Electric Co. After Bell Labs vacated the property in 1966, Roger L. Stevens, first chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, conceived of the complex as a pilot project of subsidized, affordable studio living quarters for artists, which was substantially supported and inaugurated by the J.M. Kaplan Fund. It was converted in 1968-70 into Westbeth Artists’ Housing, the first major work by architect Richard Meier, with 383 residential and work studio units, as well as gallery, performance, and commercial spaces, and a park.

163 Christopher Street, at the N. W. corner of Washington Street showing "McAvoy's Drug Store" which was operated by a local character lovingly known as "Mother McAvoy." To sailors and truckmen of the neighborhood she was more than a druggist. She was a friendly counsellor, and a 'bank" and "post office" for sailors on their brief stays ashore. From her old-fashioned desk in the store and through her self-acquired knowledge of various foreign languages, and acting as a Notary Public she helped many sailors turn to land lubbering. Proximity to the Federal Building increased her field of operations. She was born in Rome, N. Y. and was graduated from N. Y. C. P. in 1902. After clerking in several drug-stores she bought this little store for $3500. At this time her clientele consisted of many New Jersey people who commuted on the Christopher Street Ferry. She died at the age of 64.

St. Veronica's ca. 1985 St. Veronica’s, located on Christopher Street between Washington and Greenwich Streets, was built to accommodate the growing congregation of St. Joseph’s, as the Irish population of longshoreman who worked along the docks of the Hudson River grew. The parish was formed in 1887 by the Reverend John Fitzharris of St. Joseph’s Church with a collection by local parishes. Services began in a warehouse at the corner of Washington and Barrow Streets. The Irish congregation laid the cornerstone in 1890, but the final dedication would not be until 1903, owing to the limited financial means of the congregation’s working class parishioners. The church is named for named for Veronica, the woman who is credited with wiping the face of Jesus and is depicted on the 6th Station of the Cross.

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

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

GVSHP members, including executive director Regina Kellerman (center), pose while workers set up barricades for the groundbreaking of the Sheridan Square architectural dig, 1982.

555 Hudson Street, Manhattan (1842, attributed to John Cole) NYC HD From 1947 to 1968, this was the home of author, urban theorist and activist Jane Jacobs (1916-2006). While it is not certain that she wrote her 1961 seminal work “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” here, she did often reference her home in Greenwich Village while extolling the virtues of thriving urban settings with bustling sidewalks and small-scale, mixed-use buildings —like 555 Hudson. She wrote and spoke out against the then-rising practice of slum clearance and urban renewal, and was instrumental in the fight to save the South Village, SoHo and Little Italy from Robert Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway. Her work heavily influenced contemporary urban thought, despite urban planners who, at the time, criticized her lack of formal education. Today, her legacy is celebrated every May with Jane’s Walks — volunteer-led walking tours in urban neighborhoods — throughout the country. Photo by NYC Municipal Archives

St. Luke's Chapel, October 21, 1935. The parish of St. Luke's was organized by Greenwich Village community members in the fall of 1820. They named the church after St. Luke, the physician, as a reference to the town's use as refuge from the yellow fever epidemics that plagued New York City during the summers. One of the church's founders was Clement Clark Moore, Oriental and Greek Literature scholar, author of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," and real estate developer of Chelsea. The church building was constructed between 1821 and 1822 on a plot of land donated by Trinity Church. In 1891 St. Luke's would become a chapel of Trinity Church. That relationship lasted through 1976, when St. Luke's once again became an independent parish of the Episcopal Church. A major fire in 1981destroyed much of the church building, but thought fundraising the structure was restored. Throughout the later 20th century the church became very active in community ministries, working with people with AIDS and at-risk LGBTQ youth.

Produce market, ca. 1935. This long street view depicts the corner of Jones and Bleecker Streets south to the church of Our Lady of Pompeii at Bleecker and Carmine Streets.

Greenwich Village Inn, 1933. The origins of the Greenwich Village Inn date to before the First World War when Polly Holliday ran a restaurant that became a gathering spot for Greenwich Village radicals and bohemians. In 1916 she moved her establishment to 5 Sheridan Square. She also took on a new partner, Barney Gallant, an early nightclub entrepreneur. Though the original venue had been full of tried and true Village bohemians, this new spot, with Gallant's marketing, became more of a place where outsiders came to see the bohemians. Soon the place was flooded with flappers, undergrads, and tourists. Gallant made a name for himself—and become a bit of a local hero— when in 1933 a few of his Greenwich Village Inn waiters were arrested for Prohibition violations. Gallant offered himself up in their place and served 30 days in the notorious Tombs. By the 1940s the venue had suffered in reputation and popularity. According to a 1971 book, the Inn was largely a mafia front in its final years. Closed in 1951 the building was taken over by the newly founded Circle in the Square theater and was demolished for a 17-story apartment house in the late 1950s.

Christopher Street—Sheridan Square Station, 1929.

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

David Christie House at 131 Charles Street, next door to the NYPD Sixth Precinct, 1928. Christie, a stonecutter, built this Federal style house in 1834. It retains many of its original features, including Flemish bond brickwork and wooden window frames. Left of the front steps is the alley door, leading to a small outbuilding at the rear of the lot. The photographer Diane Arbus lived in the that carriage house, now known as 131½ between 1957 and 1966.

The White Horse Tavern at Hudson and 11th (formerly Hammond) Streets, 1933. Opened in 1880, the White Horse became known as a hub for literary and “Bohemian” New Yorkers in the 1950s and 1960s. Among its notable patrons was Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet — and prodigious drinker — who was a frequent visitor right up until his death in 1953 (two days after he is said to have ordered eighteen whiskeys at the White Horse).

Decaying structures on the Christopher Street Pier, ca. 1974. Photographer Jack Dowling is standing somewhere on the pier itself, facing the headhouse structures on the shoreline. The pier structures west of the elevated Miller (West Side) Highway, itself in a state of disrepair, had become an ad hoc gathering place for the city's queer youth, with the Christopher Street pier notable for its cruising scene. In the background at right, the uppermost story of the massive, full-block structure today known as "The Archive" is visible. Erected in the 1890s, the Appraisers' Warehouse as a holding depot for goods awaiting customs inspection downtown. It later passed into city ownership, and in the mid-1970s became a preservation cause for the nascent Landmarks Conservancy.

Jillian Jonas was the house photographer at the legendary boy bar on St. Mark’s Place in the mid 1990’s, where she captured thousands of images of drag performers who mixed gender-bending and illusion with downtown in-your-face attitude. This collection includes images not only from boy bar, but the Pyramid Club, Wigstock, the Gay Pride Festival, Jackie 60 and various other downtown nightlife and performance venues of the early-to-mid 1990s. Her pictures capture a golden age of LGBTQ+ nightlife and performance, as well as an edgy slice of life when drag and blurred boundaries of gender were just beginning to make inroads into the broader public consciousness, largely through this vibrant local scene. From Village Preservation's Historic Image Archive, view more historic photos like this here.

Constructed on a newly laid out street and on land that had most recently been the Newgate State Prison, the wood-frame building at 6 Weehawken Street has a long and varied history. Opened in 1834 by the City as part of an open-air market called the Greenwich Market, its design was purposeful. The deep eaves of the roof protected the produce from the weather. The market lasted just a decade. In 1848 the building was bought and repurposed by a boat builder for his business (and also probably a saloon). The proximity to the water and its related businesses and sea-going, likely hard-drinking populations, made this an ideal location for a tavern. In the late 19th and early 20th century, it served variously as an insurance brokerage, cigar store, and pool hall. By the 1920s it was “Billie’s Original Clam Broth House.” Further tenants in the 20th century included a sort of clothing/accessory shop for dock workers, a trucking company, and a couple of gay bars. In late 2016 the building's owner, Jean-Louis Goldwater Bourgeois, architectural historian and son of the famed sculptor, Louise Bourgeois, announced he was giving the building, and more land it was on back to the original Manhattanites. Having bought it in 2006 for $2.2 million, he was gifting it to a nonprofit controlled by the Lenape tribe. A few years later, it is unclear if the transfer of property went through.

Charles Lane ca. 1938 Abbott called Charles Lane the only genuine back alley she ever found in New York City. The lane was one block long, sandwiched between the New York Central Railroad freight viaduct and the elevated West Side Express Highway. Abbott focused on the south side of the lane, lined with stables and tradesmen shops, as it was in the 19th century. First paved with cobblestone in 1893, the alley is still cobblestoned, but its buildings, both old and new, are now residential. After a successful battle in the late 1960s against a high-rise housing proposal, Charles Lane retains its scale and quaint character.

Weehawken Street, west side, north from but not including Christopher Street (where it commences), to and including West 10th Street (where it terminates), showing an old 2-story house in a state of collapse. On the extreme left appears a portion of the West Side Vehicular Express.

New York City is known for many things: Art Deco skyscrapers, picturesque parks, the world’s greatest theater district, venerable museums and educational institutions, not to mention bagels and pizza! But above all of these, New York is most important as home to some of the world’s most fascinating and significant people and as the site of impactful and significant happenings throughout history. The city’s cultural influence is, perhaps, its greatest contribution to the world, and its built environment stands as a grand scavenger hunt of clues waiting to be uncovered. Lucky for us, the city’s Landmarks Law, passed in 1965, provides the legal framework for protecting the physical reminders of the city’s cultural wealth. In fact, one of the stated purposes of the Landmarks Law is to “safeguard the city’s historic, aesthetic and cultural heritage.” In the first 50 years that landmarks were designated by the City, much emphasis was placed on the historic and aesthetic. In recent years, though, more consideration has been made for the importance of sites associated with people or historical events, rather than just for their architectural or historical value. In 2015, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) designated the Stonewall Inn as an Individual Landmark solely for its association with the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. In 2018, the Commission designated the Central Harlem—West 130th-132nd Streets Historic District, describing it as “not only representative of Central Harlem’s residential architecture, but the rich social, cultural, and political life of its African American population in the 20th century.” Also, in recent years, Greenwich Village’s Caffe Cino and Julius’ Bar were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as significant and influential sites connected to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBTQ) community, The New York Times profiled a historian giving tours of Muslim sites of significance in Harlem, and the City is commemorating some of our most storied and accomplished female citizens with the installation of statues in all five boroughs. Indeed, grassroots preservation activism around the city is also swelling around sites of cultural significance: Tin Pan Alley and Little Syria in Manhattan, Walt Whitman’s house in Brooklyn, Arthur Avenue in The Bronx and a recently-rediscovered African burial ground in Queens, to name a few. In response to this movement of interest in cultural landmarks, the Historic Districts Council undertook an initiative to highlight such places as one of its Six to Celebrate in 2018. The culmination of that effort was a conference in October 2018 entitled “Beyond Bricks and Mortar: Rethinking Sites of Cultural History.” The conference convened preservationists, historians, artists, planners, place-makers and more to work together to clarify what cultural significance is and how it can work, how to document and create compelling narratives around cultural sites, and how to identify the specific challenges of cultural sites from a preservationist perspective. This tour provides just a sample of some of the city’s cultural landmarks, organized thematically and representing all five boroughs. The list includes some sites that are legally protected — in some cases by more than one government body — and some that are unfortunately in danger of being lost. Preserving culturally significant sites that may not possess overtly aesthetic value often requires a particularly active and engaged form of advocacy to achieve protection from the wrecking ball. But, as long as there are interesting people making their mark on New York City and crucial events taking place here, that effort will never be in vain, since those stories are the lifeblood of this vibrant place.

68 Bedford Street, 1963.

The wooden house at 17 Grove Street (at Bedford Street) is often assumed to be one of the oldest houses, if not the oldest house, in Greenwich Village. It’s a good guess since wooden house construction was banned in Manhattan starting in the early 19th century in response to fires in these densely-packed precincts. The prohibition was enacted first below Canal Street in 1816, then below 32nd Street in 1849, and finally below 155th Street in 1882. But 17 Grove Street only dates to 1822 (actually, just the first two floors do; the third floor was added in 1870). This makes it a relative youngster compared to some of the houses found in these parts, in spite of its charmingly anachronistic look. But regardless of its date of construction, 17 Grove is one of the most photographed and beloved houses to be found anywhere in the Village. And while there are several wooden houses in the Greenwich Village Historic District (including the 1799 Isaac Hendricks House diagonally across the street at 77 Bedford Street), most of those have been covered in brick. But 17 Grove proudly wears its woodenness on its sleeve. It also improbably maintains the wooden workshop behind it on Bedford Street, built by the original owner William Hyde, a window sash maker. Both the main house and the former workshop are now single-family residences.

The Lucille Lortel Theatre, ca. 1984. This landmark theater is the Lucille Lortel Theater, formerly known to many as the Theatre de Lys. The facade of the theater today does not reflect the rich overall history of the site. In fact, who knew the theater was converted from two row houses and rear stables dating back to 1868? Before becoming a motion picture house and theater, the two homes were owned by a rug and carpet merchant named Jeremiah W. Dimick. It is not certain if he and his family lived at this home because Dimick was a bit of a real estate mogul. Shortly before his death in 1896, Dimick was shamed in the New York Times with other property owners for creating unfathomably terrible housing for lower class tenants. His rear stables at 121 and 123 Christopher Street were converted into housing; piling 14 and 10 tenants into each respectively. His son, also named Jeremiah, would take over the property and allow the site, with rear stables and all, to be converted into a motion picture house, called the New Hudson Theater, around 1913. In 1932, the Dimick family no longer owned the property and the theater would change hands several times as the Hudson Playhouse, Theatre de Lys and finally its current owners, the Lucille Lortel Foundation. The theater today is still going strong with a performance almost every day.

Wood-frame house at the corner of Grove and Bedford Streets, May 12, 1936. This house was built by window sash-maker William Hyde in 1822, the year of a yellow fever outbreak which drove New Yorkers to the safety of rural Greenwich Village. Originally a two-story structure in the Federal style, a third floor and new cornice were added in 1870. No. 17 Grove Street is the Village's largest remaining wood-frame structure, predating Manhattan’s 1866 ban on new construction of wooden homes. In addition to the main house, Hyde’s workshop at 100 Bedford Street (rear, at left) has survived to the present day.

“Twin Peaks” house at 102 Bedford Street, 1932. In its first incarnation, 102 Bedford was an 1830s Federal style wood-frame house. In 1925, Clifford Reed Daily — with financial backing from financier Otto Kahn — bought the house and undertook a whimsical renovation, adding its distinctive peaks and subdividing the interior into small and unusual living quarters. Stranger still was the building’s dedication ceremony, originally reported in the Herald Tribune, reproduced in the New York Times in 2003: “The actress Mabel Normand stood on a platform on top of one of the gables and shattered a bottle of Champagne over the roof. Next to her, Princess Amelie Troubetskoy (an American novelist who had married a Russian prince in czarist days) burned acorns in a charcoal brazier in honor of the Greek god Pan. Holy water, flowers and other rites also inaugurated the building.”

8 Grove Street ca. 1936 When Abbott photographed an old-fashioned milkwagon in 1936, New York City’s milk industry was rapidly changing. Distribution was dominated by Sheffield Farms and Borden Company. One-third of their daily three million quarts of milk and one million quarts of cream was still delivered by horses, the rest by truck. In 1938, Sheffield Farms opened a $2.5 million plant and replaced horse-drawn wagons with motorized vehicles. Abbott took this photograph on Grove Street, a few blocks from her Commerce Street home.

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

Grocery store at the corner of Christopher and Bleecker Streets, June 18, 1936. One of Greenwich Village’s oldest buildings, this corner store was built as a grocery in 1802. Its top floor was reputedly the office of the commission that laid out the 1811 grid plan for the development of Manhattan Island. The structure was itself a victim of urban planning: in 1828, when a bend in Bleecker Street was eliminated to facilitate the smooth flow of traffic across Christopher Street, the store lost 20 feet of its width. Abbott’s photograph shows the brick wall, extending behind and above the old clapboard structure, which marks the building’s truncation. The grocery was run by a single owner for 25 years and remained remarkably unchanged until 1997. It is currently under renovation as a pizza shop.

Throughout the years many artists have called Greenwich Village home. This collection highlights the writers of Greenwich Village.